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                     CRITICAL RACE THEORY SEMINAR

Northeastern University

 

Professor James R. Hackney, Jr.

 

Summer, 2004

 

 

Call the bookstore (617/373-2286) or Gnomon Copy (617/536-4600) to determine if the course materials are available in advance.

 

 

                                                                      Syllabus

 

 

 

I.                    Introduction:  Historical Backdrop

 

Module 1:  Overview and Du Bois Excerpts

                             -- introductory materials

                             -- “Of Our Spiritual Strivings” from Souls of Black Folk

                             -- “Marxism and the Negro Problem”

 

Module 2:  Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma

                                (Introduction)

                               Kenneth Clark, Prejudice and Your Child

                                (Brown Appendix)

 

Module 3:  Black Power

                             -- Marcus Garvey:  “The Principles of the University Negro Improvement

                                    Association”

                             -- Stokely Carmichael & Charles V. Hamilton:  “Black Power”

                             -- John McCartney: “Black Power Ideologies”

 

             Module 4: “Race”

                               --W.E.B. DuBois, “The Souls of White Folk”

                               --Donald Muir, “The Mythic Root of Racism”

                               --Cornel West, “Prophesy Deliverance!” (“A Genealogy of Modern Racism”)

                               --David Roediger, “From the Social Construction of Race to the Abolition of                                       Whiteness”

                               --Ian Haney Lopez, “White by Law”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

II.                 Critical Race Theory:  General

 

A.     Storytelling

 

Module 5:  Richard Delgado—“Legal Storytelling”

                               Derrick Bell

                             -- And We are Not Saved (Introduction)

                             -- Faces at the Bottom of the Well

                                 * “Divining a Racial Realism Theory”

                                 * “Space Traders”

 

Module 6:  Patricia Williams:

                             -- The Alchemy of Race and Rights

                                 * “The Incorruptible Simplicity of Being”

 

Module 7:  Storytelling as Existential Enterprise

                             -- Lewis Gordon:  “The Existential Dynamics of Theorizing Black Invisibility”

                             -- Franz Fanon:  Black Skin, White Masks (excerpt)

                             --James Hackney:  “Derrick Bell’s Re-Sounding:  W.E.B. Du Bois…”

 

B.     Storytelling Critiques

 

                 Module 8:   --Randall Kennedy:  Racial Critiques”

                                     --Farber & Sherry:  “Telling Stories Out of School”

                                     --Richard Delgado: “Response to Farber & Sherry”

 

 

 

III.               Critical Race Feminism

 

A.  Theoretical Perspectives

 

Module 9:  Angela P. Harris:  “Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory”

                               Kathleen Cleaver:  “Racism, Civil Rights, and Feminism”

 

            B.  Doctrinal Applications

 

Module 10:  A) Sex Harassment

                                    -- Maria Ontiveros:  “Three Perspectives on Workplace Harassment of                                               Women of Color”

                                    -- Sumi Cho:  “Converging Stereotypes in Racialized Sexual Harassment:                                         Where the Model Minority Meets Suzie Wong”

                                    -- Deidre Davis:  “The Harm That Has No Name:  Street Harassment,                                                Embodiment, and African American Women”

 

Module 11: Domestic Violence

                                    -- Jenny Rivera:  “Domestic Violence against Latinas by Latino Males”

                                    -- Crystal Weston:  “Orenthal James Simpson and Gender, Calss and Race:                                         In That Order”

                                    -- Dorothy Roberts:  “Punishing Drug Addicts Who Have Babies”

                                    -- Kimberle Crenshaw:  “Mapping the Margins:  Intersectionality, Identity                                         Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color”

 

 

IV.       Civil Rights Doctrine

 

Module 12:  Derrick Bell

                             -- “The Declining Importance of the Equal Protection Clause”

                             -- “The Benefits to Whites of Civil Rights Litigation”

                             Charles Lawrence:  “The Id, Ego…”

 

 

V.        Critical Race Political Economy

 

Module 13:  Derrick Bell:  Gospel Choirs (Introduction; “Trying to Teach the White                                Folks”)

                                Regina Austin:  “Black Community, Its Lawbreakers…”

                                (Review “Marxism and the Negro Problem”)

 

.           Module 14: Reparations (Materials to be provided)

 

 

VI.    Postmodern Critical Race Theory (Materials to be provided)

 

          -- Anthony Farley:  “Black Body as Fetish Object”

          -- Jayne Chong-Soon Lee:  “Navigating the Topology of Race”

           --Richard Ford:  “The Boundaries of Race”