When CNN correspondent Ralitsa Vassileva described Barack Obama as winning the election as a post-racial candidate, Cornel West responded by stating that “[t]he term post racial needs to be examined in the sense that it really doesn’t exist…The challenge now is to move from symbol to substance” (4 November 2008). This course deconstructs the complicated imaginings of America as “post-racial” and explores how social change might be engaged through productive racial critiques. As such, the course examines three fundamental questions: How might important conceptions generated from the study of rhetoric and language be placed in dialogue with race studies to deconstruct contemporary post-racial ideologies? At this crucial juncture in American political and social life, how might we translate such knowledge into academic and public scholarship for different audiences? What multilingual narrative and visual sources provide counter-public models that both challenge and reconstruct monolithic notions of post-racial identity and ethnicity?

Prerequisites:

While 281 has no formal prerequisite, this is an intermediate writing course, and instructors expect entering students to know how to formulate claims, integrate evidence, demonstrate awareness of audience, and structure coherent sentences, paragraphs and essays. Thus we strongly encourage students to complete an introductory (100 level) writing course before enrolling in English 281.