Course Description
Although Europe is often seen as exclusively white, it has always been racially diverse. This course contests assumptions of European racial homogeneity while demonstrating that race is a historically specific concept that changes over time. Students will chart the history of race from the Renaissance to the present.
Athena Title
Race and Racism in Europe
Pre or Corequisite
Any course in HIST or AFST or AFAM or ANTH or ENGL 1101 or ENGL 1101E or ENGL 1101S or ENGL 1102 or ENGL 1102E or POLS 1101 or POLS 1101E or POLS 1101S or POLS 1105H
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This class has two sets of learning objectives. First, you will learn about the history of people of color (primarily, but not exclusively, people of African descent) in Europe. This includes black gondoliers in Renaissance Italy, African religious confraternities in Spain, free people of color in Georgian and Victorian Britain, and migrations of people to Europe from former colonial territories. Secondary sources (books and articles written by historians) help us fulfill this objective. Second, you will learn about the history of race as a concept, including the rise of racism. Primary sources (things written by people who lived at the time we’re discussing) help us fulfill this objective. These will include key texts of the Scientific Revolution; writings of Enlightenment luminaries; Darwin and social Darwinists; and critics of racism and colonialism. Some of these sources were written by people of color and some by whites. Both of these learning objectives will build understanding of race as a historically specific concept that changed over time.
Topical Outline
Week 1: Race, Blackness, and Europe • Stephen Small, “Introduction: The Empire Strikes Back,” in Black Europe and the African Diaspora (University of Illinois Press, 2009). • Alison Blakely, “The Emergence of Afro-Europe: A Preliminary Sketch,” in Black Europe and the African Diaspora Week 2: Slavery in Europe • Annemarie Jordan, “Images of Empire: Slaves in the Lisbon Household and Court of Catherine of Austria,” in Black Africans in Renaissance Europe (Cambridge: 2005). • Sue Peabody, “There Are No Slaves in France:” The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime (Cambridge: 1997), selections. Week 3: Early Modern Black Communities • Kate Lowe, “Visible Lives: Black Gondoliers and Other Black Africans in Renaissance Venice,” Renaissance Quarterly 66, no. 2 (Summer 2013): 412-452. • Debra Blumenthal, Enemies and Familiars: Slavery and Mastery in Fifteenth-Century Valencia (Cornell University Press: Ithaca), selections. Week 4: Creating Race • Pierre H. Boulle, “François Bernier and the Origins of the Modern Concept of Race,” in The Color of Liberty: Histories of Race in France, ed. Tyler Stovall and Sue Peabody. • Buffon on theories of climactic variation; other readings? In Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader. Week 5: Codifying Race • Malick Ghachem, The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge: 2012), selections. • Code Noir Week 6: Interracial Families • Jennifer L. Palmer, Intimate Bonds: Race and the Family in the French Atlantic (Penn: 2016), selections. • Daniel Livesay, Children of Uncertain Fortune: Mixed- Race Jamaicans in Britain and the Atlantic Family, 1733-1833 (UNC Press, 2018), selections Week 7: Race and Beauty • Robin Mitchell, “‘Ourika mania’: interrogating race, class, space, and place in early nineteenth-century France,” African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal 10, no. 1 (2017): 85-95. • Claire de Duras, Ourika. Week 8: Creating Racial Others • Albert Gouaffo, “Prince Dido of Didotown and ‘Human Zoos’ in Wilhelmine Germany: Strategies for Self-Representation under the Othering Gaze,” in Africa in Europe, Edited by Eve Rosenhaft and Robbie Aitken (2013). • Eric Deroo et al, Human Zoos: Science and Spectacle in the Age of Empire (Liverpool, 2008), selections. • Clifton Crais and Pamela Scully, Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography (Princeton: 2009), selections. Week 8: The Emergence of “Racial Science” • Darwin; Social Darwinists Week 9: Defining “Europe” in WWI • Ruth Ginio, “French Officers, African Officers, and the Violent Image of African Colonial Soldiers,” Historical Reflections 36, No. 2 (2010): 59-75. • Joe Lunn, “France’s legacy to Demba Mboup? A Senegalese griot and his descendants remember his military service during the First World War,” in Race, Empire and First World War Writing (Cambridge: 2011), 108-124. • Alison S. Fell, “Nursing the Other: the representation of colonial troops in French and British First World War nursing memoirs,” in Race, Empire and First World War Writing, 158-174. Week 10: Pan-Africanism Between the Wars • Michael Rowe, “Sex, ‘race’ and riot in Liverpool, 1919,” Immigrants and Minorities 19, no. 2 (July 2000): 53-70. • Jennifer Anne Boittin, “’Among them Complicit’? Life and Politics in France’s Black Communities, 1919-1939,” Africa in Europe (2013). • Lorelle Semley, “An “Evolution Revolution” in Paris,” in To Be Free and French: Citizenship in France’s Atlantic Empire (Cambridge: 2018). • S. Ani Mukherji, “‘Like Another Planet to the Darker Americans’: Black Cultural Work in 1930s Moscow,” in Africa in Europe ed. Eve Rosenhaft and Robbie Aitken (2013), 120-141. • Josephine Baker, Film Week 11: Race and Citizenship • Lorelle Semley, “A More Perfect French Union,” in To Be Free and French: Citizenship in France’s Atlantic Empire (Cambridge: 2018). Week 12: Decolonization and Negritude • Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism. • Franz Fanon, Black Skins/White Masks. Week 13: “Reverse Migration” • Kathleen Paul, “Keeping Britain White,” from her Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era (Cornell, 1997) • Giovanna Covi, “Playing in the Dark Heart of Italy: Translation and Racism,” from I am Black/White/Yellow – An Introduction to the Black Body in Europe (Mango, 2007). • Film: Black Girl, directed by Ousmane Sembene, 1969. Week 14: Black Internationalism • Kennetta Hammond Perry, ““Little Rock” in Britain: Jim Crow’s Transatlantic Topographies,” Journal of British Studies 51, no. 1 (January 2012): 155-177. • Katrina Hagen, “Ambivalence and Desire in the East German “Free Angela Davis” Campaign,” in Comrades of Color: East Germany in the Cold War World, edited by Quinn Slobodian (Beghan Books, 2015). • Maxim Matusevich, “Expanding the Boundaries of the Black Atlantic: African Students as Soviet Moderns,” Ab Imperio 2 (2012): 325-350. Week 15: The Return of White Supremacy Topics and sources will relate to current events. Possible topics include: • Brexit • Populism • Immigration Restrictions