Course Details

In this seminar we bring together historical, anthropological, scientific, literary and fine arts perspectives on mixed race, mixed ethnicities and intersections with gender. The course provides a multi-disciplinary approach to the problems of national, socio-economic and cultural forms of exclusion, as well as the possibilities of creating more inclusive societies. The course begins with some of the legal and scientific history that were used to justify and contribute to discriminatory practices, policies and politics. We look at how these policies were challenged by an early 20th century cultural anthropology attuned to problems of biological determinism, imperialism and dispossession. We will read about and discuss how these policies and politics in many cases were intertwined with the formations of nation-states and national identities.

Our main focus is on the social and cultural realities of the mixed race and mixed ethnic experience today and representations of and by multi-racial people in art, film and literature around the world. Our explorations will go beyond the classroom to include events and exhibitions on campus, in the broader Seattle community, meetings with other faculty on campus working in related fields, and the use of social media to access activism, and online community formation happening in different locations around the world. We will work to become aware of and de-naturalize assumptions made about being mixed race today; think about the relation between assumptions, representations and lived realities, and explore the intersectionality between race and other social divisions such as gender and sexuality.

Together with close reading, discussion and short writing assignments, students in the class will be guided through a small scale interdisciplinary research project involving library research, interviewing and participant-observation approaches. The project will culminate in a student-led research presentation forum. Students will use the feedback and comments from this forum to compose their own final work. They will be encouraged to, and receive support for, combining verbal and visual mediums in their final work that will enhance their honors portfolios. Depending upon the interest and desire of students in the course, we will also discuss the possibility of compiling this work for online publication.

For more information about the instructor, please see: https://jsis.washington.edu/people/andrea-arai/

Also please join our panel presentation on on mixed race, ethnicities and creating inclusive societies on February 21st in the Walker Ames Room, 7-8:30pm. https://jsis.washington.edu/japan/