Whiteness: A Global History
| Module title | Whiteness: A Global History |
|---|---|
| Module code | HIH3452 |
| Academic year | 2024/5 |
| Credits | 60 |
| Module staff | Professor James Mark (Convenor) |
| Duration: Term | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration: Weeks | 11 | 11 |
Module description
This module will explore the modern invention of whiteness – a racializing logic that came to dominate the world. As a global history, it will include not only the role of transatlantic slavery and migration, but also how whiteness has structured societies from the Middle East to East Asia. We will address varying meanings attached to being racialised as white, as ‘not quite white’, or not white at all, in a global system structured around racial hierarchy.
As an ‘unmarked category’, whiteness poses challenges for source analysis. Although readily identified by those who sought to challenge it, whiteness’ very power came from a manufactured ignorance of the privileges it bestowed. Thus how do we analyse it in e.g. political tracts, photography, propaganda, scientific treatises, art, film, popular culture and everyday life – when, constructed as the norm, its presence was commonly not made explicit? We will examine sources from various world regions, in English.
Module aims - intentions of the module
the module aims to support students:
To understand how the logics of whiteness have evolved over time, including from intersectional perspectives
To understand the production of racial ideas on multiple levels, namely local, national, regional and global, and consider various theoretical approaches to the operation of whiteness within a world system
To be able to analyse a diversity of cultures of whiteness from a range of world regions
To be able to make sense of the development of power and reach of whiteness in the modern world
To analyse a variety of sources pertaining to race and whiteness, including grasping the challenges to the historian of examining ‘unmarked categories’
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
ILO: Module-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 1. Understanding how logics and practices of whiteness have developed over the past 250 years, from a range of theoretical and regional perspectives
- 2. Understanding the way that race, as a way of classifying the world, can be studied through a wide variety of texts, images, culture that often link across scales from the local to the global.
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 3. Analyse a wide range of different sources in a highly critical and sophisticated manner.
- 4. Apply a range of theoretical insights around race, whiteness, globality and culture to a chronologically and geographically diverse range of case studies
ILO: Personal and key skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 5. Work and study independently, including the presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning.
- 6. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment.
Syllabus plan
This module will enable students to engage with a wide variety of regions, themes and sources. The module will be taught in seminars that draw from the following theories, chronologies and geographies:
Theoretical themes: Understanding whiteness from a global perspective; white innocence; intersectional whiteness; racial capitalism; socialist racialism; gradations in whiteness
Chonological themes: Race in the Enlightenment; Whiteness and Empire; Slavery and whiteness; Migration and whiteness; Race Science; Anti-colonialism and the critique of whiteness; Postcolonialism and the persistence of whiteness; Neoliberal globalisation, nativism, and whiteness
Geographical coverage: whiteness in western and eastern Europe/ Russia; United States; South America including Argentina and Brazil; Middle East and North Africa; South Africa; Iran; India, China; Japan
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 88 | 512 | 0 |
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching | 88 | 44 x 2 hour seminars |
| Guided Independent Study | 512 | Reading and preparation for seminars and assessments |
Formative assessment
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seminar discussion | Ongoing through course | 1-9 | Oral feedback from tutor and fellow students |
| One piece of formal, formative assessment | 500-1000 words | 1-9 | Oral/ Written |
Summative assessment (% of credit)
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 70 | 0 | 30 |
Details of summative assessment
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portfolio | 70 | Portfolio of THREE or FOUR pieces of written work, totalling 8000 words. At least one of these pieces will require students to engage with primary source material in a sustained and detail manner. | 1-9 | Written feedback |
| Individual, oral presentation | 30 | 20 minutes, + 10 minutes leading discussion, + supporting materials [equivalent total word count: 3000 words] | 1-9 | Oral and Written feedback |
Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portfolio | Portfolio (8000 words) | 1-9 | Referral/Deferral period |
| Presentation | Written transcript (2000 words + 1000 word supporting materials) | 1-9 | Referral/Deferral period |
Re-assessment notes
Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.
Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.
Indicative learning resources - Basic reading
Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality, 2008.
Shona Hunter and Christi van der Westhuizen (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Critical Studies in Whiteness, 2022.
Leila Tayeb, ‘What is Whiteness in North Africa? Cultural Constructions of Race and Racism in the Middle East and North Africa / Southwest Asia and North Africa', Lateral. Journal of the Cultural Studies Association, 10/1 (Spring 2021).
Charles W. Mills, The Racial Contract, 1997.
Catherine Baker, Bogdan C. Iacob, Anikó Imre and James Mark (eds.), Off white. Central and Eastern Europe and the global history of race, 2024.
Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race, 1998.
David R. Roediger, Working Toward Whiteness, 2005.
Gloria Wekker, White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race, 2016.
Projit Bihari Mukharji, Brown Skins, White Coats. Race Science in India, 1920–66, 2022.
Piro Rexhepi, White Enclosures: Racial Capitalism and Coloniality Along the Balkan Route, 2022.
Paulina Alberto and Eduardo Elena (eds.), Rethinking Race in Modern Argentina, 2016.
| Credit value | 60 |
|---|---|
| Module ECTS | 30 |
| Module pre-requisites | None |
| Module co-requisites | None |
| NQF level (module) | 6 |
| Available as distance learning? | No |
| Origin date | 23/02/2024 |
| Last revision date | 23/02/2024 |
