Black Studies Dept. at Northwestern U. Offering Course on ‘Unsettling Whiteness’
“[I]t remains the case that whiteness as it shapes and affects both white populations and non-white populations is routinely exempted from analysis”
The left is on a mission to keep things as divisive as possible.
Campus Reform reports:
Northwestern University to offer course on ‘Unsettling Whiteness’
Northwestern University’s Department of Black Studies is offering a course next semester called “Unsettling Whiteness.” The course aims to disturb the “normal state of affairs,” which does not study or question the identity of “whiteness.”
The course appears on a spring course list for the university’s Department of Black Studies. The brief description on the list states that the course will make “the historical, political, and cultural formation of whiteness in Western modernity visible and narratable for commentary and analysis.”
A more extended description appears on another page of Northwestern’s website. That description says that “whiteness” can be broadly understood as maintaining the current state of affairs.
“Whiteness, whether it occurs under the heading of white supremacy, white privilege or white authority is the meaning that defines just the way things are, a normal state of affairs, like in the phrase, ‘getting back to normal,’” the description says.
It continues to assert that regardless of its ubiquity in society, “whiteness” is relatively unstudied.
“[I]t remains the case that whiteness as it shapes and affects both white populations and non-white populations is routinely exempted from analysis,” it says. “All of which raises the question of how and why this particular white elephant in the nation’s room has remained unstudied and understudied for so long, so much so that many white individuals appear to be oblivious to the racial issues of whiteness and their own whiteness, until they encounter people of color.”
Understood in this way, “whiteness” will be explored in four ways during the course, “the racialization of white populations,” “the formation of white supremacy,” “the cultural institution of the White Gaze,” and “the regime of White Democracy.”
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Amazing how imaginative these folks are in dreaming up new courses of study in our universities.
Gee, I thought investigating “whiteness” *was* the “normal state of affairs in academia.
How naive of me…
I would imagine that this could be a pretty lucrative opportunity for undercover video -type people.
Creative folks from Daily Wire and/or OKeefe Media Group could perhaps hire a few students.
Or maybe Matt Walsh or James OKeefe or Dinesh D’Souza could find a way to interview the professor , perhaps on behalf of the Regional College Accrediting Organization.
It is not clear to me what the pre-requisites are for enrollment in the class. For example, “Permission of the instructor” or “The Black Experience” would be flags that the class may be racially segregated. Hypothetically, if the class had 30% black students, 20% Hispanic students, 20% international students from Australia, 20% Asian American students and 10% who self-identify as multiracial, I think the class discussions would be invaluable.
Dare I suggest that Mike LaChance is not a black woman? If he was, he might have selected instead:
https://class-descriptions.northwestern.edu/4900/WCAS/AF_AM_ST/39099
Gender and Black Masculinity (334-0-20)
Instructors
Marquis Bey West
Meeting Info
Kresge Centennial Hall 2-425: Mon, Wed 11:00AM – 12:20PM
Overview of class
This course will take as its focus not only discussing black men but, more rigorously, interrogating gender as a racialized regime and masculinity itself as a subtle form of violence. Students will be invited to think about race and gender as co-constitutive (rather than simply and innocently intersectional), and about what might be possible after the interrogation—and possibly dismantling—of masculinity even when affixed to blackness. To examine these topics, we will explore the writing of Richard Wright and Percival Everett, documentaries on manhood, black feminist critiques of masculinity, and transgender perspectives on gender.
Class Attributes
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area
Social & Behavioral Sciences Distro Area
——–
Disclaimer: This posting is not intended to be “a subtle form of violence.”
“the cultural institution of the White Gaze,”
Say what?
I think that means that course labwork will be scheduled at the local strip club.
Wow! That course description was quite the Wernicke’s Encephalopathy Word Salad. Does it come with Ranch or Vinaigrette? Maybe Bleu Cheese or Thousand Island dressing?
I’ve been speaking English for a long time. But when I read a description of some of these modern college courses, I regularly go away not understanding anymore about it than I did before I read the description. And then, after reading it, I question why I even read it, because I could tell by the title that it was complete nonsense.
The instructor tells some AI engine to come up with the most nonsensical collection of buzzwords that it can using a select set of whackademic terms and that’s what it produces. Either that or the instructor was fooling around with amateur pharmacology.
Give them credit for the capital “W” in White. But don’t give them credit for anything else. All the buzzy terms make me wonder if they’re trying to follow Orwell’s example but making themselves look foolish instead.
.
Unsettling Whiteness: Reversing colonization through the application of fear and violence.
Did I paraphrase that right?