Stanford Course: Abolish Whiteness
By NBP Staff | August 11, 2017, 20:12 EDT
Students at Stanford University will be offered a course this fall that will “consider … abolishing whiteness.”
The anthropology course, called “White Identity Politics,” is being offered by the university’s Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity Department.
The course description cites “pundits” who “proclaim that the 2016 Presidential election marks the rise of white identity politics in the United States.”
The existence of the course was first reported by The College Fix, which also reported that the instructor, John Patrick Moran, declined comment and a university spokesman declined to provide a course syllabus.
Here is the full text of the course description:
CSRE 136: White Identity Politics (ANTHRO 136B)
Pundits proclaim that the 2016 Presidential election marks the rise of white identity politics in the United States. Drawing from the field of whiteness studies and from contemporary writings that push whiteness studies in new directions, this upper-level seminar asks, does white identity politics exist? How is a concept like white identity to be understood in relation to white nationalism, white supremacy, white privilege, and whiteness? We will survey the field of whiteness studies, scholarship on the intersection of race, class, and geography, and writings on whiteness in the United States by contemporary public thinkers, to critically interrogate the terms used to describe whiteness and white identities. Students will consider the perils and possibilities of different political practices, including abolishing whiteness or coming to terms with white identity. What is the future of whiteness?