Identity: Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Race
Harvard University
Government 2577
Spring 1995
Class hours: Wednesday 4-6 pm
Professor Michael Jones-Correa
Office hours: Wednesday 2-4 pm
Office: Littauer G-5 Tel: x5-8280
(or by appointment)
e-mail: correa@fas.harvard.edu

How should we go about describing ethnicity, nationalism, and race? Should we treat them as primordial or as social constructions? Much of the recent literature suggests the latter. If they constructed, and by whom (or by what)? What constrains/structures these constructions? What purposes do these constructions serve? Whom do they serve? Are some constructions better representations of identity than others, and what does this mean?

Course Requirements

This course will be in seminar format. Each class meeting will revolve around a discussion of the readings. Students will sign up at the first meeting to comment on and review one week's readings, while posing questions to be considered in class discussion.

There will be one research paper (around 25 pp.) due at the end of the semester. These papers can either be theoretical in nature, or serve as an opportunity to apply some of the theoretical questions discussed in the course to a more concrete situation of your choosing.

Readings

All required readings will be on reserve at Littauer, and will also be available in a collected binder of photocopies which you may wish to purchase. Some of the books are at the Coop. These include:

** Anderson, Benedict Imagined Communities (New York: Verso)

** Waters, Mary Ethnic Options (Berkeley: University of California Press)

** Omi, Michael and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States (New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul)

Morrison, Toni Race-ing Justice, Engendering Power (New York: Pantheon Books)

(** = required)

Course Outline and Reading Assignments

Introduction

1. The Problem of Definitions

** Walker Connor "A Nation Is A Nation, A State Is A State, An Ethnic Group Is A ..." Ethnic and Racial Studies 1:4 October 1978 pp. 377-400

** Michael Fischer "Ethnicity and the Post-Modern Arts of Memory," in James Clifford and George Marcus eds. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley: University of California Press 1986).

Constructing Identity

2. Identity as a Given

** Edward Shils "Primordial, Personal, Sacred and Civil Ties" British Journal of Sociology 8 pp. 130-145.

** Clifford Geertz, "After the Revolution: The Fate of Nationalism in the New States," in The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books 1973) pp. 234-254.

** Clifford Geertz "The Integrative Revolution: Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the New States" in The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books 1973) pp. 255-310.

** Clifford Geertz "The Politics of Meaning" in The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books 1973) pp. 311-326.

** Harold Isaacs "Basic Group Identity: The Idols of the Tribe" in Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan eds. Ethnicity: Theory and Experience (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1975) pp. 29-52.

Clifford Geertz "Ideology as a Cultural System" in The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books 1973) pp. 255-310.

Clifford Geertz "Politics Past, Politics Present: Some Notes on the Uses of Anthropology" in Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books 1973) pp. 327-344.

Donald Horowitz Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press 1985) ch. 1 and 2.

Harold Isaacs Idols of the Tribe: Group Identity and Political Change(Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1975).

Alvin Rabushka and Kenneth Shepsle Politics in Plural Societies: A Theory of Democratic Instability (Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Co. 1972).

3. Identity as Constructed by the State

** Cynthia Enloe Ethnic Conflict and Political Development (Boston: Little Brown and Company 1973) ch. 1-4, 7, and 10.

** Joane Nagel and Susan Olzak "Ethnic Mobilization in Old and New States: An Extension of the Competition Model" Social Problems 30:2 December 1982 pp. 127-143.

** Joane, Nagel "The Political Construction of Ethnicity" in Susan Olzack and Joane Nagel eds. Competitive Ethnic Relations (Orlando, Florida Academic Press 1986) pp. 93-112.

** Joane Nagel "The Political Mobilization of Native Americans" The Social Science Journal 19:3 July 1982 pp. 37-45.

Paul Brass Ethnicity and Nationalism: Theory and Comparison (London: Sage Press)

Ernest Gellner Nations and Nationalism (Ithica, New York: Cornell University Press 1983)

Gianfranco Poggi The Development of the Modern State: A Sociological Introduction (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1978)

4. Nationality Constructed

** Benedict Anderson Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso 1983) all

** Eric Hobsbawm Nations and Nationalism: Programme, Myth and Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990) ch. 1-3.

** Anthony Smith The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Cambridge, MA:Basil Blackwell 1986) chapters 1, 6-9

John Armstrong Nations Before Nationalism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina 1982).

Homi Bhabha "Dissemination: Time, Narrative, and the Margins of the Modern Nation" in Homi Bhabha ed. Nation and Narration (New York: Routledge 1990)

Anthony Smith Theories of Nationalism (New York: Holmes and Meier 1983)

5. The Social Construction of Identity

** Frederik Barth "Introduction" in Frederik Barth ed. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference (Boston: Little Brown and Company 1969) pp. 9-38.

** Eric Hobsbawm "Introduction: Inventing Traditions" in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger eds. The Invention of Tradition (New York: Cambridge University Press 1990) pp. 1-14.

** Peter Sahlins Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees (Berkeley: University of California Press 1989) Introduction, ch. 4, 7, 8

** James Clifford "Identity in Mashpee" in James Clifford ed. The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1988) pp. 277-348.

** William Yancey et al. "Emergent Ethnicity: A Review and Reformulation" American Sociological Review 41:3 June 1976 pp. 391-403.

E.P. Thompson The Making of the English Working Class (New York:Vantage Books 1963)

6. Situational Identity

** Orlando Patterson "Context and Choice in Ethnic Allegiance: A Theoretical Framework and Caribbean Case Study" in Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan eds. Ethnicity: Theory and Experience (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1975), pp. 305-349.

** John Okamura,"Situational Identity" Ethnic and Racial Studies 4:4 October 1981 pp. 452-465.

** Felix Padilla "On the Nature of Latino Ethnicity" Social Science Quarterly June 1984 65:2 pp. 651-664.

** Mary WatersEthnic Options: Choosing Identities in America (Berkeley: University of California Press 1990) all

7. The American Solution?: Self-Invention

** Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America v.1 ch.14-16 and v.2 book 2, ch. 1-8, 13

** Ralph W. Emerson "Self-Reliance" and "Politics"in Collected Essays

** Henry Thoreau "Civil Disobedience" [1849]

** Henry Thoreau "Solitude" and "Visitors"in Walden [1854]

** Walt Whitman "Democratic Vistas" in Leaves of Grass and Selected Prose

Benjamin FranklinAutobiography (New York: Vintage Books [1790] 1990)

Multiple Identities?

8. Race and History

** Anthony Appiah "The Uncompleted Argument: Du Bois and the Illusion of Race" in Henry Louis Gates ed."Race" Writing, and Difference (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1985) pp.21-37.

** James Baldwin ÒEncounter on the Seine: Black Meets Brown" and "Equal in Paris" in Notes of a Native Son (Boston: Beacon Press 1955)

** Martin Kilson "Blacks and Neo-Ethnicity in American Political Life" in Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan eds. Ethnicity: Theory and Experience (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1975) pp. 236-266.

** Michael Omi and Howard Winant Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s (New York: Routledge 1994) all

Bourricaud, Franois "Indian, Mestizo, and Cholo as Symbols in the Peruvian System of Stratification" in Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan eds. Ethnicity: Theory and Experience (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1975) pp. 350-390.

Thomas Skidmore Black Into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought (Durham: Duke University Press 1993)

Paul Spickard Mixed Blood: Intermarriage and Ethnic Identity in Twentieth Century America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press 1989)

Wade, Peter Blackness and Race Mixture: The Dynamics of Racial Identity in Colombia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press 1993)

9. Race and Nationalism

** Frantz Fanon Black Skins, White Masks (New York: Grove Weidenfeld 1967) all

** Paul Gilroy "There Ain't" No Black in the Union Jack"in The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1987) ch. 1 and 2.

** Michael Hanchard "Culturalism vs. Cultural Politics: Movimiento Negro in rio de Janeiro and So Paolo, Brazil" in Kay Warren ed.The ViolenceWithin: Cultural and Political Opposition in Divided Nations (Boulder:Westview Press 1993) pp. 57-86.

** Robert Miles "The Articulation of Racism and Nationalism: Reflections on European History" in John Wrench and John Solomos eds. Racism and Migration in Western Europe (Oxford: Berg Publishers 1993) pp. 35-52.

Robert Huckfeldt and Carol Weitzel Kohfeld Race and the Decline of Class in American Politics (Chicago: University of Illinois Press 1989)

William Julius Wilson The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1978)

10. Gender

** bell hooks "A Feminist Challenge: Must We Call Every Woman Sister?" in Black Looks: Race and Representation (Boston: South End Press 1992) pp 79-86.

** Homi Bhabha "A Good Judge of Character: Men, Metaphors, and the Common Culture" in Toni Morrison ed. Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power (New York: Pantheon Books 1992) pp. 232-250.

** Jenny Bourne "Homelands of the Mind: Jewish Feminism and Identity Politics" Race and Class v. 29 Summer 1987 pp. 1-24.

**Daniel Ortiz "Creating a Controversy: Essentialism and Constructivism and the Politics of Gay Identity" Virginia Law Review v.79 1993 pp. 1833-1857.

** Christine Stansell "White Feminists and Black Realities: The Politics of Authenticity" in Toni Morrison ed. Race-ing Justice,En-gendering Power (New York: Pantheon Books 1992) pp. 251-268.

** Trinh Minh-ha "Difference: "A Special Third World Issue" in Women, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1989) pp. 79-118.

Hlene Cixous "Laugh of the Medusa" in Elaine Marks and Isabelle de Courtivron eds. New French Feminisms (New York: Schocken Books 1980) pp. 245-264.

Diana Fuss Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature and Difference (New York: Routledge 1989)

Cherrie Moraga "Lo Que Nunca Pas Por Sus Labios" in Loving in the War Years (Boston: South End Press 1983) pp. 90-150.

Barbara Smith and Beverly Smith "Across the Kitchen Table: A Sister-to-Sister Dialogue" in Gloria Anzaldua ed. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (Latham, New York: Kitchen Table 1983) pp. 113-127.

Strategies

11. Separatism: A Return to Primordialism?

** Carol Gilligan In A Different Voice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1982)

** bell hooks "Eating the Other: Desire and Resistence" in Black Looks: Race and Representation (Boston: South End Press 1992) pp 21-40.

** Donald Horowitz Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press 1985) chapter 6 "The Logic of Seccessions and Irredentas" pp. 229-290.

Molefi Kete Asante The Afrocentric Idea (Philadelphia: Temple University Press 1987)

12. Multiple Identities: The Diversity of Selves

** David Lopez and Yen Espiritu "Panethnicity in the United States: A Theoretical Framework" Ethnic and Racial Studies 13:2 April 1990 pp. 198-223.

** Itabari Njeri "Sushi and Grits: Ethnic Identity and Conflict in a Newly Multicultural America" in Gerald Early ed. Lure and Loathing: Essays on Race, Identity, and the Ambivalence of Assimilation (New York: Penguin Books 1993) pp. 13-40.

** Renato Rosaldo Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis (Boston: Beacon Press 1989) ch. 3-6 and 8-9.

Manning Marable "Building Coalitions among Communities of Color: Beyond Racial Identity Politics" in James Jennings ed. Blacks, Latinos and Asians in Urban America: Status and Prospects for Politics and Activism (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger 1994) pp. 29-44.

Ishmael Reed "America: The Multinational Society" in Rick Simonson and Scott Walker eds. The Graywolf Annual Five: Multicultural Literacy (St. Paul: Graywolf Press 1988)

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak "Questions of Multiculturalism" in Sarah Haraym ed. The Post-Colonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues (New York: Routledge 1990)

S. Wallman "Identity Options" in C. Fried ed. Minorities: Community and Identity (New York: Springer-Verlag 1983) pp. 69-78.

Conclusion

13. Democracy and Identity

** William Connolly "The Politics of Territorial Democracy" ch. 7 in Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox (Ithica: Cornell University Press 1991).

** Amy Gutmann ed. Multiculturalism : Examining the Politics of Recognition (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1994) all

** Michael Walzer "The New Tribalism: Notes on a Difficult Problem" Dissent Spring 1992 pp. 164-171.

Michael Walzer Spheres of Justice (New York: Basic Books 1983) ch. 2 pp. 31-63.