Together with Professor Rachel Falmagne, I am co-teaching a new course entitled Race and Racism: Theory and Experience. Working from a perspective grounded in Critical Race Theory, we are reviewing an extensive literature on the social construction of race, the persistent ways in which race and racism are embedded into the fabric of society, and the very real consequences of this history and current status. What we find particularly exciting about the class is that we are working hard to bring real-world experiences into the class, so that our consideration of race and racism does not just remain intellectual. We are hoping to accomplish this through in-class listening activities (in which pairs of students take turns speaking and listening about their experiences) and through an out-of-class interview project (in which students interview two Clark students about how race and racism have affected them). We are very much looking forward to getting this class started!

This course will involve considerable talking about issues of race and racism. Here is a great local TED talk about how we can try to think about conversations about race in less threatening ways.