Instructor: Susannah McCandless

Instructor: Susannah McCandless
Email: [email protected].
Instructor does not respond to emails
without a prior office hour visit.
Office: 215 Old Mill
Phone: 656-8211
Office Hours: Tues 10-11 a.m.; Thurs. 1:30- 3:30 p.m. (or by appointment)
TAs, Old Mill 220:
Rae Rosenberg, [email protected]
-Office hours: Wednesday 4-5 p.m.; Friday 1-2 p.m.
Tom Griffin, [email protected]
-Office hours: Monday/Wednesday 11:40 a.m. -12:40 p.m.
Class Tu/Th 11:30-12:45, Rowell 103
This syllabus is available electronically at the bb.uvm.edu page for Geography 60.
B
GEOGRAPHY 060B, GEOGRAPHIES OF RACE AND ETHNICITY IN THE UNITED STATES
Race is not something that happens to someone else, in another place, or in the past. It operates on each of us, here and
now. Yet the meanings of race and ethnicity are socially constructed, not biological absolutes. To keep us in our place, racism
renews itself, using as its justification and basis the most powerful ideas of each era: religion, science, the relationship between
society and the individual. Thus the social meanings of race and ethnicity keep changing in our history and present. A critical
understanding of the complex resulting processes, identities and struggles, and the spaces they create matter profoundly to all
of our lives, whether we are geographers, environmentalists, businesspeople, teachers, athletes, x-ray technicians, or students
required to sit in a chair to fill a requirement.
The landscapes that each of us inhabit are “artifacts of past and present racisms” (Pulido 2000, 16). They have been shaped
by a history of powerful and carefully built-up ideas about how certain groups of people are superior, and others inferior. Race
is not “real”, in the sense that it is a construct, not natural and unchangeable. Yet racial formations and racism, itself a slippery,
changing, and adaptable set of ideas, remain: ideologies of difference in human worth have profound social and spatial
consequences. They affect where people live and work, where we travel, shop, and worship, and whom we are likely to know
and love. Because they matter so much, these ideas and the spaces they create are sites of struggle. It has taken centuries of
the often violent, often invisible work of everyone from policymakers to ordinary folks wielding everyday power to establish and
maintain prejudicial ideas about the meaning of race. So too, it has taken years of struggle to begin to break down those ideas
and their on-the-ground consequences.
In Geographies of Race and Ethnicity in the U.S., we will use different theoretical lenses, historical and contemporary accounts,
legal decisions, survey research, multiple media, and case studies to explore the way these struggles over the meaning of
racial and ethnic identities have been organized. We will examine how they shape both people‟s lives, and urban and rural
spaces throughout the history and present of these United States. We will examine who organized these struggles, how they
presently affect us (locally, nationally, globally), and most importantly, who controls them and their benefits. We will also push
to ask hard questions about how to understand those process, relationships, and struggles in terms of the ideas of freedom
and justice that shape much of how we make sense of the world (Rosati 2007,1).
Required Texts: (In bookstore or online, used. ONE copy of readings will be on two hour reserve in Bailey Howe library).
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
Paula Rothenberg (Ed), 2007. Race, Class, and Gender in the US (7 Edition). NY: Worth.

James Baldwin (1993). The Fire Next Time. Vintage Press; Reissue edition.

GEO060 Online Course Reserves: Blackboard, http://bb.uvm.edu
Midterm Exam
20%
Final Exam
25%
Exams (midterm, March 23, 20%; final, date TBA, 25%) cover both
Short Paper - Draft (1)
10%
class content and readings. They are not cumulative, but the central
Short Paper - Final (1)
15%
themes of the class will appear on both exams. The format will be
Short Quizzes (6)
20%
specified closer to the date on which the tests are scheduled. Review
Class Attendance
5%
sheets will be available on Blackboard.
Outside Lecture Responses (1)
5%
Quizzes (20% total): There will be six (6) short READING QUIZZES in different formats: in class, short essay, and on
blackboard multiple choice (available for one three hour period during a pre-announced 48-hour window). The quizzes are
noted on the syllabus, and occur every two to three weeks during the semester. The quizzes will be a “check-up” on your
grasp of the reading materials since the last quiz, and will also serve to help you prepare for the exams. As such, you are
required to complete them independently. Caveat emptor: If you miss two or more quizzes, you forfeit your entire quiz grade. A
missed quiz will be averaged in as a zero.
GRADE SCALE
Short Paper (25% total): You will write one short essay (750 words/ 3 pages
A 94.0-100
C+ 77.0-79.9
double spaced) examining how racial and ethnic processes have shaped, and been
A- 90.0-93.9
C 74.0-76.9
shaped by, a particular social space or landscape in the U.S. A draft, worth 10%, is
due March 5th on Blackboard and in print for class; the final version (worth
B+ 87.0-89.9
C- 70.0-73.9
15%) is due Apr. 9th on BB and in print. Details will follow at bb.uvm.edu. You are
B 84.0-86.9
D 60.0-69.9
responsible for keeping all your graded materials on file for the semester, in case
B- 80.0-83.9
F < 60.0
Blackboard and our backups fail and we need to confirm your submissions.
Outside Lecture Attendance & Write-up (5% total): DUE March 31. Attend one (1) UVM-sponsored talk related to course
themes, and write a response to it on Blackboard (see Assignments), briefly (250 words) touching on the lecture content, and
its connection to the course themes. Possible events will be posted on Blackboard, or suggest ideas. Every week/part of a
week late minus one letter grade.
Exams, Quizzes and Grading. NOTE: all grades may be scaled.
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Keeping up: Note that there is no extra credit in GEO 060. Exam and final course grades may be scaled; letter grades are
based on the grade scale you see here. You must keep up with readings and attendance to succeed. If you feel as if you are
falling behind or need help with the material, please see your TA, or me, as soon as possible, so we can help you.
There are no make-up quizzes. You must complete each reading quizzes in the window designated by the syllabus. If you
know you are going to miss class on the date of an exam, due to an athletic contest or personal circumstance, contact your TA
or me before class to let us know you are going to miss and why. Make-up exams and late papers will only be allowed for
students who miss an exam due to emergency or illness (a doctor‟s or dean‟s note is required). To submit assignments at
alternate times, you must speak to us in person, during office hours. You outnumber us: we cannot make exceptions. Sadly,
we cannot be responsible for answering emails until you have spoken to one of us in person, during office hours.
Academic Honesty/Code of Conduct
Consistent with University of Vermont policy (see http://www.uvm.edu/cses/), plagiarism, cheating, or any other form of
academic dishonesty is not tolerated in GEO 060. You are expected to do your own work. It is not difficult to catch cheating
and it would be in your best interests to not even attempt it. Those caught will receive a grade of zero for the paper, quiz or
exam and the dean‟s office will be notified, which can lead to disenrollment. As stated above, if you feel you need help, see
one of us to discuss the material and for assistance. We will be glad to work with you to help you—ask early and often!
In class, you are expected to respect others‟ right to learn in a comfortable and safe environment. Alongside this basic
expectation, there are a few ground rules that, if followed, will make class a more rewarding experience. First, please silence
your cell phone when you come to class, as both calls and text messaging are not permitted. Please do not read the
newspaper, surf the internet, or repeatedly hold side conversations during class. Further, please do not audio- or video-record
class content without explicit instructor permission.
Students with Disabilities-ACCESS
If you have a learning or physical disability and may require special provisions, please obtain the appropriate paperwork from
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the UVM ACCESS office so that they can let us know, by January 30 at the latest, the appropriate arrangements we should
make for you for tests, etc. It will be much more difficult for us to accommodate you well if notified after the 30th.
PLEASE CHECK THE ONLINE VERSION OF THE SYLLABUS REGULARLY.
I MAY MAKE CHANGES JUST 3 DAYS BEFORE A CLASS.
Plan for about 20 pages of reading per class, and usually less than 40 pages of readings each week
Course Schedule (All readings will
Key : “RCG” = Race, Class, and Gender
be in the course texts or available
“FNT” = The Fire Next Time
via Blackboard, bb.uvm.edu)
“060” = Online Course Reserves (Blackboard)
Week 1
13-Jan:
Race, Ethnicity, and Geography
Introduction, situated identities
15-Jan:
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away
…from me: Myths about race and
geography
Week 2
20-Jan:
Constructing Race and Ethnicity:
Imagined Communities: Constituting
and Belonging to the Nation
22-Jan:
Expansionist tendencies: Part 1,
Imagined Communities: Manifest
Destiny and Mexican War:
Week 3
27-Jan:
READING QUIZ 1 on Blackboard
Race, Ethnicity & Citizenship (Part I):
Civil War, Reconstruction, and Limits on
Mobility--Jim Crow and the Black Codes
Readings are DUE on the date they are shown, below.
-Read the syllabus and course expectations; get onto the course‟s
Blackboard site, at bb.uvm.edu
-Rothenberg, Paula. 2007. “The Social Construction of Difference:
Race, Class Gender, and Sexuality,” RCG pp. 7-12,
-Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. 1986. “Racial Formations”, from
Racial Formations in the United States, NY: Routledge. RCG, 13-22.
-Buck, Pem D. 2001.”Constructing Race, Creating White Privilege”,
in Worked to the Bone, NY: Monthly Review Press. RCG pp. 32-38.
-U.S. Constitution: “3/5 Compromise”, RCG p. 537;
-060: Lopez, Ian F. Haney. 2006. Racial Restrictions on the Law of
Citizenship. Pp. 149-154 in Annual Editions: Race and Ethnic
Relations 05/06. Dubuque, IA: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin.
-060: Kipling, Rudyard. 1899. “The White Man‟s Burden” (poem)
-060: Frost, Robert. 1942. “The Gift Outright” (poem)
-060: Horsman, Reginald. “Introduction”, in An Anglo-Saxon Political
Ideology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 1-6.
-060: Horsman, Reginald. 1981 “Race, Expansion, & Mexican War,”
pp. 229-248
Complete reading quiz in 1, 3hr block between 4:30 Fri. & 4:30 Mon.
-Du Bois, W. E. B. 1935. “The Black Codes”, in Black
Reconstruction. New York: Harcourt Brace. RCG pp. 556-564.
- U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. 1981. The Problem: Discrimination. In Affirmative Action in the 1980s. RCG: 255-265.
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29-Jan
Tim Wise: White Privilege: Racism,
white denial & the costs of inequality
(movie)
Week 4
3-Feb
Movement & Confinement:
Race, Ethnicity & Citizenship (Part 2)
U.S. Eugenics Movement, Virtuous
Whiteness, and Miscegenation
5-Feb
Risk-Hazards Geography: Marginality,
health and risk in understandings of
difference
Week 5
READING QUIZ 2: 350-500 word
reading response essay on BB
Civil Rights: Baldwin‟s Fire—Religion,
Race and “Integration” : Eyes on the
Prize (movie)
10-Feb
12-Feb
Week 6
17-Feb
19-Feb
Week 7
24-Feb
Proper occupants of space: Baldwin‟s
Avenue, white innocence, Elijah
Mohammad‟s Nation
Civil Rights: Lynching and the Ku Klux
Klan--extralegal terror and mobility
Civil Rights: Dreams realized, dreams
deferred….? „Brown‟ & legacies
READING QUIZ #3 in class. Bring
Book: Baldwin’s FNT.
The City (Part 1): Locating investment,
building net worth: inheritance of
privilege, inheritance of lack
The City (Part 2): The Federal Housing
Administration, urban renewal,
redlining, suburbanization and white
flight. Video: Race, the power of an
illusion: the house we live in (PBS)
-Tatum, Beverly Daniel. 1997.”Defining Racism: „Can We Talk?”‟ in
“Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and
Other Conversations about Race, NYC: Basic Books. RCG 123-130.
-McIntosh, Peggy. 1988. “White Privilege; Unpacking the Invisible
Knapsack”. Wellesley, MA. RCG pp. 177-182.
-Ching, Carrie. 2005. “Personal Voices: Facing Up To Race” from
AlterNet.org. RCG pp. 246-249.
Negotiating Space
-060: Vermont Eugenics: A Documentary History. Overview. At
http://www.uvm.edu/~eugenics/ Selected pages: see bb.uvm.edu
-060: The Loving Decision - (June 12, 1967): Association of
MultiEthnic Americans, Inc. At http://www.ameasite.org/loving.asp
-Reuss, Alejandro. “Cause of Death: Inequality”. From Dollars &
Sense. RCG pp. 386-390.
-060: Lorde, Audré. 1984. “The Master‟s Tools Will Never Dismantle
the Master‟s House,” and “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women
Redefining Difference,” pp.110-123 in Sister Outsider: Essays and
Speeches. NY: The Crossing Press.
Due MONDAY 2/9, at 5 p.m., on BB only. See BB Assignments
for details.
FNT: Baldwin, James 1993 (1963). “My Dungeon Shook; Letter to
My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation,” and “Down At the Cross: Letter from a Region in My Mind,“
(1st ½), In The Fire Next Time, NYC: Vintage Books, pp. 1-52.
FNT: Baldwin, James 1993 (1963). “Down At the Cross: Letter from
a Region in My Mind,” The Fire Next Time (2nd ½), pp. 53-106.
Paper due in 3 weeks
-Terkel, Studs. 1980. “C. P. Ellis,” in American Dreams, Lost and
Found. NYC: Pantheon Books. RCG pp. 507-516.
-060 Gladwell, Malcolm. 2005. Getting In: The social logic of Ivy
League admissions. The New Yorker, October 10. Available at
http://www.gladwell.com/pdf/getting_in.pdf
-Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS. RCG pp. 578-582;
-Kozol, Jonathan. 2005. in The Shame of the Nation: The
Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. NY: Crown
Publishers. RCG pp. 644-658
Paper due in 2 weeks
-060: Lipsitz, George. 2007. The Racialization of Space and the
Spatialization of Race. Landscape Journal 26(1):10-23.
Week 8
3-Mar
Race, Place, Ethnicity:
NYC Post-Industrial Context: Hip Hop II
5-Mar
NYC Post-Industrial Context: Hip Hop II
PAPER DUE
-Brodkin, Karen. 1998. “How did Jews Become White Folks?” in
How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in
America. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers U. Press. RCG pp. 38-50. -Conley, Dalton. 1999. from Being Black, Living in the Red: Race,
Wealth, and Social Policy in America. University of California Press.
RCG pp. 350-357.
Urban & Rural
-060: Rose, Tricia. 1994. “‟All Aboard the Night Train‟: Flow,
Layering and Rupture in Postindustrial New York”. Pp. 21-61 in
Black Noise. CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Good draft of paper due on Blackboard before class begins,
AND printed for class. See Blackboard Assignments for details.
Week 9
READING QUIZ #4 on Blackboard
Spring Break (9-13 Mar)
Review for Midterm. Review guide will be provided on BB
26-Feb
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Week 10
17-Mar
19-Mar
Week 11
24-Mar
26-Mar
Race and Environment I: Environmental
Racism, Environmental Justice
Race and environment II: Histories of
environmentalism
MIDTERM EXAM IN CLASS
American Association of Geographers
Annual Conference. Lecture topic TBA
Outside lecture response due
Week 12
31-Mar
Prisoner, laborer, citizen, threat:
Racialized rural landscapes: Fear of
wilderness and proper occupants of
rural space
2-Apr
Confinement (Part 1): Nisei Internment
and Asian-American Identities
Week 13
7-Apr
READING QUIZ #5 on Blackboard
Confinement (Part 2): Prison Industrial
Complex
Guest Lecture, Dr. Rashad Shabazz:
Black space and carceral masculinity
9-Apr
Week 14
14-Apr
Confinement (Part 3): Profiling as a
spatial practice
Complicating racial and ethnic identity:
Contemporary immigrant geographies
and identities
16-Apr
Labor, Mobility, Fear, Health and
Confinement, Part I: Latino
Farmworkers in Vermont
Week 15
21-Apr
READING QUIZ #6 on Blackboard
“Homeland Security” (Part 1): Histories
of Exclusion and Violence
23-Apr
“Homeland Security” (Part 2): Race,
Nation and Security
Week 16
28-Apr
Wrap up: Retrospect and prospect
Final Exam: Thursday, May 7. 8:00
a.m. - 11:00 a.m., in Rowell 103. To
check your scheduled exams:
http://www.uvm.edu/~rgweb/
Outside lecture response due in 2 weeks
-060: Pulido, Laura. 2000. Rethinking Environmental Racism: White
Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California. Annals of
the American Association of Geographers 90(1), 2000, 12-40.
-060: Ratner, Lizzy. 2008. New Orleans redraws its color line. The
Nation, October 8. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080915/ratner
Review for Midterm
Final draft of paper due in 2 weeks. Lecture response due 3/25
Merchant, Carolyn, 2003. Shades of Darkness: Race and
Environmental History. Environmental History 8(3),
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/eh/8.3/merchant.html
by beginning of class on Tuesday, 31-Mar, on Blackboard only
Geographies of confinement, displacement and illegality
-060: Ginsburg, Rebecca. 2007. Freedom and the Slave Landscape.
Landscape Journal, Vol. 26(1), pp. 36-44. 060: White, Evelyn C.
1996. Black Women and the Wilderness. In Names We Call
Home: Autobiography on Racial Identity, Eds. B. Thompson and S.
Tyagi. New York: Routledge, pp. 283-286.
-060: Harris, Eddy. 1997. Solo faces: A black outdoorsman takes a
wilderness census, and finds it disturbingly light. Outside Magazine.
http://outside.away.com/outside/magazine/1297/9712solo.html060
-Kochiyama, Yuri. 1991. “Then Came The War,” in Joann Faung
Jean Lee, Asian American Experiences in the United States.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. RCG pp. 407-414.
-Thrupakaew, Noy. 2002. “The Myth of the Model Minority.” The
American Prospect 13(7), April 8. RCG pp. 224-230.
Final draft of paper due on Thursday
-Davis, Angela. 1998. Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison
Industrial Complex, in Colorlines, Fall. RCG pp. 683-688.
-060: State of New Jersey, Department of Law and Public Safety.
1999. “Selected Highlights of the Interim Report of the State Police
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Review Team Regarding allegations of Racial Profiling.” April 20 .
At http://www.aele.org/NJprofil.html
Final Paper Due on BB before class.
Printed copy due in class. See BB Assignments for details.
-MPI Staff/Jernigan. n.d. “A New Century: Immigration and the U.S.”
Migration Policy Institute, RCG 205-211.
-Tafoya, Sonia. 2004. “Shades of Belonging: Latinos and Racial
Identity.” Pew Hispanic Center, RCG pp. 218-221.
-060: Holmes, Seth M. 2006. An Ethnographic Study of the Social
Context of Migrant Health in the United States. PLos Medicint 3(1)):
1776-1793. At http://medicine.plosjournals.org/archive/15491676/3/10/pdf/10.1371_journal.pmed.0030448-S.pdf
-060: Vermont press reports, 2005-2007. Topic: Latino Migrant
Farmworkers in Vermont. Articles from the Addison Independent,
Franklin County Courier, & Vermont Guardian.
-060: Churchill, Ward. 1997. “Encountering the American Holocaust,
The Politics of Affirmation and Denial,” pp. 1-18 in A Little Matter of
Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to Present.
Oakland, CA: AK Press.
-U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. 1981. Indian Tribes: A Continuing
Quest for Survival. RCG pp. 527-531.
-Crow Dog, Mary Brave Bird, with Richard Erdoes. 1990. “Civilize
Them with a Stick.” NYC: Grove/Atlantic, Inc. RCG pp. 403-406.
-Reread two (2) or more of: Lipsitz, Omi & Winant, Brodkin, Tatum.
No Earlier or Later Exams Will Be Offered!!!
Plan your travel accordingly. ONLY if you have 3 or more finals
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on your exam day, see me by April 14 for accommodation.
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