Workshops
The Reproduction of Race and Racial Ideologies Workshop
With the conviction that intellectuals have a responsibility to help clarify discourses of racial difference, we convened this workshop to provide a forum for faculty and graduate students at the University of Chicago and area institutions to explore the problems of race and racial ideologies in the modern era. The issues we examine cut across academic and policy divisions as well as across disciplinary and national boundaries.
In fact, the unique contribution of this workshop lies in the boundaries that it crosses -- boundaries that often are inviolable in university settings. Through such boundary crossing, this workshop encourages conversation across both disciplinary and methodological paradigms on a regular basis. The workshop attracts students and faculty from the Social Sciences Division (especially History, Sociology, and Political Science), the Humanities (notably English, Cinema and Media Studies, and Philosophy), and the Professional Schools (Public Policy, Social Service, Law and Business). Likewise, presenters come from diverse divisions and departments in order to contribute to the multidisciplinary character of the workshop.
The workshop meets 4 - 5 times a quarter. Each meeting lasts one hour and twenty minutes. Typically, a paper will be circulated one week prior to meeting. At the beginning of the meeting, the author of the paper will present her work for about 20 minutes. For the remaining time, we hold an open discussion about the paper and the presentation.
The workshop serves as a resource to graduate students and faculty. The workshop gives students who are early in their graduate careers the confidence to participate more fully in classroom discussion. For more advanced students, the workshop provides the experience to engage their ideas in a public forum as well as to prepare for professional conferences and job talks. Graduate students have presented dissertation proposals, dissertation chapters, and master theses. In addition to graduate students, faculty members participate in the workshop both as attendees and presenters. Faculty members at Chicago attend presentations by students and other faculty members, providing needed and insightful feedback to scholars' works-in-progress. In addition faculty presenters benefit greatly from the critical engagement and feedback on their book chapters and articles-in-progress.
For the 2012-2013 academic year, the faculty directors of the workshop are Michael C. Dawson, John D. MacArthur Distinguished Service Professor in Political Science and the College and Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, and Tianna Paschel, Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Political Science. The student coordinator of the workshop is Ainsley LeSure, who is a graduate student in political science.
The workshop enjoys support from the Council on Advanced Studies (CAS) and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago.
