“To see things as they really are…you must imagine them as they might be.”
-Derrick Bell-
​
RAGE CALENDAR
​
January 24: Intro to the class and project
January 29: COMBINED- Building True Collaboration (workshop)
January 31: COMBINED- white supremacy [group discussion]
“How do we end white supremacy?”
Reading: (due via email 1/31): Aisha Azoulay, “Chapter 4, Potential History: Not with the Master’s Tools, Not With Tools at All” in Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism.
Reflection Paper Prompt [2 points, 2 pages]: What is Potential History and how does it differ from the way in which you have been taught to think about history? Feel free to quote the text in support of your answer. [2 points]
UNIT 1: The origins of white supremacy and the tool of “refusal”
* Post comment/question on discussion board for each class with assigned reading.
​
February 5: Problems
Readings:
-Matthew Restall, “Apes and Men: The Myth of Superiority,” in Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest.
February 7: Problems
Readings
-John Gillespie Jr., “Anarcha’s Science of the Flesh: Toward and Afropessimist Theory of Science.”
-Context: National Library of Medicine: Reckoning with histories of medical racism and violence in the USA
February 12: Approaches
Reading:
-Jennifer Barclay, “Mothering the Useless: Black Motherhood, Disability and Slavery”
-Ruja Benjamin, Informed Refusal: Toward a Justice-Based Bioethics.
February 14: Approaches
Reading:
-Aline Helg, “Marronage: A Risky but Possible Road to Freedom,” in Slave No More.
-Neil Roberts, Introduction and Afterword in Freedom as Marronage
February 19: SWITCH 1
Rage students go to Norton 214
CSE students go to Norton 216
Reading [CSE]:
-Ruja Benjamin, Informed Refusal: Toward a Justice-Based Bioethics.
-Neil Roberts, Introduction and Afterword in Freedom as Marronage
-National Library of Medicine: Reckoning with histories of medical racism and violence in the USA
February 21: COMBINE – Workshop 1
RAGE Paper ASSIGNMENT 1 DUE SATURDAY 2/24 [7 pages, footnotes and bibliography]: Define white supremacy as a problem and discuss historical resistance practices to white supremacy that can serve as inspiration for us today. As we reprise practices from the past, what are the pitfalls that we may encounter? Please be sure to include direct citations to our class readings. This paper will be graded on depth of engagement with the course materials and with class discussions.
Impossible Project Assignment 1
​
UNIT 2: The science of race and the tool of “undoing”
* Post comment/question on discussion board for each class with assigned reading.
​
February 26: Problems
Readings:
-Nancy Lay Stephen, “The New Genetics and the Beginning of Eugenics,” in The Hour of Eugenics: Race, Gender and Nation in Latin America.
-Alexander D. Barder Scientific Racism, Race War and the Global Racial Imaginary. This piece is also broad, but it ties Eugenics and Scientific racism squarely to White Supremacy.
February 28: Problems
Readings:
-Simone Brown, “B®anding blackness : biometric technology and the surveillance of blackness” in Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness. PDF
-Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, Chapter 5. PDF
-Context for Fanon: Seunghyun Song, “Bridging Epidermalization of Black Inferiority and the Racial Epidermal Schema: Internalizing Oppression to the level of Possibilities.” DiGeSt. Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2017), pp. 49-61
The New Jim Code: Reimagining the Default Setting of Technology and Society [Ruja Benjamin- video]
March 4: Approaches
Readings:
-Michel-Rolph Trouillot, “An Unthinkable History,” in Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History.
March 6: Approaches
Readings:
-Irvin Hunt, Introduction and chapter 1, “Sustained Incipience,” in Dreaming the Present: Time, Aesthetics and the Black Cooperative Movement.
-Victoria Wolcott, “Radical Nonviolence, Interracial Utopias, and the Congress of Racial Equality in the Early Civil Rights Movement.”
March 11: SWITCH 2
Rage students go to Norton 214
CSE students go to Norton 216
Reading [CSE]: Simone Brown, “B®anding blackness : biometric technology and the surveillance of blackness” in Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness. PDF
-Irvin Hunt, Introduction and chapter 1, “Sustained Incipience,” in Dreaming the Present: Time, Aesthetics and the Black Cooperative Movement.
March 13: COMBINE Community panel + Workshop 2
Rage Paper ASSIGNMENT 2 DUE SATRUDAY 3/16 : Rage Paper 2 [7 pages] Define white supremacy as a problem and discuss historical resistance practices to white supremacy that can serve as inspiration for us today. As we reprise practices from the past, what are the pitfalls that we may encounter? Please be sure to include direct citations to our class readings. This paper will be graded on depth of engagement with the course materials and with class discussions. [10 points]
Impossible Project Assignment 2
Project idea Due [All teams]
March 18/20
SPRING BREAK
UNIT 3: The persistence of white supremacy and the tool of “critical imagination”
* Post comment/question on discussion board for each class with assigned reading.
​
March 25: Problems
Readings
News articles/Reports
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/17/us/white-supremacy.html
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-rise-of-latino-white-supremacy
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/6/2/why-white-supremacists-are-not-always-white
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/white-nationalist
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/american-racism-and-the-buffalo-massacre
​
March 27: Problems
Reading
Antidefamation League: New Hate and Old.
April 1: Approaches
Readings:
-Dubois, The Comet.
-Zamalin, “WEB DuBois’ World of Utopian Intimacy” in Black Utopia: The History of an Idea from Black Nationalism to Afrofuturism.
April 3: Approaches
Readings:
-Caraballo Muller, “The Impossible Project, A Utopian Pedagogy for a Dystopian Moment” in Utopian Imaginings: Saving the Future in the Present. [Forthcoming 2024]. PDF
-belle hooks, Teaching to Transgress [PDF TBD] and “Imagination” in Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom.
April 8: SWITCH 3
Rage students go to Norton 214
CSE students go to Norton 216
Readings [CSE]:
-Caraballo Muller, “The Impossible Project, A Utopian Pedagogy for a Dystopian Moment” in Utopian Imaginings: Saving the Future in the Present. [forthcoming 2024].
-belle hooks, Teaching to Transgress [PDF TBD] and “Imagination” in Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom.
April 10: COMBINE -Workshop 3
Rage Paper ASSIGNMENT 3 DUE SATURDAY 4/13 Rage student paper [7 pages]: Define white supremacy as a problem and discuss historical resistance practices to white supremacy that can serve as inspiration for us today. As we reprise practices from the past, what are the pitfalls that we may encounter? Please be sure to include direct citations to our class readings. This paper will be graded on depth of engagement with the course materials and with class discussions. [20 points]
Impossible Project Assignment 3 due
​
Finale UNIT: Seeding a just future.
* Post comment/question on discussion board for each class with assigned reading.
​
April 15: Radical Projects Today: What is being done?
Readings: TBD
April 17: Workshop [in class]
April 22: Workshop [in class]
April 24: Workshop [in class]
April 29: Graphic Recording
May 1: Presentation prep
May 6: Presentation prep
May 11: final submission for IP due
May 15 Final Exam/presentation/public finale