2. Culture, race and ethnicity Anastasia Christou (A.Christou@sussex.ac.uk)A.Christou@sussex.ac.uk Spring & Summer Terms 2012

3. “ 2012 Summer Term Office Hours Wednesdays 12.00-14.00 Arts C 243

4. Culture Race & Ethnicity

5. In this course, students will examine critical theories of culture, race and ethnicity. Attention will focus on the ways in which notions of culture, race and ethnicity are constructed and negotiated in everyday social spaces, encounters and discourses. To develop understanding of the complex processes through which this occurs, the course will be thoroughly grounded with reference to specific historical and contemporary examples. The sustained focus on particular empirical examples is intended to encourage students to see the terms ‘culture’, ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ as slippery, ambiguous, and entangled concepts that are not related to some essential or biological difference between groups of human beings but, rather, are always socially constructed in specific places and at specific times.

6. Course at a glance The course will progress through the Spring and Summer Terms, week by week, in the following structure: Theorising race Critical theories of identities Critical white studies Contemporary white identities Intersectional approaches to race: gender, sexuality and class Colonial cultures and the racialisation of whiteness Postcolonial perspectives Theorising race and ethnicity: contemporary paradigms and perspectives Migration and diaspora in cosmopolitan and multicultural cities Mock Examination and feedback Everyday racisms Black British diaspora politics Constructing Britishness & Muslim identities in Britain The spectacle of racialisation: media and performative representations of race Course summary and revision workshops

7. Teaching and learning modes Lectures: Wks 1-10 Spring, 1-5 Summer (1 hour) Seminars: Wks 1-10 Spring, 1-5 Summer (1 hour) Assessment Contributory assessment : Unseen Examination 2 hours / 100%