Advanced Theories of Race, Nation & Ethnicity SOC 527                   Winter 2000 Dr. Gonzalo Santos Office:       DDH - AA205  Office Hrs: 2:30 - 4:30 pm, MWF, or by                   appointment Phone:       (661) 664-2191 Web site & Email:             http://www.csub.edu/~gsantos/           santos_class@csub.edu

• Paul Wong, ed., 1999. Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality in the United States. Toward the Twenty-First Century. Boulder: Westview.

• Matthew Frye Jacobson, 1999. Whiteness of a Different Color. European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

• Philip Yale Nicholson, 1999. Who Do We Think We Are? Race and Nation in the Modern World. New York: M.E. Sharpe.

Course Description

This course attempts to advance our understanding of the historical relationships and analytical interplay between race, nation, and ethnicity in the modern world-system. We actually adopt a reversed chronological approach, and go from the smaller geographic scale to the larger one, as we first explore some of the intricacies of present-day relations in the United States based on race, ethnicity, and nationality. We then take up the more historical issue of how certain European immigrant groups were "whitened" in North America in the 19th century. Lastly, we take the sweeping time-space scale of the global world-system over the course of the last five centuries to look at the socio-historical construction of race, nation, and ethnicity.

Class Presentations: The course will be run as a seminar, which will require for students to make formal class presentations on assigned readings on a rotational basis, along side those of Dr. Santos, followed by open discussions. Dr. Santos will therefore expect everyone to come to class ready to discuss up to two readings per session. Please be on time, especially the presenters. Presenters should bring enough copies of an outline (1 to 2 pages) of their presentations to hand out to all in class.

Research Papers: There will be two research papers assigned in this course, for students to turn in on February 23 and March 17, respectively. Students must discuss with Dr. Santos the potential topics for their papers and seek his approval in a timely fashion. Each paper should be between 15 and 20 pages in  length, double-spaced, font 10 or 12, one-inch margins. For the guidelines on how to write a good research term paper go directly to: http://www.csub.edu/~gsantos/Guide-Paper.html. Students will be allowed to submit rewrites of their first papers, if they so wish, on March 17, to improve their grades.

Grading: Each research paper is worth 35 points. The class presentations are worth 30 points as a whole. The final letter grade will be assigned, on a scale of 0 to 100, as follows:
 

Office Hours/E-Mail to Dr. Santos: All students are encouraged to visit the instructor regularly during posted office hours (see above) or by appointment, especially to ensure their individual presentations and research papers are well chosen and organized, or to discuss any question they may have from the seminar or the textbooks.

Private but brief and to the point e-mail messages to Dr. Santos (NOT a substitute for office visits, please) may be sent to: santos_class@csub.edu