IAS 31127

About this course

Recent events in the U.S., arguably have done irreconcilable damage to assertions of a post- racial era in America. Race is a rather resilient concept that is maintained and reified in many ways. Beyond overt expressions of race, the concept stays alive through widely shared thoughts and feelings about physical beauty. It should not be a surprise that ?Seeing? is a primary means through which we construct Race in contemporary Western communities, and their orbits. Also, it should not be a surprise that many, if not all of us here are still harboring the effects of European colonization. We will spend the majority of time this term exploring how what we see is informed by such pernicious constructs as Race. Our foremost goal is to look at how dominant conceptions of beauty are constructed and inform some of our commonly held beliefs on Race.