Description
The purpose of this course is to provide students with an opportunity to learn about white nationalism and to examine it in multiple forms. Using a cultural anthropology perspective, the course will focus on the intersections of national identity and race, and in particular whiteness, in Europe and the United States. A
significant component of the course will examine historical and newly emergent nationalist ideologies in
Eastern Europe. The course will begin with lectures and discussions that give students the chance to
critically unpack key terminology (nation, nationalism, race, white nationalism, white supremacy) that areoften used in media and popular culture but at the same time, are rarely well-defined and contextualized. Students will read literature from multiple disciplines, including anthropology, European studies, history, political science, and race and ethnic studies.
Each week students will complete in-class rapid fire writing responses about the readings before we begin discussions.This course will involve regular shorter writing assignments and a final writing paper. Students will also have the chance to work in small groups on a project. Assignments will include book chapter readings, journal articles, newspaper stories, and one book-length ethnography.
The syllabus will also include films. By the end of the course students should be able to understand the concept of white nationalism and its manifestations in multiple forms in Europe and the United States. They should also be able to understand theories of nation, race, and whiteness, and be able to critically reflect on these topics.
