Racism And Cultural Studies

In Racism and Cultural Studies E. San Juan Jr. offers a historical-materialist critique of practices in multiculturalism and cultural studies. Rejecting contemporary theories of inclusion as affirmations of the capitalist status quo, San Juan envisions a future of politically equal and economically empowered citizens through the democratization of power and the socialization of property. Calling U.S. nationalism the new “opium of the masses,” he argues that U.S. nationalism is where racist ideas and practices are formed, refined, and reproduced as common sense and consensus. Individual chapters engage the themes of ethnicity versus racism, gender inequality, sexuality, and the politics of identity configured with the discourse of postcoloniality and postmodernism. Questions of institutional racism, social justice, democratization, and international power relations between the center and the periphery are explored and analyzed. San Juan fashions a critique of dominant disciplinary approaches in the humanities and social sciences and contends that “the racism question” functions as a catalyst and point of departure for cultural critiques based on a radical democratic vision. He also asks urgent questions regarding globalization and the future of socialist transformation of “third world” peoples and others who face oppression. As one of the most notable cultural theorists in the United States today, San Juan presents a provocative challenge to the academy and other disciplinary institutions. His intervention will surely compel the attention of all engaged in intellectual exchanges where race/ethnicity serves as an urgent focus of concern.

A historical critique of practices in multiculturalism and cultural studies.

With the aid of case studies, which include the Bhopal disaster and the Rushdie Affair, John Gabriel explores the connections betweeen cultural representations of `race' and their historical, institutional and global forms of expression.

The Cosby Show needs little introduction to most people familiar with American popular culture. It is a show with immense and universal appeal. Even so, most debates about the significance of the program have failed to take into account one of the more important elements of its success—its viewers. Through a major study of the audiences of The Cosby Show, the authors treat two issues of great social and political importance—how television, America's most widespread cultural form, influences the way we think, and how our society in the post-Civil Rights era thinks about race, our most widespread cultural problem. This book offers a radical challenge to the conventional wisdom concerning facial stereotyping in the United States and demonstrates how apparently progressive programs like The Cosby Show, despite good intentions, actually help to construct "enlightened" forms of racism. The authors argue that, in the post-Civil Rights era, a new structure of racial beliefs, based on subtle contradictions between attitudes toward race and class, has brought in its wake this new form of racial thought that seems on the surface to exhibit a new tolerance. However, professors Jhally and Lewis find that because Americans cannot think clearly about class, they cannot, after all, think clearly about race. This groundbreaking book is rooted in an empirical analysis of the reactions to The Cosby Show of a range of ordinary Americans, both black and white. Professors Jhally and Lewis discussed with the different audiences their attitudes toward the program and more generally their understanding and perceptions of issues of race and social class. Enlightened Racism is a major intervention into the public debate about race and perceptions of race—a debate, in the 1990s, at the heart of American political and public life. This book is indispensable to understanding that debate.

Considers the debates over race and its meanings in contemporary society and in educational and social policy. Linking with feminist, post-structuralist and post-modernist concerns, this text examines the contribution of ideas such as ethnicity, community, identity and difference.

This important collection addresses recent developments in the teaching, studying and presentation of race across many disciplines, including sociology, politics, social geography, cultural studies and philosophy. Drawing on the latest research in all these areas, the authors provide a comprehensive account of key controversies and debates and pinpoint new directions in research and scholarship that are likely to shape the study of race and ethnicity well into the next century.

How do media ‘make’ race? How do legacies of empire shape our understandings of race and media? How does racism structure the media industries? Is the internet an inherently white space? Understanding the relationship between race, culture and media has never been more important. From the demonisation of Muslims to rampant new forms of racism on digital platforms, media are central to understanding how race is both constructed and experienced in everyday life. Yet media are key to resisting racism, too. While they can silence and stereotype us, they can also enable us to cut across difference, to contest and mobilise, and to create genuine community. Race, Culture and Media is a critical, impassioned and accessible exploration of this complex relationship. Anamik Saha outlines the theories, concepts and research you need to know in order to make sense of race, culture and media today - challenging you to move beyond simplistic notions of ‘diversity’ to really engage with issues of both power and participation. It is essential reading for students and researchers across media, communication and cultural studies. Dr Anamik Saha is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he convenes the MA Race, Media and Social Justice.

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of Stuart Hall’s work in shaping the field of racial and ethnic studies for nearly five decades. From his groundbreaking work Policing the Crisis through to his paradigm shattering ‘New Ethnicities’, Hall’s writing has redefined how race research is thought and done, while Hall himself stands as an exemplar of the public and politically engaged intellectual. This collection of essays, from established and emerging scholars, critically engages with Hall’s legacy across this body of work, from the foundations of cultural studies as a field of enquiry, through his work on race and articulation, to his insights into ‘the politics of difference’ and diaspora identities. These essays both reflect back on Hall’s interventions and locate them within some of the key spaces and questions of our time – from the ‘political theology’ of race in South Africa to the terrain of the contemporary city, from reflections on memory, nationhood and belonging to new ethnicities online and the formation of postcolonial subjectivities. The collection includes an in-depth conversation between Les Back and Stuart Hall, in which Hall reflects on his career and explores the challenges facing contemporary multicultural, multifaith societies in a globalised world. This book was published as a special issue of Cultural Studies.