Deconstructing Whiteness in the Luso-Hispanic World

In this course we will critically examine constructions and realities of whiteness in the Luso-Hispanic world(s), traversing Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Caribbean, and Europe. Through different readings, cultural products, and disciplinary lenses, we will grapple with whiteness as identity, as concentration of power, as national and global project, and as a set of discourses impacting gender, sexuality, disability, and labor. We will consider how whiteness is claimed and represented in interwoven contexts of colonialism, slavery, eugenics, nationhood, and late capitalism; paying particular attention to how it is simultaneously decentered and reproduced in narratives of racial exceptionalism, mestiçagem/mestizaje, and post-racialism. (PGSE 215 and SPAN 300 or above, or by approval) Taught in Spanish and Portuguese. 3hrs. lect.