The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822327406 ISBN 13: 9780822327400

Publisher: Duke University Press Books, 2001

Synopsis

Bringing together new articles and essays from the controversial Berkeley conference of the same name, The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness presents a fascinating range of inquiry into the nature of whiteness. Representing academics, independent scholars, community organizers, and antiracist activists, the contributors are all leaders in the “second wave” of whiteness studies who collectively aim to combat the historical legacies of white supremacy and to inform those who seek to understand the changing nature of white identity, both in the United States and abroad.
With essays devoted to theories of racial domination, comparative global racisms, and transnational white identity, the geographical reach of the volume is significant and broad. Dalton Conley writes on “How I Learned to Be White.” Allan Bérubé discusses the intersection of gay identity and whiteness, and Mab Segrest describes the spiritual price white people pay for living in a system of white supremacy. Other pieces examine the utility of whiteness as a critical term for social analysis and contextualize different attempts at antiracist activism. In a razor-sharp introduction, the editors not only raise provocative questions about the intellectual, social, and political goals of those interested in the study of whiteness but assess several of the topic’s major recurrent themes: the visibility of whiteness (or the lack thereof); the “emptiness” of whiteness as a category of identification; and conceptions of whiteness as a structural privilege, a harbinger of violence, or an institutionalization of European imperialism.

Contributors. William Aal, Allan Bérubé, Birgit Brander Rasmussen, Dalton Conley, Troy Duster, Ruth Frankenberg, John Hartigan Jr., Eric Klinenberg, Eric Lott, Irene J. Nexica, Michael Omi, Jasbir Kaur Puar, Mab Segrest, Vron Ware, Howard Winant, Matt Wray

About this title

Review:

“If for no other reason than that the circulation of racialized power has been and is fractured, multi-faceted, contradictory, and continual, then this collection would be valuable in its attention to the accumulation of the political and disciplinary effects of whiteness. The particular strength of this attention is magnified by the combination of work herein that originates in both academic and other than academic sites. And it is brave work; it proceeds without guarantees of its own outcome, without knowing what questions it might settle.”—Wahneema Lubiano, Duke University

“This very powerful volume touches many nerves in contemporary cultural politics. Its collected essays take various perspectives and collectively—and sometimes individually—engage various contradictions. It’s a disturbing, engaging, sometimes frustrating, deeply affecting book.”—Kathleen Stewart, author of A Space on the Side of the Road: Cultural Poetics in an “Other” America

From the Author:

Birgit Brander Rasmussen is Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, Race and Migration at Yale University. She is the co-editor of The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness (Duke, 2001).

Eric Klinenberg is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University.

Irene J. Nexica is an independent scholar who studies popular music and culture.

Matt Wray is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

About this edition

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0822327406
• ISBN 13: 9780822327400
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352
• Editor: Brander Rasmussen Birgit, Klinenberg Eric, Nexica Irene J., Wray Matt