SOC 3559 The Racial Politics of Empire

Instructor: Heidi Nicholls

Office Hours: Monday 9-11 am EST and by appointment.
hcn4fq@virginia.edu

Class Meetings:
Summer Session I
M-F 10:30 am - 12:45 pm EST on zoom
Zoom Link: https://virginia.zoom.us/j/95621046116?pwd=S0l2cHkxZUFwTEltTW1HRE9ZQTJwUT09

“But what on earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?”

– W. E. B. Du Bois, Darkwater (1969)

“Racism is first and foremost a social practice, which means that it is an action and a rationale for action, or
both at once. Racism always takes for granted the objective reality of race […] The shorthand transforms
racism, something an aggressor does, into race, something the target is, in a sleight of hand that is easy to
miss.”
– Karen Fields and Barbara Fields , Racecraft (2014)

COURSE DESCRIPTION
Race is not a biological reality but rather a tool of empire. Therefore, to understand the purpose and impact
of race, we must better understand the ongoing history of empire. Along the way, we will develop an ability
to think sociologically by drawing connections between political projects, ideas, and material realities. We
will connect social meanings to tangible inequities by asking how notions of race work to expand,
strengthen, and maintain empire. We will learn to analyze our social context to make visible how empire
shapes our lives. And finally, this course invites us to engage with how people have resisted the power of
race and empire and made ways for alternative futures. This course will primarily focus on how race works
in tandem with imperial processes in the United States. However, we will bring in global examples, especially
of other white settler colonial contexts.

**Syllabus is subject to change to accommodate student needs. If something about the course is not
working well for you, please let me know.

COURSE LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Through sustained engagement and challenging work, by the end of the course you will be able to...
• Understand and provide specific examples of key terms, concepts, and definitions within the
sociology of race and empire
• Differentiate between sociological, economic, psychological, and biological explanations, noting the
potential impact of each
• Engaging in conversations together about racism, empire, and settler colonialism that challenge
dominant framings of history and identity
• Conduct and present an analysis of how racism and settler colonialism structure material outcomes
using relevant theories of race and empire
• Reflect on your own social location admits these ongoing histories

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LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Perusall Annotations
Purpose: The purpose of Perusall Annotations is to practice close-reading and dialogue with texts. After all,
reading an author's work is like entering into a conversation and many people have been having
conversations about race and empire for centuries. Making annotations allows us to respond to, ask
questions of, and better learn from the author. Annotations also provide another opportunity to contribute
to our shared learning community. You will be able to view each other’s annotations and questions, and
even to answer existing inquiries by helping define, asking for clarification, or identifying main points and
significant examples. Reading and responding to the text is then a communal endeavor that we can enjoy
together.

What to Expect: Annotations are made as you read and can include identifying key questions the author is
asking, identifying main points, examples of main points, and definitions provided in the text. These kinds
of annotations fall under the category of "close listening" The second kind of annotations are "responsive"
annotations that ask questions, add comments such as further examples, make connections, or even state
when something is unclear or unknown to you in the text. The final type of annotation is contributions to
peers. These kinds of annotations are responses to peer annotation such as providing a point of clarification,
a needed definition that is not in the text, or affirming a connection someone else made. Perusall
Annotations are due by 8 am EST the day the class that will cover that reading.

You will need to create a Perusall account via https://app.perusall.com/home

Perusall Code: NICHOLLS-WUG6B

Content Analysis (Discussion Forum)

Purpose: Content Analysis activities occur in class and allow for students to practice applying course ideas to
new content or content they might come across in their everyday lives. This practice strengthens students'
ability to integrate ideas and to recognize the colonial subtext of various messages in order that they might
more effectively respond to such messages. Content will derive from news media, film, books and other
writing, images, and public imagery, music, and other mediums and forms. Student are encouraged to
submit their own ideas for content analysis regularly.

What to Expect: After observing a piece, you will write a paragraph describing the content in detail as if to
convey it to someone not able to read, see, or heard the piece. Then, write at paragraph that places the
content in conversation with the course concepts provided. Each paragraph should be at least five sentences
long.

Small Group Memos (Assignments)

Purpose: Learning well is most often a collective endeavor and your peers are also your educators. During
small group discussions you will have time to formulate answers to challenging and complex questions. As
you establish a small learning community with them, and establish norms to build trust, you will hopefully
be able to both offer insights to fellow members, and ask your own questions, even if they cannot be
answered in the span of one class period.

What to Expect: Small Group memos ask you to reflect on three questions: what you learned from your
group, what unanswered questions you still have about the day's material, and how you contributed to the

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learning community. Each question may be answered in 3-5 clearly stated bullet points or complete
sentences. Memos will be written at the end of class and submitted via collab.

Social Location Reflections (Assignments)

Purpose: The social location reflection is both a review of that day's material and an elaboration of it
centering on recognition of one's own relationship to the concepts, history, and themes presented. This
both underscores how course content may align with your own values and works to reiterate a key
sociological practice: understanding context and relationality.

What to Expect:
Students will submit a social location reflection at the end of class, answering the following three questions
in complete sentences.
1. What are three things you learned?
2. How do two of them impact, or are impacted by, someone in your social location in a specific context?
3. Focusing on one of them, what is one way someone in your social location and context could use their
agency to contribute to social change?

Foundational Knowledge Checks: (Discussion Forum and Quiz)

Purpose: Foundational knowledge checks make sure that this learning community strives to participate in a
shared conversation by knowing what we mean by certain terms and how they are used. This weekly check-
in asks you to provide definitions for three key terms we have covered. Then, you are asked to explain why
different aspects of the definition are important. And finally, you are given a chance to change the definition
if you believe something needs to be added, taken away, or altered in some other way. By going through this
exercise together, we participate in learning in public, recognize the changing and contested nature of
knowledge, and work to better understand the relationship between concepts and social processes.

What to Expect: Through an online survey, students will be asked to provide a definition, description, and/or
an example of 5 terms. These answers should be written in complete sentences. Then, in small groups,
students will review the answers they entered, ask questions, and revise and refine their answers
together. Finally, students will complete an assessment that allows them to expand on the five terms and
what they learned from their peers’ contributions.

COURSE PROJECT

Relational Research Project (Assignments)

Purpose: Thinking sociologically and relationally always requires an awareness and keen attention to social
location, both one's own and others. Moreover, some scholars and practioners have argued that we have a
responsibility to learn about the histories and relationships that we are most immediately bound up in. This
project invites you to deepen your understanding of settler colonialism and Indigenous resurgence in the
place(s) that you have lived and communities you are a part of. In turn, this engagement might foster
new ways to relate to one's hometown, community, family, or nation.

Through this assignment, you will also develop crucial research skills including learning background
knowledge to help frame what questions you will ask, crafting questions that illuminate the material
outcomes of race and empire, and connecting various social factors together to help reveal how and why
things came to be as they are. You will also practice gathering information through methods of your
choosing such as through secondary and primary textual sources, interviews, participant observation,

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datasets, and autoethnography. Finally, this project will help you hone your sociological writing skills
through a six to eight page (double-spaced) paper.

What to Expect: This project is broken into three discrete parts in order to make completing it more
manageable and ensure your success by providing opportunities for feedback and revision along the way.

Part I: A brief project proposal due by June 1, 2021. This two page double spaced document should outline
what you already know (the general background and framing), what you are hoping to learn (your research
questions), and how you will gather information (your methods). It may also include why you have chosen
the focus and scope of this project, it's significance (both sociologically and/or personally) and how you see
it relating to course concepts and themes so far. This document should also include three academic sources
that will inform your engagement with the topic. These sources should include at least two not already listed
in the course syllabus. If you are having trouble finding relevant academic sources, I am happy to help.

Part II: Next, your data will be due on June 7, 2021. This might include your interview transcript(s), primary
documents, a dataset presented in a well-organized and clearly labeled table, or observation notes. Data
should be accompanied by a one page double-spaced memo describing how you intend to analyze the data
that you now have and what supplementary sources you will need to aide in your analysis.

Part III Your findings and analysis will be due on June 12, 2021. Using skills gained through the content
analysis activities in class, this section attempts to answer your research question using the data collected,
interpreted using an attunement to context and historical connections.

The final project is due June 17, 2021 as a 6-8 page paper organized as follows:

I. Introduction, Background, and Research Questions (2 pages)

II. Data and Methods: Briefly describe what information you gathered and how you gathered it (1 page)
III. Findings and Analysis: What did the data reveal? What answers did you find to your research
questions? What new questions arose? (2-3 pages)
IV. Discussion and Conclusion: What is the significance of what you have learned? How does it matter
for your the larger context this project is placed within such as for your city, community, for political
movements, or for those working for change? What new connections where you able to make that
bring to light how peoples, institutions, and places are connected through broader social forces? (2
pages)
V. References: Please use ASA style citations and cite at least six sources.

IMPORTANT DATES

May 31 – NO CLASS (Memorial Day)

June 4 – Midpoint of the course
June 5 – Saturday Class
June 11 – Withdrawal deadline
June 12 – Saturday Class
June 16 – Last class
June 17 – Final Exams/Projects

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GRADING

Class Readiness and Participation (70%) Relational Research Project (30 points total, 30%)
• Reading Annotations (20 points, 20%) • Part I (5 point)
• Foundational Knowledge Checks (20 • Part II ( 5 points)
points, 20%) • Part III (5 points)
• Small Group Memos (10 points, 10%) • Presentation (5 Point)
• Content Analysis (10 points, 10%) • Final Project (10 points)
• Social Location Reflections (10 points,
10%)

Perusall annotations will be graded using a specifications system. You should aim to make (on average)
one annotation (highlight, question, comments, response) per page of text. You should also aim to make a
mix of close listening, responsive, and contributions-to-peers type annotations. To receive a complete for
you perusal annotations, the annotations must …
• Be completed before 8 a.m. EST on the date that they are listed on the course calendar
• Include annotations of three of the seven following types.
o Identifying a main point – ex: mark as “main point” or “M.P”
o Identifying a definition – ex: mark as “Definition of _______” or “Def. of ______”
o Asking a question of the text
o Providing a comment, connection, or summary
o Providing an example of a main point – ex: mark as “Example: _______” or “Ex: ____”
o Stating that something is not clear or unknown to you
o Responding to a peer’s annotation
• Demonstrate a close reading of the entire piece through an appropriate spacing of annotations
across the text.

Other class readiness and participation activities will be graded using specification grading. In other
words, these will be completion grades. Please refer to the activity descriptions above. All written work
submitted to collab must be proofread for spelling and grammar. The collab tool used to complete the
activity is listed after the title.

The relational research projects steps I-III will also be graded using a specifications grading system. The
presentation and final project will be graded using rubrics. I will provide both the specification and rubrics
ahead of time.

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 COURSE CALENDAR
UNIT 1: WHY EMPIRE IS CENTRAL TO UNDERSTANDING RACISM

Why was race invented?

MAY 24, 2021 – The Doctrine of Discovery

Podcast: All My Relations by Matika Wilbur and Dr. Adrienne Keene, Season One, Episode One
https://www.allmyrelationspodcast.com/podcast/episode/32b0bd95/ep-1-all-my-relations-and-
indigenous-feminism

Text: Chapter One: “The Doctrine of Discovery and Why It Matters” from Unsettling Truths: The
Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery by Mark Charles and Soong-Chan-Rah (Virgo)

Activities: Settler colonialism and Palestine, course overview, discussion

MAY 25, 2021 – Race, Racism, and Racecraft

Text: Fields, Karen E., and Barbara Jeanne Fields. 2014. Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American
Life. Verso Trade. (Perusall, pp. 1-24)

Activities: content analysis (Du Bois, Darkwater), mini-lecture, discussion and memo

MAY 26, 2021 – Race, Racism, and Racecraft

Text: Fields, Karen E., and Barbara Jeanne Fields. 2014. Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American
Life. Verso Trade. (Perusall, pp. 25-74)

Activities: discussion, mini-lecture (course project)

Is the United States an Empire?

MAY 27, 2021 –Empires, Imperialism, Colonialism, Settler colonialism

Text: Immerwahr, Daniel in How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (2019)
(Perusall, “Looking Beyond the Logo Map” pp. 3-19, and “Empires State of Mind pp. 73-87)

Activities: mini-lecture (eventful sociology, methods), content analysis, social location reflection

MAY 28, 2021- Empires, Imperialism, Colonialism, Settler colonialism

Podcast/Text: Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond

Episode #12: The Logic of Settler Colonialism: Patrick Wolfe (55 min, text available on Perusall)

Activities: mini-lecture, foundational knowledge check, research projects

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MAY 31, 2021 – MEMORIAL DAY – NO CLASS

UNIT 2: HOW DID COLONIZERS COLONIZE NATIVE LANDS

How do we understand enslavement and anti-Blackness within a framework of settler colonialism?

JUNE 1, 2021- Indigenous Studies and Black Studies in Conversation

Text: Kauanui, J. Kēhaulani. 2017. “Tracing Historical Specificity: Race and the Colonial Politics of
(in) Capacity.” American Quarterly 69(2):257–65. (Perusall)

Activities: mini-lecture (Saito, Enslaved Labor), video (Tiffany Lethabo King), discussion

Relational Research Project Part I DUE

JUNE 2, 2021- Indigenous Studies and Black Studies in Conversation

Text: King, Tiffany Lethabo (editor), Jenell (editor) Navarro, and Andrea (editor) Smith. 2020.
Otherwise Worlds. Durham: Duke University Press. (Perusall, Introduction pp. 2-23)

Activities: small group discussion and memo

JUNE 3, 2021- Incarceration and Gentrification

Text: Hernandez, Kelly Lytle. 2017. City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in
Los Angeles, 1771-1965. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. (Perusall, Introduction
and Conclusion)

Text: “Comeback as Re-Settlement_ Detroit, Anti-Blackness, and Settler Colonialism” by Jessi

Quizar (Perusall)

Activities: mini-lecture (housing), content analysis, small group discussion, social location reflection

JUNE 4, 2021- Global Anti-Blackness and White “Possession”

Text: Arvin, Maile Renee. 2019. Possessing Polynesians: The Science of Settler Colonial Whiteness in Hawaii
and Oceania. Duke University Press. (Perusall, excerpts)

Activities: review, content analysis, foundational knowledge check

JUNE 5, 2021- SATURDAY CLASS – TBD

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UNIT 3: UNPACKING MULTICULTURAL (ANTI)RACISM

How do colonizers attempt to incorporate migrants into the settler colonial project?

JUNE 7, 2021- Inclusions and Exclusions

Text: Ch. 7 of Settler Colonialism, Race and the Law by Natsu Saito (Perusall)

Activities: mini-lecture (decolonizing anti-racism, Nakano-Glen), small group discussion, and social
location reflection

Relational Research Project Part II DUE

JUNE 8, 2021 – Who is a settler?

Text: Fujikane, Candace, and Jonathan Y. Okamura. 2008. Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local
Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawai’i. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. (Perusall,
excerpts)

JUNE 9, 2021 – How do colonizers attempt to indigenize themselves?

Text: Rohrer, Judy. 2008. “Disrupting the ‘Melting Pot’: Racial Discourse in Hawai’i and the
Naturalization of Haole.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 31(6):1110–25. (Perusall)

JUNE 10, 2021 - How does Empire shape identity?

Podcast: All My Relations Ep. 4 “Can a DNA test make me Native American?” w/ Dr. Kim
Tallbear

Text: Dwanna L. McKay “Real Indians: Policing or Protecting Authentic Indigenous Identity?”
(Perusall)

JUNE 11, 2021 – But what about democracy?

Text: Dahl, Adam. 2018. Empire of the People: Settler Colonialism and the Foundations of Modern Democratic
Thought. University Press of Kansas. (Perusall, ch. 1 pp. 23-46)

JUNE 12, 2021 – Project work day

Relational Research Project Part III DUE

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UNIT 4: DECOLONIAL FUTURES THROUGH RESISTANCE, RESURGENCE, AND REFUSAL

JUNE 14, 2021 – Decolonization

Text: Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang. 2012. “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor.” Decolonization:
Indigeneity, Education & Society 1(1) (Perusall, excerpt)

JUNE 15, 2021 – Resurgence

Text: Yes! Magazine – The Decolonization Issue (Perusall)

JUNE 16, 2021 – Refusal

Text: Maile, David Uahikeaikalei ‘ohu. 2019. “Resurgent Refusals: Protecting Mauna a Wākea and
Kanaka Maoli Decolonization.” (Perusall)

Text: Arvin, Maile Renee. 2019. Possessing Polynesians: The Science of Settler Colonial Whiteness in Hawaii
and Oceania. Duke University Press. (Perusall, Ch. 4 excerpt, pp. 157-167)

Activities: project presentations

FINAL RELATIONAL RESEARCH PROJECT DUE JUNE 17TH AT 5 P.M. EST

HOW TO ACCESS SUPPORT

Office Hours
Office hours provide a time for any questions you may have regarding the reading, lecture, assignments,
discussion, or other related academic topics. I am also a resource for navigating the university and your
college career. I am happy to meet over zoom whenever works for you on weekdays (M-F).

Instructor Email
I welcome emails that include a request to meet or a straightforward question about an assignment that is
not adequately answered by the syllabus (e.g. why is the reading is not available on Collab, even though it
says it should be there?). I typically answer emails on weekdays during typical working hours (9-5) and may
take up to 24 hours to respond. When emailing, please type the course name (SOC 3559) in the subject line.

Disabilities and Accommodations

If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please submit the relevant documentation to us as
soon as possible so that I can be sure your needs are met. If you need accommodations for reasons not
documented by a disability, please do not hesitate to reach out.

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ACADEMIC POLICIES

Plagiarism
(with thanks to Prof. Allison Pugh, UVA Sociology)
All written work submitted in a course, except for acknowledged quotations, is to be expressed in your own
words. It should also be constructed upon a plan of your devising. Work copied from a book, from another
student’s paper, or from any other source, is not acceptable, constitutes plagiarism, and violates the UVA
honor code. Writing in sociology is a process of synthesizing the ideas of others. When you rely on a
particular work for ideas, you must acknowledge that work through in text citations and a references list at
the end of the writing assignment. Most of the time, you will be paraphrasing these ideas, which still
requires you to cite the work. All direct quotes must be placed within quotation marks or otherwise
identified. Earl Babbie has a helpful discussion of plagiarism here:
http://www.csub.edu/ssricrem/Howto/plagiarism.htm.

Citations
Citations should conform to ASA style references and citations. A helpful guide can be found here:
https://lib.trinity.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ASA-Style-Citations-5th-ed_rev.pdf.

Due Dates
Perusal Annotations are due at 8 a.m. EST the day the class that the reading is assigned to. All graded work
not completed during class will be due by 10 p.m. EST on the day it is listed as due.

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