ICS 2400AC W22

Interdisciplinary Seminar:

Colonization, Racial Identity, and What it Means to be Human

Dr. Ronald A. Kuipers

Winter 2022

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Thursdays, 10AM-1PM EST

1. Course Description

The Americas have yet to work through the damaging legacy of European colonization, and the deleterious consequences of the European colonizers’ attempt to dominate or eliminate the different cultural groups with whom they came into contact. This seminar will attempt to confront this legacy by listening to some of the voices that colonizers had sought to silence. In particular, we will consider the work of prominent Black, Indigenous, and Latin American thinkers as they engage Western thought on the question of what it means to be human. The scholarly exchange between these voices and the Western tradition has resulted in an interdisciplinary array of literature that documents the diverse ways in which racialized and marginalized thinkers seek to broaden the human definition beyond the narrow confines set by the assumption of White supremacy. We will listen to these developing philosophical anthropologies as they seek to integrate specific histories of domination and oppression with alternative conceptions of what it means to be human. In doing so, we will also pay particular attention to the role that religious discourses have and continue to play in both the establishment and criticism of White supremacy. This course will provide a survey into such literature, allowing students to dialogue with texts by racialized and minority voices, and empower them to reflect on the effects of European colonization, systemic racism, and white supremacy in the philosophical tradition in which they are apprentices.

2. Course Schedule

3. Course Requirements

Total reading: 1250 pages, including both assigned reading as well as research reading for course paper. The bibliography of your paper should demonstrate that you have completed the additional amount of required reading.

Class Participation: Participation in weekly Zoom meetings as well as online asynchronous discussion in the Google Classroom.

In-seminar leadership: At least one in-class presentation; choose between presentation option A or B. Because we are meeting remotely, please create a small deck of PowerPoint slides for your presentation, to share via Zoom’s ‘share screen’ function:

Presentation A: Present a “burning question” that arises from your reading of the text, as follows: slide 1) state your question; slide 2) transcribe those portions of the text that caused your question to arise; slide 3) provide a bulleted summary of your brief, yet close, exegesis or “unpacking” of these particular texts while you give your exegesis. Do you notice anything new or interesting that you missed on your first reading?; slide 4) provide a bulleted summary of your reflection on whether and how the exegesis you performed in #3 has helped you answer your burning question, and whether or not any outstanding issues remain (or new issues have arisen); slide 5) provide further questions for group discussion. (You may create more slides, but make sure to include these 5 elements)

Presentation B: A 20-minute presentation that explores a concrete, current example of a situation or event where contrasting philosophical anthropologies play a salient role. This can be either a positive or negative example, ranging from situations of mutual learning and enlightenment to situations where different understandings of what it means to be human lead to misunderstanding, conflict, or violence. Feel free to incorporate newspaper articles, social media, and/or artistic artifacts into your presentation. Be creative!

Course paper: One course paper whose theme arises from in-class reading and discussion. Length:  Master’s: 3000-6000 words; Doctoral: 5000-7000 words.

4. Description and Weighting of Elements to be Evaluated

Class Participation (including participation in the asynchronous Google Classroom): 10%; Presentation (A or B): 35%; Research Project/Paper: 60%.

5. Required Readings

Boesak, Allan. 1984. Black and Reformed: Apartheid, Liberation, and the Calvinist Tradition. Ed. Leonard Sweetman. Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis Books.

Cordova, V. F. (Viola Faye). 2007. How It Is: The Native American Philosophy of V.F. Cordova Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Curtice, Kaitlin B. 2020. Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group. 

Deloria Jr., Vine. God Is Red: A Native View of Religion. 30th anniversary edition. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 2003.

Du Bois, W. E. D. “The Souls of White Folk.” Monthly review (New York. 1949), 2003, Vol.55 (6), p.44-58.

Dussel, Enrique D. 1985. Philosophy of Liberation. Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis Books.

Dussel, Enrique. 2009. “‘Being-in-the-World-Hispanically’: A World on the ‘Border’ Of Many Worlds.” Comparative Literature 61 (3): 256–73. https://doi.org/10.1215/00104124-2009-015.

Fanon, Frantz. 2008. Black Skin, White Masks A new edition. New York: Grove Press. 

Gutiérrez, Gustavo, Caridad. Inda, and John. Eagleson. 1973. A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

Heinrichs, Steve, ed. 2013. Buffalo Shout, Salmon Cry: Conversations on Creation, Land Justice, and Life Together Kitchener, Ontario: Herald Press.

Maracle, Lee, and Smaro Kamboureli. 2015. Memory Serves: Oratories. Edmonton, Alberta: NeWest Press.

Mbembe, Achille, and Laurent Dubois. 2017. Critique of Black Reason. Durham: Duke University Press.

Wynter, Sylvia. 2003. “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation—An Argument.” CR (East Lansing, Mich.) 3 (3): 257–337. https://doi.org/10.1353/ncr.2004.0015.

Zylstra, Bernard and Steve Biko. “An Interview with Steve Biko.” The Reformed Journal 27(12) (December 1977): 9-18.

6. Some Recommended Readings

Baldwin, James. Peter Panic London: Oberon Books Ltd, 2012.

Baldwin, James. If Beale Street Could Talk., 2013.

Baldwin, James. Blues for Mister Charlie New York: Dell, 1964.

Cole, Desmond. 2020. The Skin We’re In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power. Toronto: Doubleday Canada.

Cone, James. 2011. The Cross and the Lynching Tree. Maryknoll: Orbis.

Cone, James. 2012. God of the Oppressed. Revised edition. Maryknoll: Orbis.

Coulthard, Glen Sean. 2014. Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Davis, Angela. 1981. Women, Race and Class. New York: Random House.

DiAngelo, Robin J. 2018. White Fragility: Why It’s so Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Boston: Beacon Press.

Diverlus, Rodney, Sandy Hudson, and Syrus Marcus Ware, eds. Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada. Regina: University of Regina Press, 2020.

Douglas, Kelly Brown. 2015. Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God. Maryknoll: Orbis.

Dussel, Enrique D. 2011. Politics of Liberation: a Critical World History. London: SCM Press.

Dussel, Enrique D., Cecilia Diego, David I. Backer, and Linda Martín Alcoff. 2019. Pedagogics of Liberation: A Latin American Philosophy of Education. Santa Barbara, California]: punctum books. https://doi.org/10.21983/P3.0257.1.00.

Dussel, Enrique. 2013. Ethics of Liberation: In the Age of Globalization and Exclusion. Duke University Press.

Estes, Nick. 2019. Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance. New York: Verso.

Hahn, Thomas. “The Difference the Middle Ages Makes: Color and Race Before the Modern World,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. 31.1 (2001): 1-37.

Heng, Geraldine. 2018. The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Heinrichs, Steve, ed. 2016. Wrongs to Rights: How Churches Can Engage the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Intotemak. Special issue.

Heinrichs, Steve. 2018. Unsettling the Word: Biblical Experiments in Decolonization. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Mennonite Church Canada.

Jennings, Willie James. 2016. The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Jennings, Willie James. 2020. After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Jimenez, Michael. 2017. Remembering Lived Lives: A Historiography from the Underside of Modernity. Eugene: Cascade. *This book also briefly highlights the work of C. T. McIntyre.

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. 2013. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants. Milkweed Editions.

Kwon, Duke L. and Gregory Thompson. 2021. Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group.

Lloyd, Vincent W. 2018. Religion of the Field Negro: On Black Secularism and Black Theology. New York: Fordham University Press.

Mbembe, Achille. 2021. Out of the Dark Night: Essays on Decolonization. New York: Columbia University Press.

Mignolo, Walter. The Darker Side of Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. *Decoloniality literature covers a lot of overlapping concerns around epistemology that ICS has historically engaged.

Miller, J.R. 2000. Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens: A History of Indian-White Relations in Canada. Third Edition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 

Niezen, Ronald. 2013. Truth and Indignation: Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Segundo, Juan Luis. 1975. The Liberation of Theology. Maryknoll: Orbis. 

Tinker, George E. 1993. Missionary Conquest: The Gospel and Native American Cultural Genocide. Minneapolis: Fortress.

Tinker, George E. 2004. Spirit and Resistance: Political Theology and American Indian Liberation. Minneapolis: Fortress.

Tinker, George E. 2008. American Indian Liberation: A Theology of Sovereignty. Maryknoll: Orbis.

Tisby, Jemar. 2019. The Color of Compromise: The Truth about The American Church’s Complicity in Racism. Zondervan.

Walcott, Rinaldo. On Property: Policing, Prisons, and the Call for Abolition. Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2021. *this text situates abolition and Black struggle in Toronto, specifically.

Zakkiyah Iman Jackson. 2020, Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Anti-Black World. New York: New York University Press.

7. Other Resources:

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Beyond 94: Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform-single/beyond-94?&cta=1

Government of Canada. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1450124405592/1529106060525

Jesuit Forum for Social Faith and Justice. 2021. Listening to Indigenous Voices: A Dialogue Guide on Justice and Right Relationships. Toronto: Novalis. 

National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. TRC Website. University of Manitoba. https://nctr.ca/about/history-of-the-trc/trc-website/

Students with diverse learning styles and needs are welcome in this course. In particular, if you have a disability/health consideration that may require accommodations, please feel free to approach me and/or Student Services as soon as possible.

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