David R. Roediger

Stephen Middleton

Donald M. Shaffer

A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, 2017 This volume collects interdisciplinary essays that examine the crucial intersection between whiteness as a privileged racial category and the various material practices (social, cultural, political, and economic) that undergird white ideological influence in America. In truth, the need to examine whiteness as a problem has rarely been grasped outside academic circles. The ubiquity of whiteness--its pervasive quality as an ideal that is at once omnipresent and invisible--makes it the very epitome of the mainstream in America. And yet the undeniable relationship between whiteness and inequality in this country necessitates a thorough interrogation of its formation, its representation, and its reproduction. Essays here seek to do just that work. Editors and contributors interrogate whiteness as a social construct, revealing the underpinnings of narratives that foster white skin as an ideal of beauty, intelligence, and power. Contributors examine whiteness from several disciplinary perspectives, including history, communication, law, sociology, and literature. Its breadth and depth makes The Construction of Whiteness a refined introduction to the critical study of race for a new generation of scholars, undergraduates, and graduate students. Moreover, the interdisciplinary approach of the collection will appeal to scholars in African and African American studies, ethnic studies, cultural studies, legal studies, and more. This collection delivers an important contribution to the field of whiteness studies in its multifaceted impact on American history and culture.

An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Race Formation and the Meaning of a White Identity

The Construction of Whiteness

Pompeii, a didactic poem: to which are annexed, poems on the Niobe, and the Temple of Theseus

This book brings together the Black Laws of the Old Northwest (now the states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin) for the first time, thereby providing a documentary history of racial discrimination in this free territory. The documents in the volume include statutes, legislative reports and resolutions, and petitions and memorials produced by the state legislatures, government agencies, or concerned citizens. After a brief prologue, the documents are organized by state. Within each state they are placed in sets of documents of specific topics such as immigration laws, welfare and public education laws, and jury and testimony laws.

Stephen Middleton

About

Books

Join the club