This course investigates how Western societies have comprehended humanity's physical diversity and why these understandings have changed over time. We will examine the historical processes which gradually encouraged this diversity to be read both as evidence of permanent, innate, 'racial' difference and justification for socio-political inequality, or 'racist' discrimination. The course considers the concept of 'race' within the contexts of the development of scientific knowledge regarding the natural world and the intellectual history of what it was to be human. Students will explore how these ideas shaped colonisation and chattel slavery; nationalism and empire; segregation and sexuality; eugenics and genocide.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. develop their ability to think historically. That is, they will learn how we go about comprehending the past; explaining change and continuity over time.

2. practise articulating their knowledge of the past and be able to explain how that knowledge relates to the wider historiography as well as present-day concerns.

3. acquire research experience in the history of ideas and the history of science.

4. practise tracking the development of a particular social process (in this case, the process of racialization) over time, thus learning that racial identities, and their attendant inequalities, are neither entirely natural nor inevitable.

Tutorial participation/presentation: (10% of the final grade). Presentations will be scheduled for the second half of the semester [LO 1, 2]

Book review exercise: 1000 words (20% of the final grade) [LO 1, 2]

Research proposal: 1000 words (10% of the final grade) [LO 1, 3]

Research essay: 3000 words (60% of the final grade) [LO 1, 4] As this task takes the place of a final exam it will be due in the first week of the scheduled examination period.

On-campus. Lectures streamed via DLD audio, and Web video as available. 

One two-hour lecture and one one-hour tutorial session per week. Tutorial sessions will involve group discussion but also a combination of research workshops, consultations and presentations.  Students should expect to devote a similar period of time each week to private study.

History first year courses to the value of twelve units, or with permission of the Convener.

If you believe you have met the prerequisites for this course, but are having difficulty enrolling, please contact the convenor of the course for a permission code.

A Reading Brick will be compiled and available on wattle.

Ivan Hannaford, Race:  The History of an Idea in the West (Baltimore, 1996); Nell Painter, The History of White People (New York, 2010).

Contact course convener for further details.

Recommend up-to-date browser and the following software: word-processing (for .doc, .rtf, or .pdf creation); Adobe Acrobat (reader for .pdfs); RealPlayer or iTunes (for listening to lecture audio); Quicktime or Windows MediaPlayer (for viewing lecture video).