Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader provides an overview of historical and contemporary debates in this vital and ever-evolving field of scholarship and research. Combining contributions from seminal thinkers, leading scholars and emergent voices, this reader provides a critical reflection on key trends and developments in the field.
The contributions to this reader provide an overview of key areas of scholarship and research on questions of race and racism. It provides a novel perspective by bringing together readings on the key theoretical and historical processes in this area, the development of diverse theoretical viewpoints, the analysis of antisemitism, the role of colonialism and postcolonialism, feminist perspectives on race and the articulation of new accounts of the contemporary conjuncture. The contributions to this reader include classic works by the likes of W.E.B. DuBois, Stuart Hall and Frantz Fanon as well as timely pieces by contemporary scholars including Orlando Patterson, Patricia Hill Collins and Paul Gilroy.
By bringing together a broad range of diverse accounts, Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader engages with various key areas of interest and is an invaluable guide for students and instructors seeking to explore issues of race and racism.
Part One: Origins and Transformations
Introduction
1. Winthrop D. Jordan First Impressions
2. Robert Bernasconi Who Invented the Concept of Race?
3. W. E. B. Du Bois The Conservation of Races
4. Orlando Patterson The Denial of Slavery in Contemporary American Sociology
5. Satnam Virdee Racialized Capitalism
6. Zine Magubane American Sociology’s Racial Ontology
7. Jacqueline Nassy Brown Black Liverpool, Black America, and the Gendering of Diasporic Space
8. Catherine Hall Doing Reparatory History
Part Two: Sociology, Race and Social Theory
Introduction
9. Robert Park The Nature of Race Relations
10. E. Franklin Frazier Sociological Theory and Race Relations
11. Jose Itzigsohn and Karida Brown Sociology and the Theory of Double Consciousness
12. Aldon D. Morris W. E. B. Du Bois at the Center
13. Gurminder K. Bhambra Race, Segregation and U.S. Sociology
14. Stuart Hall Old and New Identities, Old and New Ethnicities
15. Brett St Louis On the Necessity and the ‘Impossibility’ of Identities
16. Salman Sayyid Post-racial Paradoxes
17. Graziella Moraes Silva Folk Conceptualizations of Racism and Antiracism in Brazil and South Africa
18. Wendy D. Roth The Multiple Dimensions of Race
19. Ann Morning Kaleidoscope: Contested Identities and New Forms of Race Membership
20. Elijah Anderson The White Space
21. Claire Alexander Breaking Black
Part Three: Racism and Antisemitism
Introduction
22. George L. Mosse The Jews: Myth and Counter-Myth
23. Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer Elements of Anti-Semitism
24. Dan Stone Not a Race but Only a People after All
25. Glynis Cousin and Robert Fine Reconnecting the Study of Racism and Antisemitism
26. Nasar Meer and Tehseen Noorani A Sociological Comparison of Anti-Semitism and Anti-Muslim Sentiment in Britain
27. Jonathan Judaken Rethinking the New Antisemitism in a Global Age
28. Brian Klug Interrogating New Anti-Semitism
29. Tony Kushner Anti-Semitism in Britain
30. Elli Tikvah Sarah When Anti-Zionism Becomes Anti-Semitism and Zionism Becomes Anti-Palestinian
Part Four: Colonialism, Race and the Other
Introduction
31. Frantz Fanon The Fact of Blackness
32. Gary Wilder Race, Reason, Impasse
33. Cynthia R. Nielsen Frantz Fanon and the Négritude Movement
34. Mahmood Mamdani Settler Colonialism
35. George Steinmetz Explaining the Colonial State and Colonial Sociology
36. Robbie Shilliam Ethiopianism, Englishness, Britishness
37. Julian Go Postcolonial Possibilities for the Sociology of Race
Part Five: Feminism, Difference, and Identity
Introduction
38. Patricia Hill Collins Black Feminist Thought
39. Sumi Cho, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw and Leslie McCall Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies
40. Ochy Curiel Rethinking Radical Anti-Racist Feminist Politics
41. Heidi Safia Mirza and Yasmin Gunaratnam Reflections on Black British Feminism
42. Sara Ahmed Women of Colour as Diversity Workers
43. Keisha-Khan Y. Perry Geographies of Power: Black Women Mobilizing Intersectionality in Brazil
44. Nadia Brown Political Participation of Women of Color
45. Sara Salem Intersectionality and its Discontents
Part Six: Changing Boundaries and Spaces
Introduction
46. Paul Gilroy The Dialectics of Diasporic Identification
47. Michael G. Hanchard Black Transnationalism, Africana Studies, and the 21st Century
48. Juliet Hooker Black Protest/White Grievance
49. Minkah Makalani Black Lives Matter and the Limits of Formal Black Politics
50. Alondra Nelson The Social Life of DNA
51. Sibille Merz and Ros Williams Valuing Racialised Bodies in the Neoliberal Bioeconomy
52. Étienne Balibar Reinventing the Stranger
53. Jean Beaman Are French People White?
54. Michelle Christian, Louise Seamster and Victor Ray New Directions in Critical Race Theory and Sociology
55. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva What Makes Systemic Racism Systemic?
Biography
Les Back is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for Urban and Community Research (CUCR) at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. He has researched and written on urban culture, ethnicity, migration, cultural politics, music and higher education. His most recent books include Migrant City (co-authored with Shamser Sinha, Routledge, 2018) and Academic Diary: Or Why Higher Education Still Matters (Goldsmiths Press, 2016). He writes journalism, has made documentary films and currently presents a podcast series on contemporary city life called Streetsigns for CUCR in London.
John Solomos is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, UK. He has researched and written widely on the history and contemporary forms of race and ethnic relations in Britain, theories of race and racism, the politics of race, equal opportunity policies, multiculturalism and social policy, race and football and racist movements and ideas. His most recent books are Race, Ethnicity and Social Theory (Routledge, 2022) and Race and Racism in Britain 4th Edition (2022). His most recent edited books are An Introduction to Sociology (co-edited with Karim Murji and Sarah Neal, SAGE, 2022) and Routledge International Handbook of Contemporary Racisms (Routledge, 2020). He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Ethnic and Racial Studies journal, co-editor of the Racism, Resistance and Social Change book series (Manchester University Press) and General Editor of the online The Routledge Encyclopaedia of Race and Racism series.
‘In the new edition of this vital resource, we are afforded a comprehensive review and reflection of the continued global role and influence of race and racism. As with earlier editions, Theories of Race and Racism's 3rd Edition will be an indispensable text for instructors and students alike in classrooms across the world’.
Marcus Anthony Hunter, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
‘This is an impressive collection of essays, ranging from the classics to the contemporary cutting edge. The extensively updated third edition of this essential collection again shows the editors’ commitment to providing the scholarly community with a historically rooted, in-depth overview of critical writings on race and racism. The result is a key volume on the theorization of race and racism, sophisticated and inventive in its conceptualization, and deeply attuned to the genealogies that we build on in our work on race and racism. Perhaps even more importantly, it is forward-looking, providing readers not only with an overview of historical developments, but also with incisive readings that focus on contemporary concerns in the field and suggest directions for new work. The lucid introduction lays out the stakes of theorizing race and racism in the current moment, while the readings gathered in the volume present multiple theoretical starting points rather than an argument that ‘one theory fits all’. As a result, the volume provides readers with a critical in-depth starting point for thinking about, conducting research on, and working towards social justice regarding race and racism’.
Anna Korteweg, Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto, Canada
‘In the field of race and racism, heated conflicts and controversies have recently often replaced respectful theoretical discussions and debates. This third edition of Theories and Race and Racism offers an incredible collection of papers, which could serve as a reference to restore the much needed open and informed theoretical discussions and debates about the very complicated issues related to race and racism today. A must read for open minded students, scholars, and activists’
Marco Martiniello, Director of CEDEM (Center for Ethnic and Migration Studies), University of Liège, Belgium
‘Theories of Race and Racism brings forth the best in classic and contemporary thinking on the concept of race and the phenomenon of racism in modern life. This third edition captures the evolution in social thought on these matters, including contributions that address the centrality of feminism as a focal point in modern thinking about them, and considerations of spatial dynamics as they affect modern conditions of race and racism. This volume continues to serve as essential reading for students, scholars, and others who are curious about why and how these two critical dimensions of life have endured’.
Alford A. Young Jr., Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan, USA
