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FYS475

Theorizing the Ku Klux Klan: The White Power Movement and the Making of "America"

Subject code

FYS

Course Number

475

Department(s)

Instructor(s)

C. Petrella

Course Long Title

Theorizing the Ku Klux Klan: The White Power Movement and the Making of "America"

Description

This multidisciplinary course explores the origins and iterations of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in the United States from 1866 to the present. In so doing, the course makes larger claims about the core relationship between the white power movement and the making of "America." Drawing on the concepts, paradigms, and intellectual traditions of American cultural studies and Black studies, students consider the shifting narratives, contested ideologies, and the regional and temporal convergences and divergences of the KKK from its violent founding to our contemporary moment. Students learn how to theorize the KKK through frameworks that prioritize the concepts of racialization, patriarchy, cultural hegemony, resistance, citizenship, and counterrevolution.

Modes of Inquiry

Analysis and Critique [AC], Historical and Social Inquiry [HS]

Writing Credit

W1

INDS Program Relationship

IDAM - AMST Program