Hierarchy, Difference and Power: Caste and Race Across Continents

Why are contemporary human social formations characterized by inequality when democracies around the world preach the need for equality and justice? Is this a systemic issue related to "human nature," or is it something more abstract, relating to the very nature of nation-state forms of political hegemony? In order to answer these questions, this course will examine how scholars consider caste and race in South Asia and the US. As global, transnational iterations of human hierarchy, we will use caste and race as analytical frameworks to examine how inequality operates in the shadows of normative narrations of political power.