Topics in Literary and Cultural Theory: Critical Race Theory and German Thought

In revisiting key junctures of German intellectual history in the light of critical race theory, this seminar has five goals: 1) to examine concepts of race in classical German thought (Kant, Herder, Hegel) and question their premises; 2) to study pseudo-scientific discourses on race in German colonialism and totalitarianism; 3) to engage with recent debates on the singularity of the Shoah vs. comparative genocide studies; 4) to read literary texts with an eye to symptomatic racializations; and 5) to explore how texts in contemporary Black studies engage with and critically transform German thought.