Whiteness studies
Encyclopedia
Whiteness studies is an interdisciplinary arena of academic inquiry focused on the cultural, historical and sociological aspects of people identified as white
, and the social construction of whiteness as an ideology tied to social status. Pioneers in the field include Ruth Frankenberg (White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness, 1993), author and literary critic Toni Morrison
(Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, 1992) and historian David Roediger
(The Wages of Whiteness, 1991). By the mid-1990s, numerous works across many disciplines analyzed whiteness, and whiteness has since become a topic for academic courses, research and anthologies.
A central tenet of whiteness studies is a reading of history and its effects on the present, inspired by postmodernism
and historicism
, in which the very concept of racial superiority
is said to have been socially constructed in order to justify discrimination against non-whites. Since the 19th century, critics of the concept of race have questioned if human races even exist and pointed out that arbitrary categories based on phenotypical
characteristics are chosen, and that the idea of race is not about important differences within the human species.
Major areas of research include the nature of white identity and of white privilege, the historical process by which a white racial identity was created, the relation of culture to white identity, and possible processes of social change as they affect white identity. Many scientists have demonstrated that racial theories are based upon an arbitrary clustering of phenotypical categories and customs
, and can overlook the problem of gradations between categories. A reflexive understanding of such presumptions also informs work within the field of whiteness studies.
and the UK, as early as 1983. The "canon wars" of the late 1980s and 1990s, a political controversy over the centrality of white authors and perspectives, led scholars to ask "how the imaginative construction of 'whiteness' had shaped American literature and American history." The field developed a large body of work during the early 1990s, extending across the disciplines of "literary criticism, history, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, popular culture, communication studies, music history, art history, dance history, humor studies, philosophy, linguistics, and folklore."
As of 2004, according to The Washington Post
, at least 30 institutions in the United States
including Princeton University
, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of New Mexico
and University of Massachusetts Amherst
offer, or have offered, courses in whiteness studies. Teaching and research around whiteness often overlap with research on post-colonial theory and orientalism
taking place in the Arts and Humanities, Sociology, Literature, Communications, Cultural and Media and Studies faculties and departments, amongst others (e.g. Kent, Leeds). Also heavily engaged in whiteness studies are practitioners of anti-racist education
, such as Betita Martinez and the Challenging White Supremacy workshop.
have traced the evolution of the legally defined line between "blacks" and "whites" to colonial government efforts to prevent cross-racial revolts among unpaid laborers.
Macquarie University
academic Joseph Pugliese is among writers who have applied whiteness studies to an Australia
n context, discussing the ways that Indigenous Australians
were marginalized in the wake of British colonization of Australia, as whiteness came to be defined as central to Australian identity. Pugliese discusses the 20th century White Australia policy
as a conscious attempt to preserve the "purity" of whiteness in Australian society.
say that there are social, political, and cultural advantages accorded to whites in global society. She argues that these advantages seem invisible to white people, but obvious to non-whites. For instance, "I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege
. So I have begun in an untouched way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was 'meant' to remain oblivious" (188). McIntosh calls for Americans to acknowledge white privilege so that they can more effectively attain equality
in American society. She argues, "To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political tool here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance by making these taboo
subjects" (192).
, theorists of Critical Whiteness Studies seek to examine the construction and moral implications of whiteness. Currently, there is a great deal of overlap between Critical Whiteness Studies and Critical Race Theory as demonstrated by focus on the legal and historical construction of white identity, the use of narratives (whether legal discourse, testimony or fiction) as a tool for exposing systems of racial power. There is a frequent misunderstanding whereby Critical Whiteness Studies is subsumed within Critical Race Theory even though the latter preceded the former by more than half a century. Some trace the origins of Critical Whiteness Studies to W.E.B. DuBois' "The Souls of White Folk" chapter in "Darkwater", and fields such as History and Cultural Studies are primarily responsible for the formative scholarship of Critical Whiteness Studies.
In Race Traitor, the editors cite as the basis for their proposed actions a call by African American
writers and activists—notably W. E. B. Du Bois and James Baldwin
--for whites to break solidarity with American racism
. Since that racism involves the awarding of various forms of white privilege, some have even argued that every white identity is drawn into that system of privilege. Only identities which seek to transcend or defy that privilege, they argue, are effectively anti-racist. This essential argument echoes Baldwin's declaration that, "As long as you think you are white, there's no hope for you," in an essay in which he acknowledges a variety of European cultures, a multiracial American culture, but no white culture per se which can be distinguished from the maintenance of racism.
Race Traitor advocates have sought examples of race treason by whites in American history. One historical figure consistently valorized by Race Traitor (a publication favorable to the tenets of whiteness studies) is John Brown
, a Northern abolitionist of European descent who battled slavery in western territories of the United States and led a failed but dramatic raid to free slaves and create an armed anti-slavery force at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
.
Visions of praxis cited by Race Traitor writers range from anti-racist unionism (such as DRUM
in Detroit), collaboration in urban uprisings, and documenting and interfering with police abuse of people of color. Joel Olson has written about a theoretical vision in his book The Abolition of White Democracy.
draws a distinction between whiteness studies and other disciplines. "Black studies celebrates blackness, Chicano studies celebrates Chicanos, women's studies celebrates women, and white studies attacks white people as evil."
Barbara Kay
, a columnist for the National Post
, has sharply criticized Whiteness Studies. She wrote that Whiteness Studies "points to a new low in moral vacuity and civilizational self-loathing" and is an example of "academic pusillanimity." According to Kay, Whiteness Studies "cuts to the chase: It is all, and only, about white self-hate."
Regarding the Center for the Study of White American Culture (CSWAC), a think tank for Whiteness Studies, Kay noted that CSWAC co-founder and executive director Jeff Hitchcock has stated that: "There is no crime that whiteness has not committed against people of colour... We must blame whiteness for the continuing patterns today... which damage and prevent the humanity of those of us within it."
Kay also wrote that:
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
, and the social construction of whiteness as an ideology tied to social status. Pioneers in the field include Ruth Frankenberg (White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness, 1993), author and literary critic Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved...
(Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, 1992) and historian David Roediger
David Roediger
David R. Roediger is a well-established professor of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . His research interests include the construction of racial identity, class structures, labor studies, and the history of American radicalism...
(The Wages of Whiteness, 1991). By the mid-1990s, numerous works across many disciplines analyzed whiteness, and whiteness has since become a topic for academic courses, research and anthologies.
A central tenet of whiteness studies is a reading of history and its effects on the present, inspired by postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
and historicism
Historicism
Historicism is a mode of thinking that assigns a central and basic significance to a specific context, such as historical period, geographical place and local culture. As such it is in contrast to individualist theories of knowledges such as empiricism and rationalism, which neglect the role of...
, in which the very concept of racial superiority
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
is said to have been socially constructed in order to justify discrimination against non-whites. Since the 19th century, critics of the concept of race have questioned if human races even exist and pointed out that arbitrary categories based on phenotypical
Phenotype
A phenotype is an organism's observable characteristics or traits: such as its morphology, development, biochemical or physiological properties, behavior, and products of behavior...
characteristics are chosen, and that the idea of race is not about important differences within the human species.
Major areas of research include the nature of white identity and of white privilege, the historical process by which a white racial identity was created, the relation of culture to white identity, and possible processes of social change as they affect white identity. Many scientists have demonstrated that racial theories are based upon an arbitrary clustering of phenotypical categories and customs
Customs
Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting and safeguarding customs duties and for controlling the flow of goods including animals, transports, personal effects and hazardous items in and out of a country...
, and can overlook the problem of gradations between categories. A reflexive understanding of such presumptions also informs work within the field of whiteness studies.
Development of the field
Whiteness emerged as a focus of inquiry within the academy, primarily in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the UK, as early as 1983. The "canon wars" of the late 1980s and 1990s, a political controversy over the centrality of white authors and perspectives, led scholars to ask "how the imaginative construction of 'whiteness' had shaped American literature and American history." The field developed a large body of work during the early 1990s, extending across the disciplines of "literary criticism, history, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, popular culture, communication studies, music history, art history, dance history, humor studies, philosophy, linguistics, and folklore."
As of 2004, according to The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, at least 30 institutions in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
including Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of New Mexico
University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is a public research university located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. It is the state's flagship research institution...
and University of Massachusetts Amherst
University of Massachusetts Amherst
The University of Massachusetts Amherst is a public research and land-grant university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States and the flagship of the University of Massachusetts system...
offer, or have offered, courses in whiteness studies. Teaching and research around whiteness often overlap with research on post-colonial theory and orientalism
Orientalism
Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...
taking place in the Arts and Humanities, Sociology, Literature, Communications, Cultural and Media and Studies faculties and departments, amongst others (e.g. Kent, Leeds). Also heavily engaged in whiteness studies are practitioners of anti-racist education
Anti-racism
Anti-racism includes beliefs, actions, movements, and policies adopted or developed to oppose racism. In general, anti-racism is intended to promote an egalitarian society in which people do not face discrimination on the basis of their race, however defined...
, such as Betita Martinez and the Challenging White Supremacy workshop.
History of whiteness
Whiteness studies draws on research over the last forty years into the definition of race, almost entirely within the American context (though see Bonnett, A. 2000 White Identities). This research emphasizes the social construction of white, Native, and black identities in interaction with the institutions of slavery, colonial settlement, citizenship, and industrial labor. Scholars such as Winthrop JordanWinthrop Jordan
Winthrop Donaldson Jordan was a professor of history and renowned writer on the history of slavery and the origins of racism in the United States....
have traced the evolution of the legally defined line between "blacks" and "whites" to colonial government efforts to prevent cross-racial revolts among unpaid laborers.
Macquarie University
Macquarie University
Macquarie University is an Australian public teaching and research university located in Sydney, with its main campus situated in Macquarie Park. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the metropolitan area of Sydney...
academic Joseph Pugliese is among writers who have applied whiteness studies to an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n context, discussing the ways that Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
were marginalized in the wake of British colonization of Australia, as whiteness came to be defined as central to Australian identity. Pugliese discusses the 20th century White Australia policy
White Australia policy
The White Australia policy comprises various historical policies that intentionally restricted "non-white" immigration to Australia. From origins at Federation in 1901, the polices were progressively dismantled between 1949-1973....
as a conscious attempt to preserve the "purity" of whiteness in Australian society.
White privilege
Writers such as Peggy McIntoshPeggy McIntosh
Peggy McIntosh is an American feminist and anti-racist activist, the associate director of the Wellesley Centers for Women, and a speaker and the founder and co-director of the National S.E.E.D...
say that there are social, political, and cultural advantages accorded to whites in global society. She argues that these advantages seem invisible to white people, but obvious to non-whites. For instance, "I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege
Male privilege
Male privilege is a sociological term that refers quite generally to the special rights or status granted to men in a society, on the basis of their sex or gender, but usually denied to women and/or transsexuals....
. So I have begun in an untouched way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was 'meant' to remain oblivious" (188). McIntosh calls for Americans to acknowledge white privilege so that they can more effectively attain equality
Social equality
Social equality is a social state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in a certain respect. At the very least, social equality includes equal rights under the law, such as security, voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, and the...
in American society. She argues, "To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political tool here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance by making these taboo
Taboo
A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...
subjects" (192).
Critical White Studies
An offshoot of Critical Race TheoryCritical race theory
Critical Race Theory is an academic discipline focused upon the intersection of race, law and power.Although no set of canonical doctrines or methodologies defines CRT, the movement is loosely unified by two common areas of inquiry...
, theorists of Critical Whiteness Studies seek to examine the construction and moral implications of whiteness. Currently, there is a great deal of overlap between Critical Whiteness Studies and Critical Race Theory as demonstrated by focus on the legal and historical construction of white identity, the use of narratives (whether legal discourse, testimony or fiction) as a tool for exposing systems of racial power. There is a frequent misunderstanding whereby Critical Whiteness Studies is subsumed within Critical Race Theory even though the latter preceded the former by more than half a century. Some trace the origins of Critical Whiteness Studies to W.E.B. DuBois' "The Souls of White Folk" chapter in "Darkwater", and fields such as History and Cultural Studies are primarily responsible for the formative scholarship of Critical Whiteness Studies.
Race Traitor
One group of people involved in these discussions advocates a strategy they call race treason, and are grouped around articles appearing in the journal Race Traitor. The adherents' main argument is that whiteness (as a marker of a social status within the United States) is conferred upon people in exchange for an expectation of loyalty to what they consider an oppressive social order. This loyalty has taken a variety of forms over time: suppression of slave rebellions, participation in patrols for runaways, maintenance of race exclusionary unions, participation in riots, support for racist violence, and participation in acts of violence during the conquest of western North America. Like currency, the value of this privilege (for the powerful) depends on the reliability of "white skin" (or as physical anthropologists would deem this construct, the phenotype of historical North Atlantic Europeans) as a marker for social consent. With sufficient "counterfeit whites" resisting racism and capitalism, the writers in this tradition argue, the privilege will be withdrawn or will splinter, prompting an era of conflict and social redefinition. Without such a period, they argue, progress towards social justice is impossible, and thus "treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity."In Race Traitor, the editors cite as the basis for their proposed actions a call by African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
writers and activists—notably W. E. B. Du Bois and James Baldwin
James Baldwin (writer)
James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.Baldwin's essays, for instance "Notes of a Native Son" , explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th century America,...
--for whites to break solidarity with American racism
Racism in the United States
Racism in the United States has been a major issue since the colonial era and the slave era. Legally sanctioned racism imposed a heavy burden on Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latin Americans...
. Since that racism involves the awarding of various forms of white privilege, some have even argued that every white identity is drawn into that system of privilege. Only identities which seek to transcend or defy that privilege, they argue, are effectively anti-racist. This essential argument echoes Baldwin's declaration that, "As long as you think you are white, there's no hope for you," in an essay in which he acknowledges a variety of European cultures, a multiracial American culture, but no white culture per se which can be distinguished from the maintenance of racism.
Race Traitor advocates have sought examples of race treason by whites in American history. One historical figure consistently valorized by Race Traitor (a publication favorable to the tenets of whiteness studies) is John Brown
John Brown (abolitionist)
John Brown was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed, in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas, and made his name in the...
, a Northern abolitionist of European descent who battled slavery in western territories of the United States and led a failed but dramatic raid to free slaves and create an armed anti-slavery force at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
.
Visions of praxis cited by Race Traitor writers range from anti-racist unionism (such as DRUM
Drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...
in Detroit), collaboration in urban uprisings, and documenting and interfering with police abuse of people of color. Joel Olson has written about a theoretical vision in his book The Abolition of White Democracy.
Criticisms
Writer David HorowitzDavid Horowitz
David Joel Horowitz is an American conservative writer and policy advocate. Horowitz was raised by parents who were both members of the American Communist Party. Between 1956 and 1975, Horowitz was an outspoken adherent of the New Left before rejecting Marxism completely...
draws a distinction between whiteness studies and other disciplines. "Black studies celebrates blackness, Chicano studies celebrates Chicanos, women's studies celebrates women, and white studies attacks white people as evil."
Barbara Kay
Barbara Kay
Barbara Kay is a columnist with the National Post.Kay is a graduate of the University of Toronto where she earned an undergraduate degree in English literature...
, a columnist for the National Post
National Post
The National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...
, has sharply criticized Whiteness Studies. She wrote that Whiteness Studies "points to a new low in moral vacuity and civilizational self-loathing" and is an example of "academic pusillanimity." According to Kay, Whiteness Studies "cuts to the chase: It is all, and only, about white self-hate."
Regarding the Center for the Study of White American Culture (CSWAC), a think tank for Whiteness Studies, Kay noted that CSWAC co-founder and executive director Jeff Hitchcock has stated that: "There is no crime that whiteness has not committed against people of colour... We must blame whiteness for the continuing patterns today... which damage and prevent the humanity of those of us within it."
Kay also wrote that:
[Whiteness Studies] teaches that if you are white, you are branded, literally in the flesh, with evidence of a kind of original sin. You can try to mitigate your evilness, but you can't eradicate it. The goal of WS(Whitness Studies) is to entrench permanent race consciousness in everyone -- eternal victimhood for nonwhites, eternal guilt for whites -- and was most famously framed by WS chief guru, Noel IgnatievNoel IgnatievNoel Ignatiev is an American history professor at the Massachusetts College of Art best known for his call to "abolish" the white race, which he defines as "white privilege and race identity." Ignatiev is the co-founder and co-editor of the journal Race Traitor and the New Abolitionist Society...
, former professor at Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
[sic, Ignatiev was a Ph.D. student and then a tutor at Harvard, but never a professor], now teaching at the Massachusetts College of ArtMassachusetts College of ArtMassachusetts College of Art and Design is a publicly-funded college of visual and applied art, founded in 1873. It is one of the oldest art schools, the only publicly-funded free-standing art school in the United States, and was the first art college in the United States to grant an artistic degree...
: "The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race -- in other words, to abolish the privileges of the white skin."
Whiteness and architecture
It is only recently that architectural historians have devoted sustained attention to the construction of whiteness in the built environment. Studies have grappled with the exclusionary nature of the architectural profession, which erected barriers for nonwhite practitioners, the ways in which architects and designers have employed motifs, art programs, and color schemes that reflected the aspirations of European-Americans and, most recently, with the racialization of space.See also
- Social interpretations of raceSocial interpretations of raceSocial interpretations of race regard the common categorizations of people into different races, often with biologist tagging of particular "racial" attributes beyond mere anatomy, as more socially and culturally determined than based upon biology...
- Historical definitions of race
- CastaCastaCasta is a Portuguese and Spanish term used in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries mainly in Spanish America to describe as a whole the mixed-race people which appeared in the post-Conquest period...
- Anti-racist mathematicsAnti-racist mathematicsAnti-racist mathematics is a branch of education reform theory that sees a need to form a curriculum to counter a perceived bias in mathematics...
- Anti-racismAnti-racismAnti-racism includes beliefs, actions, movements, and policies adopted or developed to oppose racism. In general, anti-racism is intended to promote an egalitarian society in which people do not face discrimination on the basis of their race, however defined...
- Identity politicsIdentity politicsIdentity politics are political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of self-identified social interest groups and ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through race, class, religion, sexual orientation or traditional dominance...
- PostmodernismPostmodernismPostmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
- Race, for a discussion of the biological concept of race and its applicability to the human population
- Social criticismSocial criticismThe term social criticism locates the reasons for malicious conditions of the society in flawed social structures. People adhering to a social critics aim at practical solutions by specific measures, often consensual reform but sometimes also by powerful revolution.- European roots :Religious...
- White (people)
- White privilege
- White trashWhite trashWhite trash is an American English pejorative term referring to poor white people in the United States, suggesting lower social class and degraded living standards...
Further reading
- Allen, Theodore W. (1994), The Invention of the White Race: Volume One; Racial Oppression and Social Control, New York and London, Verso.
- Anderson, W. (2002) The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health and Racial Destiny in Australia, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press
- Arnesen, E (2001), "Whiteness and the Historian's Imagination," International Labor and Working-Class History 60: 3-32
- Berger, Maurice (1999), "White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness", New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Bonnett, Alastair (2000) White Identities: Historical and International Perspectives Harlow, Prentice Hall
- Brander Rasmussen, B., Klinenberg, E., Nexica, I. and Wray, M. (Eds)(2001) The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness, London: Duke University Press
- Bush, Melanie E L (2011) Everyday Forms of Whiteness: Understanding Race in a "Post-Racial" World. (2004) Breaking the Code of Good Intentions: Everyday Forms of Whiteness. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
- Carby, Hazel (1982), 'White Women Listen! Black Feminism and the Boundaries of Sisterhood', in Heidi Safia Mirza (ed.), Black British Feminism: A Reader, London and New York, Routledge.
- Connor, Rachel and Crofts, Charlotte (1998), 'Assuming White Identities: Racial and Gendered Looking Across the Literature / Media Divide', in Heloise Brown, Madi Gilkes, Ann Kaloski-Naylor (eds), White?Women, York: Raw Nerve Books.
- Davy, Kate (1997), 'Outing Whiteness: A Feminist Lesbian Project', in Mike Hill (ed.), Whiteness: A Critical Reader, New York and London, New York University Press.
- Donaldson, Laura E. (1992), Decolonizing Feminisms: Race, Gender and Empire, London, Routledge.
- Dyer, RichardRichard DyerRichard W. Dyer is an English academic specialising in cinema. As of 2006 he is Professor of Film Studies at King's College London. Previously he was at the University of Warwick...
(1997), White, London, Routledge. - Gaines, Jane (1986), 'White Privilege and Looking Relations: Race and Gender in Feminist Film Theory', Cultural Critique, 4, 59-79.
- Garner, Steve. (2007), Whiteness: An Introduction, London: Routledge
- Hage, GGhassan HageGhassan Hage is a Lebanese-Australian academic serving as Future Generation Professor of Anthropology and Social Theory at the University of Melbourne. Professor Hage has been a very high-profile contributor to debates on multiculturalism in Australia and has published widely on the topic...
(1997) White Nation: fantasies of White supremacy in a multicultural society, Annandale, NSW: Pluto Press - Hale, Grace Elizabeth. (1999), Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South 1890-1940. New York, Vintage Books.
- Harris, Cheryl L. (1993). Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review, Vol. 106, No. 8, 1710-1791.
- Hill, Mike. (2004) After Whiteness: Unmaking an American Majority. New York: NYU Press.
- Hill, Mike. (1997) Whiteness: A Critical Reader. New York: NYU Press.
- Hund, Wulf D., Jeremy Krikler, David Roediger (eds.) (2010), Wages of Whiteness & Racist Symbolic Capital. Berlin: Lit.
- Kaplan, E. Ann (1997), Looking For the Other: Feminism, Film and the Imperial Gaze, New York and London, Routledge.
- Keating, AnnLouise. (1995) 'Interrogating "Whiteness," (De)Constructing "Race," College English, Vol. 57, No. 8 (Dec.), 901-918.
- Kolchin, P. (2002) "Whiteness Studies: The New History of Race in America," Journal of American History 89, 154-73.
- Lipsitz, George (2006) "The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics", Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
- Lokko, L.N.N.Lesley LokkoLesley Naa Norle Lokko is a Ghanaian-born architect, academic, and novelist.-Early life and education:Lesley Lokko is the daughter of a Ghanaian surgeon and a Scottish mother. She grew up in Ghana and the United Kingdom. Lokko began studying Hebrew and Arabic at Oxford, but left the program to go...
(Ed)(2000) White Papers, Black Marks: Architecture, Race, Culture, London: Athlone - Lott, Eric (1997), 'The Whiteness of Film Noir', in Mike Hill (ed.), Whiteness: A Critical Reader (1997), New York and London, New York University Press, 81-101
- MacMullan, Terrance (2009), The Habits of Whiteness: A Pragmatist Reconstruction. Bloomington, Indiana University Press.
- McIntosh, Peggy (2004), "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" Race, Class, and Gender in the United States, ed. Paula S. Rothenberg, Sixth Edition. NY: Worth Publishers, 188-192.
- Moreton-Robinson, A. (Ed)(2004) Whitening Race: Essays in social and cultural criticism, Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press
- Nishikawa, Kinohi (2005), "White," The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature, ed. Hans Ostrom and J. David Macey, Jr. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1725-26.
- Preston,John (2007), 'Whiteness and Class in Education', Dordrecht, Springer.
- Roediger, David R. (1991), The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class, New York and London, Verso.
- Sashedri-Crooks, K. (2000) Desiring Whiteness: A Lacanian Analysis of Race, London: Routledge
- Shohat, Ella (1991), 'Gender and the Culture of Empire: Towards a Feminist Ethnography of the Cinema', Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 13 (1-2): 45-84.
- Smitheram, J. and Woodcock, I. (2007) Architecture, Whiteness and Terror Politics, in Loo, S. and Bartsch, K. (Eds) Panorama to Paradise: Scopic Regimes in Architecture and Urban Theory, Proceedings of the 24th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZSAHANZSAHANZ was founded in South Australia in 1984. It is a scholarly society for the advancement of research into the history of architecture, with a focus on New Zealand, Australia and the South Pacific...
), Adelaide: University of SA (CD Rom publication) - Tatum, Beverly Daniel (2004), "Defining Racism: "Can We Talk?" Race, Class, and Gender in the United States, ed. Paula S. Rothenberg, Sixth Edition. NY: Worth Publishers, 124-131.
- Tullos, Allen (1989) Habits of Industry: White Culture and the Transformation of the Carolina Piedmont, Chapel Hill and London, University of North Carolina Press.
- Woodcock, I (2005) 'Multicultural Melbourne': Four Fantasies of Whitespace, in Long, C., Shaw, K.Kate ShawDr. Kate Shaw is an Australian academic, planning activist and commentator, currently serving as a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Dr. Shaw is notable for her work in connection with the protection of local cultural diversity and alternative sub-cultures. Dr...
and Merlo, C. (Eds) Suburban Fantasies: Melbourne Unmasked, Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, pp. 84–106 - Young, Robert. (1990) White Mythologies: Writing History and the West. London: Routledge.
External links
- Frederick Douglass and the White Negro (2008) - documentary on the African-American / Irish relationship
- Whiteness Studies: Deconstructing (the) Race
- Abolish the White Race, Harvard Magazine
- Hue and Cry on "Whiteness Studies"
- Towards a Bibliography of Critical Whiteness Studies
- Annual Whiteness Studies Conference
- Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association
- European-American Collaborative Challenging Whiteness