ENGLISH 183CNS · also GERMAN 183CNS, LIT 183CNS
A History of Diversity: Race, Language, Culture
Stefani Engelstein
Description from DukeHub
Starting in the late 18th century, Europeans and Americans created two competing and yet interrelated human classification systems: race and language family (i.e. Aryan and Semitic). These systems imposed both hierarchical order and violence on the world. This seminar reads early works of race theory and language classification, as well as fiction that explores, underwrites, and/or questions these categories. We will ask: What were the motivations for human classifications? What assumptions did they rest on? Are the boundaries between groups fixed? When is a system scientific? True? How does the idea of 'family' on this global scale influence ethics? Authors include: Kant, Goethe, 'Oriental' Jones, Wagner, Louis Agassiz, Du Bois, Thomas Mann, Kafka, and Nella Larsen. In English.
Skills
- writingdepartment: ENGLISH
AI-resilient: 2 of 5
- No: Physical, lab or field work
- No: Live work with people
- Yes: Judgment someone is accountable for · "ethics"
- No: A craft you practice with your hands or body
- Yes: Small, in-person format · seminar, 18 seats per section
The checks lean on Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025), which found generative AI applies least to physical work and hands-on work with people. A signal, not a promise. How the score works
More in ENGLISH
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- Migration Narratives ENGLISH 101S-01
- Introduction to Narrative ENGLISH 101S-02
- Literature and Sound ENGLISH 101S-03
- Introduction to Creative Writing ENGLISH 110S
- Recognition and Enchantment: The Odyssey and Its After Lives ENGLISH 150CC