Postgraduate Course: The Ethnologists: The Racial Origins of Gender and the Feminine MSc (PHIL11260)
Course Outline
| School | School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course investigates fundamental philosophical questions raised by racial scientists from the mid-19th to the early 20th century concerning the relationships between Blackness, manhood, womanhood and European superiority. |
| Course description |
This class will trace the actual historical construction of gender from the 19th century to the early-20th century with the rise of ethnological accounts of masculinity and savagery. Beginning with the development of the concept of gender in the annals of ethnology, this course will trace the construction of the vulnerable white woman to the alien male, and explore how these ideas served as the basis of mid-20th century ideas of feminism and racial inferiority.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 22,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
174 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Essay: 100%, 3000 words |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Explain influential positions and arguments concerning the development of the race concept and its relationship to the feminine in 19th century ethnology.
- Critically assess these positions and arguments, drawing their own reasoned conclusions about their defensibility
- Explain the relationship between 19th and 20th century theories of racial inferiority to contemporary arguments about gender, masculinity, and femininity.
- Articulate their own views regarding the colonial history of the racial theories invented by Europe and America and its continuing consequences for humanity in general
- Participate meaningfully in societal conversations concerning controversies related to race, gender, and science.
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Reading List
Representative Readings
- Ariel, The Negro: What is His Ethnological Status (Cincinnati: Published for the Proprietor, 1867)
- Frederick Douglass, The Claims of the Negro: Ethnologically Considered (Rochester: Lee, Man & Co., 1854).
- Samuel Cartwright, "Unity of the Human Race Disproved by the Hebrew Bible," DeBow's Review: Industrial Resources, Statistics, Etc. 29 (1860): 129-136
- John Van Evrie, Negroes and Negro Slavery: The First an Inferior Race: The Latter its Normal Condition (New York: Van Evrie, Horton & Co., 1863)
- John Campbell, Negromania: Being an Examination of the Falsely Assumed Equality of the Various Races of Men (Philadelphia: Campbell & Power, 1851).
- Melissa Stein, Measuring Manhood: Race and the Science of Masculinity. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015).
- Michelle Mitchell, "Lower Orders, Racial Hierarchies, and Rights Rhetoric: Evolutionary Echoes in Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Thought during the late 1860s," in Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Feminist as Thinker: A Reader in Documents and Essays, eds. Ellen Carol DuBois & Richard Cándida Smith (New York: NYU Press, 2007), 128-154.
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "Women and Black Men," The Revolution, February 4, 1869.
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "Manhood Suffrage," The Revolution, December 24, 1868.
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "The Destructive Male," Women's Suffrage Convention, January 1, 1868.
- George Francis Train, Slavery and Emancipation (Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson & Brothers, 1862).
- Charlotte Gilman, Women and Economics (Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1898).
- Louise Newman, [w]hite Women's Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
- Ellen Barret Ligon, "The white Woman and the Negro," Good Housekeeping (1903).
- Belle Kearney, "The South and Women's Rights," The Women's Journal, April 4, 1903.
- John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town . New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1937).
- Elizabeth G. McRae, Mothers of Massive Resistance White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
- Alva Myrdal, "A Parallel to the Negro Problem," in An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (New York: Harper & Bros, 1944), 1073-1078.
- Helen Hacker, "Women as a Minority Group," Social Forces 30.1 (1951): 60-69.
- Helen Hacker, "The New Burdens of Masculinity," Marriage and Family Living (1957): 227-233).
- Gerda Lerner, "New Approaches to the Study of Women in American History," Journal of Social History 3.1 (1969): 53-62. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Mindsets: Enquiry and lifelong learning; Aspiration and personal development
Skill groups: Personal and intellectual autonomy; Personal effectiveness |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Tommy Curry
Tel: (0131 6)51 3083
Email: T.J.Curry@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Olivia Coltman
Tel:
Email: ocoltman@ed.ac.uk |
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