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Time for Ethnic Studies at Barnard
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 16, 2007
Ethnic studies strives for praxis, the Aristotelian marriage of theory and action. Rather than “explaining” a subject, ethnic studies historicizes to denaturalize. Ethnic studies melts the ice of scholarship so we can break free of the status quo. Race is not a stagnant, biologically inherent category; thus, ethnic studies examines race as a fluid social construction, constantly changing throughout history. In the United States, the forces of public policy, violence, war, law, and media have shaped race. Race is a power dynamic, influenced by all other social constructions. Ethnic studies includes analysis of gender, sexuality, nationality, and class, as well as a critical look at the power structures which have been prevalent in joining these elements together, such as immigration laws, welfare, the criminal justice system, and public education. Ethnic studies produces theories, informed by grassroots social struggles, and examines the power dynamics within social movements, as a means of reflection and improvement.
College graduates have basic knowledge of history, economics, methods of comparison, and culture. Too often, however, a discourse of racial formation is excluded from our educations. Barnard students are well informed of a discourse around sex and gender. Understanding race is just as important. Without knowledge of the social constructions that rule our world, we are ill equipped to be active players in our own futures. Furthermore, if the person next to you is not free, neither are you. We all know about the American Revolution of 1776, but for most, our knowledge of slavery ends in 1865. As the writer Ralph Ellison notes, history is a boomerang. The history of slavery in the United States continues to affect all of us today. It informs who is rendered invisible, which immigrants easily assimilate into the nation, and which are ghettoized. To understand the power structures that rule this world, we must use the frameworks provided by ethnic studies courses.
Columbia’s ethnic studies program was formed after massive teach-ins and a hunger strike in April 1996, organized by a conglomeration of Latino, Asian-American, and black students as well as white allies. After the Columbia administration saw how seriously the students desired classes on the critical study of race, professor Gary Okihiro was invited from Cornell University to open the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. Today, students continue the struggle for a fully funded department, as well as for Native American studies. Barnard has no ethnic studies program, but thankfully does have an Africana studies program. Africana studies, like Columbia’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, is sorely under-funded, putting a great strain on the few dedicated professors who run the program. Both programs suffer from a lack of administrative support. A big difference between these programs and a department is hiring power. Programs are dependent on approval from hosting departments before they can hire faculty. For a cutting-edge field such as ethnic studies, dependency on other departments often hinders the center’s ability to bring in professors with critical, praxis-centered views of racial formation. Yale and Brown both have ethnic studies programs. Smith, Wellesley, Harvard, Yale, and Brown all have full-fledged departments devoted to the study of the African diaspora. Barnard boasts an excellent Center for Research on Women. That is not enough. As a women’s college, Barnard must recognize how relevant oppression is and should strive to be at the forefront of the study of racial formation.
Barnard needs a home for scholarly discourse on racial formation. The Student Government Association proposes that the Barnard Committee on Instruction allow for an ethnic studies major. Allowing students to major in ethnic studies is just a first step that will hopefully be followed by a vice-provost for diversity, a center for the study of ethnicity and race, and a program, then a department. In the meantime, we recommend that all students do a bit of ethnic studies work themselves. Critically examine the workings of our University: what “races” are the 3,300 people who will be displaced when Columbia expands into West Harlem? Look at your syllabi: which authors are left out? All Barnard women know who Adrienne Rich is. Twenty years ago, this was unthinkable. Barnard does an excellent job of reforming the literary canon to include women and lesbians. It is time to take it a step further to include women of color such as Maxine Hong-Kingston, Ama Ata-Aidoo, Joy Harjo, Meena Alexander, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Audre Lorde.
The author is a Barnard College senior majoring in English. She is a representative for Diversity for the SGA Representative Council.
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Lower the praxis and close this pretentious place
I'm curious, does this article still have "Asian-American" hyphenated for any particular reason?
Here is a link about the problems with the hyphen use: http://www.bartleby.com/64/C00...
Yo, Ok I just like really liked this article...Brilliantly written, proof that smart girls go to Barnard and are going to rule the world!
I want to say that I can't believe the prev. ppl that have commented negatively/sarcastically on the piece actually exist, but sadly I can believe it because this is the real world and there are all kinds of people in the real world. God made everybody different and we can't all be perfect, or then perfect wouldn't be special. At least they are engaged in the debate...cuz that's what skool is all about. Still why the anonymity? OWN your opinion and stand behind it....dont be a coward.
On to the next point:
I find it very strange that a syllabus for a course on Women's anything would have a male author on it. How F*cked up!!!
Thirdly,
Barnard likes to tout itself as elite and the top of the top, blah blah blah. Well, if it can't have a range of programs and centers, it is no different than a finishing school who babysits wanna trust fund brats and trains trophy wives. I've gone to a LOT of colleges that do not have the academic ranking of barnard, but what do they have? Lots of people. Enough People and even SPACE to have LOTS of programs. Like all kinds of programs about all kinds of people. So to me that Is very interesting because what is better, limiting the fields of knowledge or expanding them to give students many options to choose from?
Now Barnard does not have a lot of people. We are a small school. I was told not to go to a small school by my mother. She said there won't be enough good courses. Well, I have found some good courses. So maybe she was wrong or maybe she just meant there wouldn't be enough students to fill a wide range of classes. I hate to say my mom is right but I can see how a larger student body would affect the range of courses offered, can you? (and if u cant, go back to corporate whoring yourself cuz thats all you're obviously capable of, previous commenters. its ok, we need ppl like you to keep the rest of us from becoming complacent :)
ANYWAY So if we DON'T let in a lot more people, will we still be able to have a demand for more courses in more subjects, such as ethnic studies? I think that there is at this point sufficient evidence of demand for such courses. I would also like to see a New Media/Communications dept. b/c we all know the FUTURE is COPYLEFT and it happens in CODE., but Barnard has never lied about its stance on preprofessional studies, they are shoved aside and not the type of major for someone who wants to be a LIBERAL ARTS student, schooled in the NINE ways of KNOWING. i could criticize more but it wouldn't be fair; if i wanted a preprofessional school there are plenty in this world, not to mention course offerings just across the street, to satisfy me.
Why add ethnic studies? WE say we are a top school. Well if we WERE a top school we wouldn't have to say it, everyone would KNOW it. and they would know it because of all the different awesome things happening at Barnard. Ethnic Studies as a Dept. would only encourage the awesome coolness of the environment here. So why is there an argument against it at all? You go to this school, you want people to think highly of it? I do.
Not to bring in the whole debate of open source software, but think about it. It's got a lot more going on because there's a lot more people contributing to a greater good. Operating theory is positive, not negative. Apply it to barnard and replace people with courses, programs, and opportunities and the result will be more debate, more challenges, more ideas. CREATIVE COMMONS BABY!
thanx 4 listening. i just cant possibly understand who would be against such a major. PLEASE.
p.s. to whoever didnt like this proposal b/c of activism, HELLO!! what do you exist for ? to think? to do? to be??? You get to choose. So does everyone else. You wanna bury your head in a book about Ukraine and then date a guy from the Ukraine and sound off like an expert while he silently laughs at your lack of real world experience? Go AHEAD! You wanna stage protests and skip class and learn about event planning while your classmates get the grades to get into top grad schools? Go for it!!! We are here to DO whatever we want, whether that includess BEING , THEORIZING, or DOING. obv I am in favor of activism, but please dont make the assumption that activism is liberal or protests. I certainly personally don't believe in either and ultimately I don't think an argument resting on such false assumptions stands at all.
Higher ed learning time span is the natural time frame for conserted social exposure. For many it is the only organic socialization window of opportunity available outside of popular culture, mass media, mass education all of which have a vested (and economic) motive to keep the mass public ignorant and passive.
The joy of learning ought be life long but when prescribed behavior and thought is fueled by multi billion dollar industries and political patronage as seen in mass ed it is understandable "ethnic" studies would evoke non intellectual fears of programmed ignorance and reactionary associations.
Barnard, as a progressive and premier educational institution for women, in so many other areas of consentrated study will not only embrace this body of information, it's programmatic design for ethnic studies will prove to be the trend setter for other institutions not yet amply serving their students preperation for the 21st century citiaenship, leadership and parenting of the global village.
To the writer of this article remain steadfast-stay strong.
Lol, brilliant satire - you've perfectly captured the EmptySpeak of the movement.
Strive for praxis? Praxis are way too high already. By the time you pay federal praxis, state praxis, local praxis and sales praxis, what do you have left?
When one cuts through the persiflage, what this piece asserts is a strong liking for courses that meld a narrow political agenda with an ideological commitment frequently tainted by chauvinism and with a tactically shrewd but intellectually dishonest insistence on immunity from scholarly criticism that does not arise from the same dogmatic assumptions. Worst of all is the rather arrogant assumption that this kind of "educational experience" must be made mandatory!
The experience of the academic world over the past few decades strongly suggests that Ethnic Studies be allowed to wither on the vine rather than being kept alive by the bullying tactics of a few true believers.
Yes! I absolutely agree! Why should we learn anything about race or ethnicity? There are no colored people right? Black, white, brown, yellow, etc are not colors! They are no such things as pigments in our skin! We are all transparent, we have no color.
There are no ethnicities either. Have you ever heard of ethnicities in people who say their ethnicity is Chinese, Thai, Indian, Scandinavian, etc? Of course not.
We do not need to interact with people who have pigment or ethnicity now or in the future, so why should be learn about these things? Svati, it is arrogant for you to assume we should learn about ethnicity and race as the previous commenter has said.
Not to mention that ethnic studies actually reifies notions of separate race and ethnicity, which we would all be better off without. If you're studying this stuff all day, you're going to inevitably think of the world in terms of race and ethnicity, which comes dangerously close to technical racism. This is why people cite the fact that the Harlem residents who will be displaced are black, as though Columbia is conducting a sinister racial cleansing campaign; as though Columbia wouldn't have proceeded in exactly the same manner if the residents had been white or anything else. Race and ethnicity become the default reason for everything--a foolish and narrow way to view the world.
"Look at your syllabi: which authors are left out?"
Look at the name of the class: what is it? Look at the course description: what does it say? Do the books on the syllabus reflect what the class is about? If so, stfu. We shouldn't read books by lesbians simply because they ARE lesbians. We should read books that have value in and of themselves. If lesbian authors aren't represented on the syllabus, it's because they haven't proven to be as great and influential as the authors on the syllabus, not simply because they're lesbians. If you want to read books that are clearly inferior to the "great books," go head. But we will not reform the curriculum just to appease your own personal ideology.
So, I am not the Svati, but I took your amazing advice and looked at a course:
Women in Culture (English seminar)
Description is about women in England and France (translated) who were feminists, and then there is once lesson of Alice Walker. Yay, a black author for a day!
So, there are no other female authors in the syllabus from the rest of world because they have not proven themselves worthy through their books. Many of them wrote in English, some did not but the those female French authors did not either.
God, I wish I was English or French, that is the only way I would even have the chance of writing a book worthy of reading a class called "Women in Culture."
"Ethnic studies strives for praxis, the Aristotelian marriage of theory and action."
Action? This is supposed to be academia, where you go to LEARN - not a fucking political action group.
Yes, learn, but not do anything with that enriched brain. In fact we should just sit with our books, not vote, or do anything to better society politically and occasionally whine about the state of the U.S. or the world.
If you want a change, be the change.
I didn't say people shouldn't do anything with what they learn.
But it's not the job of our professor's to tell us WHAT to do with what we learn.
An academic department should have nothing to do with activism. That just alienates students who might actually be interested in learning about a subject like Ethnic Studies, but who don't agree with the political agenda that is trying to be merged with it.
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