I have this uncomfortable feeling that the natural trajectory of the academic discourse on 'whiteness' is that someone will start to argue that the white identity was not all bad, and that it ought to be recuperated. White guilt, white persecution complex, white megalomania ... it's just one long slippery slope.
Better to insist upon the universalist goal of an all-embracing humanism, I say.
In message <p05001906b81d0170ce17@[140.254.112.117]>, Yoshie Furuhashi
<furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> writes
>>Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 09:59:27 -0500
>>Reply-To: sethw at maine.edu
>>Sender: H-Net Labor History Discussion List <H-LABOR at H-NET.MSU.EDU>
>>From: Seth Wigderson <Sethw at suscom-maine.net>
>>Subject: "Whiteness and the Historical Imagination" - 30 November - NY
>>To: H-LABOR at H-NET.MSU.EDU
>>
>>Whiteness and the Historical Imagination: A Forum
>>
>>International Labor and Working-Class History, Historical Studies at The
>>New School University, and the New York University History Department are
>>co-sponsoring a forum on "Whiteness and the Historical Imagination," on
>>Friday, November 30, 4:30-6:30 PM, at the King Juan Carlos Center, New
>>York University, 53 Washington Square South, New York City.
>>
>>Eric Arnesen (University of Illinois, Chicago) will give a presentation,
>>followed by comments by Barbara Fields (Columbia University) Eric Foner
>>(Columbia University), Gary Gerstle (University of Maryland), Linda Gordon
>>(New York University), Victoria Hattam (New School), and Adolph Reed, Jr.
>>(New School).
>>
>>An article by Eric Arnesen on "Whiteness and the Historical Imagination,"
>>along with comments by six scholars and a reply by Arnesen, appears in the
>>current issue (no. 60) of International Labor and Working-Class History.
>
-- James Heartfield