The subject matter of this course is such that no single text is adequate. Reading assignments have been drawn from a wide variety of sources from the biological, anthropological and historical literature. Critically, much of the reading is drawn from primary sources. As we move along the historical continuum we will delve into the writings of the times to examine the views of the scientific community and in turn, to see how these views are integrated into the beliefs of the larger population. Concomitantly, we will also read broader synthetic and analytic works on the subject. The articles will be available through Courseworks--CU Library Reserve. Unfortunately, copyright restrictions prohibit the university from making copies available directly to the students.

Sample readings:

Blumenbach, J.F. (1776/1795). On the Natural Variety of Mankind: Section IV. Five principal varieties of mankind, one species. Translated from the German and reprinted in E.W. Count (ed.) (1950). This is Race, pp. 34-39. New York: Henry Schuman.

Jordan, W.D. (1974). First impression. Initial English confrontation with Africans, pp. 3-25. In The White Man's Burden. New York: Oxford University Press.

Nash, G.B. (1972). The image of the Indian in the southern colonial mind. William and Mary Quarterly 29:197-230.

Retzius, A. (1856). A glance at the present state of ethnology, with reference to the form of the skull. British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review 25:503-514.

Spoehr, L.W. (1973). Sambo and the heathen Chinee: Californians' racial stereotypes in the late 1870s. Pacific Historical Review 42 (May):185-204.

Chamberlain, H.S. (1910). Sacredness of pure race, pp. 317-328. In Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. Translation by John Lees (1968). New York: John Lane.

Du Bois, W.E.B. (1897). The Conservation of races. American Negro Academy Occasional Papers, 2. Reprinted in R. Bernasconi and T.L. Latt (eds.) (2000). The Idea of Race, pp. 108-117. Indianapolis: Hackett Publ.

Pernick, M.S. (1996). Selections from The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of Defective Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures Since 1915, pp. 3-18, 54-65, 143-150(includes to 158). New York: Oxford University 1.

Davenport, C.B. (1917). The effects of race intermingling. Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc. 56,Y:364-368.

Stoddard, L. (1924). The new realism of science, pp. 230-236. In Racial Realities in Europe. New York: C. Scribner's Sons.

Boas, F. (1924). The question of racial purity. The American Mercury 3:163-169. Hooton, E.A. (1936). Plain statements about race. Science 511-13.

Hirschfeld, L. and H. Hirschfeld. (1919) Serological differences between blood of different races. Lancet (October 18):675-679.

Deichmann, U. (1996). The content and result of research at Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes, (selection--The department of hereditary pathology of the KWI for anthropology, human genetics, and eugenics), pp. 229-249. In Biologists under Hitler. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Benedict, R. and G. Weltfish (1943). The Races of Mankind. Public Affairs Pamphlet No. 85. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office.

Montagu, A. (1962). The concept of race. American Anthropologist 64:919-928.

Osborne, N.G. and M.D. Feit (1992). The use of race in medical research. JAMA 267,2(January):275-279.

Sauer, N.J. (1992). Forensic anthropology and the concept of race: If races don't exist, why are forensic anthropologists so good at identifying them? Social Science Medicine 34,2:107-111.

Cartmill, M. (1999). The status of the race concept in physical anthropology. American Anthropologist 100,3:651-660.