Using the methods of intellectual history, this course explores the connected histories of two distinct systems of social oppression: caste and race. While caste is understood to be a peculiarly South Asian historical formation, race is identified as foundational to Atlantic slavery. Yet ideas about race and caste have intersected with each other historically from the early modern period through the course of European colonialism. How might we understand those connections and why is it important to do so? How has the colonial and modern governance of society, economy and sexuality relied on caste and race while keeping those categories resolutely apart? How have Black and Oppressed caste intellectuals and sociologists insisted on thinking race and caste together? We will explore these questions by examining primary texts and essays and the debates they provoked among thinkers from Latin America, the Caribbean, the American South, South Africa, and South Asia.

African and Asia Area