BASS Social Anthropology and Philosophy

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This is an advanced introduction to the philosophy of race. Drawing on a range of disciplines, e.g. biology, psychology, medicine and philosophy, we will examine key topics in this area such as the metaphysics of racial categories, the use of race in medical diagnosis, and psychological approaches to tackle racism. Some of the questions addressed in this course include, 'Is race a biological kind, a social construct or something non-existent altogether?' 'Can we use race in medicine as a proxy for genetic differences?' and 'Does the science of implicit bias neglect the  

structural causes of racism?' This course does not require a background in any areas outside of philosophy. In contrast, by doing this course, you will learn to engage with philosophical issues to do with race in an empirically-informed manner.

The unit aims to:

• introduce students to cutting-edge research in contemporary philosophy of race.
• address the role of empirical research in addressing topics in the philosophy of race.
• reflect analytically and critically about the latest philosophical and scientific research on race. 

There will be a mixture of lectures and tutorials.

Please note the information in scheduled activity hours are only a guidance and may change.

• demonstrate knowledge and understanding of a range of central 20th and 21st century texts on the science and philosophy of race.
• explain philosophical and scientific positions about race accurately.

• articulate and defend precise philosophical and scientific positions, and to anticipate and rebut objections to those positions.
• identify and apply philosophical research methods consistently.

• interpret and criticise both primary and secondary texts

• critically reflect on the latest science, and to articulate and defend their own views.
• attain the research skills necessary for writing a research paper that engages with primary and, where applicable, secondary literature.

The School of Social Sciences (SoSS) is committed to providing timely and appropriate feedback to students on their academic progress and achievement, thereby enabling students to reflect on their progress and plan their academic and skills development effectively. Students are reminded that feedback is necessarily responsive: only when a student has done a certain amount of work and approaches us with it at the appropriate fora is it possible for us to feed back on the student’s work. The main forms of feedback on this course are written feedback responses to assessed essays and exam answers.

We also draw your attention to the variety of generic forms of feedback available to you on this as on all SoSS courses. These include: meeting the lecturer/tutor during their office hours; e-mailing questions to the lecturer/tutor; asking questions from the lecturer (before and after lecture); presenting a question on the discussion board on Blackboard; and obtaining feedback from your peers during tutorials.

The following reading list is indicative, and students are not required to read all of the publications listed. 

Alcoff, Linda; Anderson, Luvell & Taylor, Paul (eds.) (2017). The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Race. Routledge.

Kahn, Jonathan (2017). Race on the Brain: What Implicit Bias Gets Wrong About the Struggle for Racial Justice. Columbia University Press.

Glasgow, Joshua; Haslanger, Sally; Jeffers, Chike & Spencer, Quayshawn (2019). What is Race?: Four Philosophical Views. Oxford University Press.