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This PhD thesis explores the role of sympathy in the discursive formation of race in Scottish and American eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature. Offering insight into Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments as one paradigm that underpins the philosophical terms of sympathy in the Atlantic world, I argue that sympathy as a mode of control and a mechanism of normalisation played a formative role in the transatlantic history of the literary construction of whiteness. My introductory chapter delineates key debates on sentimental literature and argues that race in general and whiteness in particular have been ignored in revisionist accounts of the genre. My second chapter outlines Smith’s concept of sympathy in the context of Scottish Enlightenment theories of stadial history, suggesting that sympathy is always already bound up with a racial understanding of others in a categorical system of cultural development. I examine this dialectic of race and sympathy in the novels of Henry Mackenzie, which present social inequality, colonial exploitation, and slavery as conditions that the sentimental genre cannot rectify. This discussion is continued in chapter three, which deconstructs Harriet Beecher Stowe’s sentimental rhetoric in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, suggesting that while it is employed to foster fellow-feeling for the black slave, it also reduces others to the terms of the white self. Chapter four demonstrates that Uncle Tom’s Cabin’s philosophy of white sympathy is fully articulated in Stowe’s New York novels, My Wife and I and We and Our Neighbors, as a discourse of affinity, which functions as an advertisement for white bourgeois homogeneity in a developing consumer culture. The concluding chapter explores sympathy in relation to race passing and scientific racism in Jessie Redmon Fauset’s Comedy: American Style, where the passing protagonist embodies the gaze of sympathy that cares for others according to their degree of whiteness. Fauset, I argue, critiques the legacy of nineteenth-century sentimental literature, just as she, along with Du Bois and others, opposes eugenicists’ vision of a ‘White Atlantic’ as a new world order.

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Past research exploring the effects of audience racial identity on attitudes towards advertisements featuring models of various races has yielded inconsistent results. The purpose of this study is to address these inconsistencies by expanding the definitions and measurements of audience racial identity. The researcher proposes that feelings of color blindness and strength of racial identity have strong effects on attitudes towards general market ads with non-white lead actors. Following a review of relevant literature, hypotheses development is discussed, and is followed by an outline of the study methodology. The results of the study's quasi-experiment are presented next. The results were shown to partially support the hypotheses, as color blindness and racial identity had a significant effect on audience attitudes towards general market advertisements featuring dominant non-white models. This paper concludes with a discussion of the study's implications for advertising disciplines, an outline of study limitations, and suggestions for future research. / text

The history of the public school system in the United States is wrought with examples of marginalized groups and inequities (DuBois, 1989; Woodson, 1933). Public schools throughout the United States are still struggling to equitably meet the needs of all students. Students of color and students from marginalized groups continue to find the public school system difficult to successfully navigate and racially biased educational gaps are still prevalent. These struggles are compounded by the increasing percentages of students of color in our public schools today. Utilizing critical theory as the theoretical underpinning and qualitative interview methodologies, this study examined the perceptions five White principals held on race and racism. These five White school leaders were current elementary or middle school principals from a large racially diverse school district in the southern United States. The critical examination of these White school leader’s perceptions of race and racism yielded six themes: 1.) The White principals utilized deficit thinking. 2.) The White principals employed racial erasure and colorblindness. 3.) The White principals did not recognize Whiteness. 4.) The White principals did not understand systematic and institutional racism. 5.) The White principals were reluctant to address racial issues. 6.) The White principals demonstrated a nascent level of White racial identity. These findings invoked a need to better prepare our White public school leaders for the increasingly diverse student populations they serve. If White school leaders are to effectively address the racially biased outcomes in our public schools today they must develop a greater White racial identity. Formal training and instruction for White school leaders around race and racism is lacking and must be reconsidered and improved. Principal preparation programs in the United States must begin to weave discussions of race and racism into and throughout their programs to better address this profound knowledge gap. In order to effectively address racism and racial equity within our public school system White principals must stand up, recognize, and address race. / text

Drawing upon critical whiteness theory I examine whiteness and privilege within a New Zealand context, specifically with 15 men and women who self identify as Pakeha. Through in-depth interviews I explore the proposition that the adoption of this identity may preclude an understanding of the ways that whiteness and privilege operate. Employing thematic and discourse analysis, four major themes were identified within the data. The functionality and organisation of language is considered in order to examine participants’ detachment from dominant white culture. The thesis illustrates that the assumption of a Pakeha self identity may allow the bearer to discursively obscure both the cultural capital that whiteness provides and the privileges afforded by this capital. Ultimately, this research draws attention to the intersection of privilege and whiteness within New Zealand, in order to offer one explanation for the persistence of white hegemony.

Abstract This project is a literary study that will analyse the multiple ways in which whiteness is constructed within a selection of literary works by the South African novelist, Ivan Vladislavić. The texts chosen for this project are the “The Book Lover” and “Courage” in Propaganda by Monuments (1996), the novel The Restless Supermarket (2001) and his work The Exploded View (2004). These works display the various and complex ways identities are constructed in the context of a transitional period, and the varying degree of influence whiteness is given in different contexts.

This study seeks to explore variations in the development of racial identities for multiracial Virginians in the 21st century by focusing on the roles that physical appearance, group associations and social networks, family and region play in the process. Simultaneously, this study seeks to explore the presence of autonomy in the racial identity development process. Using Michael Omi and Howard Winant's racial formation theory as the framework, I argue that a racial project termed biracialism, defined as the increase in the levels of autonomy in self identification, holds the potential to contribute to transformations in racial understandings in U.S. society by opposing imposed racial categorization. Through the process of conducting and analyzing semistructured interviews with mixed-race Virginia Tech students I conclude that variations do exist in the identities they develop and that the process of identity development is significantly affected by the factors of physical appearance, group associations and social networks, family and region. Furthermore, I find that while some individuals display racial autonomy, others find themselves negotiating between their self-images and society's perceptions or do not display it at all. In addition to these conclusions, the issues of acknowledging racism, the prevalence of whiteness, assimilation and socialization also emerged as contributors to the identity development process for the multiracial population. / Master of Science

Interpersonal conflict poses a serious threat to social justice activism. In the context of multi-racial solidarity activism in southern Arizona, conflicts are often born of the challenges accompanying differentials in social privilege due to differences in race and ethnicity relative to white supremacist settler colonialism. We can see these tensions topologically through the very different relationships white, Latin@, Chican@, and indigenous activists have to on-going processes of white supremacy. This dissertation explores the factors contributing to successes and failures of multi-racial activist ventures in the context of the Arizona/Sonora borderlands, particularly the challenges of negotiating social difference among communities of activists. Arizona occupies a contentious position with regard to securitization practices on the US/Mexico border. Social justice activists come to southern Arizona to involve themselves in humanitarian aid projects that address human rights issues emerging from border securitization processes. Over time, many of these activists connect with other social justice work in southern Arizona, leading to the existence of particularly rich and dedicated networks of activists in Tucson, southern Arizona’s largest city. Subsequently, we see the development of a diverse array of activist ventures deliberately orienting themselves around racial justice. This dissertation examines the paradox of becoming anti-racist for white activists, through which white activists work to address problematic aspects of their socialization as white subjects within the hierarchy of white supremacist society, a process that must co-exist with the knowledge that one cannot ‘unwhiten’ oneself. Tucson has a rich history of social justice activism that contributes to a particularly diverse activist landscape. Since the early 2000s, the primary concern of grassroots political activism in the city has been migrant justice and opposition to the militarization of the US/Mexico border. In the aftermath of Arizona’s notorious 2010 racial profiling legislation, SB 1070, The Protection Network Action Fund (ProNet) was founded as a collaboration between undocumented migrant activists and white allies, with the express goal of fundraising to support migrant led activism in Tucson. Much of ProNet’s success is rooted in the long-term relationship building between migrant activists and white allies, and intentional commitments to bridging gaps between the humanitarian aid and migrant justice communities. Members of ProNet challenge the spatial dynamics of activist networks Tucson, connecting Latin@ and Chican@ activist communities in and surrounding Spanish speaking South Tucson with activists in parts of the city where the effects of the militarized border are less present, and where residents are predominantly white.

This masters’ thesis is a case study using an antiracist methodology and critical discourse analysis to analyze a popular blog, ‘Stuff White People Like’ and asks the main research question: How is whiteness represented and understood in the satirical blog, ‘Stuff White People Like’? Grounded in theories of representation, discourse, myth and racialization, the thesis looks at two posts, “#1 Coffee” and “#92 Book Deals” and their user comments to investigate the ways whiteness is defined, understood, produced and negotiated. The blog and the comments reveal important discussions of knowledge production strategies of racialization and racism in popular media. Specifically, these negotiations expose three major registers of whiteness that are continually enacted within the discourses of the blog and the comments. These registers encompass understandings of whiteness as biological superiority and heritage; defining whiteness as a performance of privilege; and whiteness as an enactment of dominance and oppression. Sites of antiracist educational pedagogy are also discussed within this study to reveal the importance of investigating everyday discourses and understandings of race for the future.