Race Theory
What is Ethnic Studies or Race Theory?
Literary criticism that applies Critical Race Theory, or CRT, is concerned with the ways in which cultural texts challenge or reinforce the economic, political, social and psychological oppression of a racial groups . It studies texts with a consideration of the ways that the text construct and represent race.
At the heart of this mode of interpretation is the consideration of the following core conflict:
PRIVILEGED RACES and/or MARGINALIZED RACES
These slides contain a broad overview of what Race Criticism does. They are good for students who want to remind themselves of some of this theory's key aspects. For a deeper understanding of what a racial critic does, explore the resources below.
This set of slides provides some basic information about key concepts within race theory, as well as some important race theory thinkers.
Key Figures
W. E. B. Du Bois
Kimberlé Crenshaw
Derrick Bell
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
Franz Fanon
Key Concepts
Race vs. Ethnicity
Structural Racism
Individual Racism
Internalised Racism
Colourism
Social construction
Intersectionality and anti-essentialism
Double-Consciousness
Questions to Consider:
1. How does the text portray racial inequality and in what ways does it critique or champion such inequalities?
2. How does the text depict racial marginalization and in what ways does it critique or champion such inequalities?
3. In what ways does the text critique racial heirarchies? Are there examples of white supremacy in the text, or can the text be said to perpeutate white supremacy?
4. How does the text present relationships between difference races and what is the text trying to say about these relationships?
5. Does the text reinforce or challenge racial stereotypes? How?
6. Does the text depict the psychological impacts of racism, racial heriarchies, or white hegemony?
Click the image to the left to access the article that we read as a class that explains the core tenants of Marxism via an interview between a journalist and a professor of literary studies.
Click the image to see some examples of Marxist literary criticism in action. Measure your own work against the models on this page to ensure that you are correctly applying this type of criticism.
Click the image to access further resources to help you understand race theory criticism. On this page, you can find examples of race theory criticism, explainer videos and further reading.