Desiring Whiteness provides a compelling new interpretation of how we understand race. Race is often seen to be a social construction. Nevertheless, we continue to deploy race thinking in our everyday life as a way of telling people apart visually.
How do subjects become raced? Is it common sense to read bodies as racially marked? Employing Lacan's theories of the subject and sexual difference, Seshadri-Crooks explores how the discourse of race parallels that of sexual difference in making racial identity a fundamental component of our thinking.
Through close readings of literary and film texts, Seshardi-Crooks also investigates whether race is a system of difference equally determined by Whiteness. She argues that it is in relation to Whiteness that systems of racial classification are organized, endowing it with a power to shape human difference.


Author: Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 05/25/2000
Series: Opening Out: Feminism for Today
Pages: 192
Weight: 0.62lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.42d
ISBN: 9780415192552


Review Citation(s):
Choice 01/01/2001 pg. 989
Reference and Research Bk News 02/01/2001 pg. 6

About the Author

Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks is Assistant Professor of English at Boston College, MA, USA