Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-68ccn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T20:26:43.347Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Assessing Whiteness Scholarship: A Response to James Barrett, David Brody, Barbara Fields, Eric Foner, Victoria Hattam, and Adolph Reed

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2002

Eric Arnesen
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Chicago

Abstract

The valuable and thoughtful responses to my essay, “Whiteness and the Historians' Imagination,” illustrate the existence of a wide range of opinions on the emergence, claims, and methodologies of the whiteness genre in US and US labor history. Like Eric Foner, it is my hope that this scholarly controversy will mark the beginning of a much longer discussion that will draw in many more participants from history, American Studies, political science, and other disciplines. This is a debate that I believe is long overdue. While David Brody is certainly correct to note that readers have not been so “dazzled” that they could not be critical of whiteness scholarship, serious historiographical assessments of the genre's strengths and weaknesses have been scarce. This scholarly controversy, which aims at providing such an assessment, will not and should not be the final word on the subject. In this response, I welcome the opportunity to address a fraction of the many important issues raised by James Barrett, David Brody, Barbara Fields, Eric Foner, Victoria Hattam, and Adolph Reed.

Type
SCHOLARLY CONTROVERSY: WHITENESS AND THE HISTORIANSÕ IMAGINATION
Copyright
© 2001 The International Labor and Working-Class History Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)