A project sponsored by the Department of Political Science and the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oregon and the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Cosponsors include the Center on Diversity and Community, Program in Ethnic Studies, the Oregon Humanities Center, the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics, and the Center for the Study of Women in Society at the University of Oregon.
From the time that European colonists established themselves in Virginia and New England, race was a crucial issue in the political, social, and cultural development of the region that would become the United States. The changing nature of racial meaning and its relationship to citizenship and belonging shaped national formation and evolution, just as the nation's racial imperatives influenced the ways that citizens and non-citizens understood race.
As the scholarly study of political development has become established, work on the history of institutional change has increasingly come to question the racialized nature of development in the United States. The time is ripe to reflect upon where this evolving discussion has taken us. The University of Oregon's Department of Political Science and College of Arts and Sciences hosted an intensive and critical reflection one these issues in Eugene in 2006. We are now working on an edited volume that pulls together many of the key insights to come from this emerging body of scholarship.
This web site serves as a clearing house for information about the edited volume and provides information about last year's conference. Please visit frequently to see how plans are shaping up.
Last update January 12, 2007.