Forum Introduction: Addressing Structural Racism in the Eighteenth-Century Curriculum

In 2017, a roundtable organized by Regulus Allen and Emily Hobson and sponsored by the Women's Caucus, "Addressing Structural Racism in Eighteenth-Century Studies," directed the Society's attention to a challenge crucial to the future of our field. It is a challenge that ASECS has only begun to confront head-on. Although studies of slavery, interrogations of empire, engagements with orientalism, and critiques of enlightenment have intensified in recent years, the field as a whole continues to replicate—and, I would argue, nostalgically cathect to—its investments in the dominant cultures, and the cultures of dominance, of the period itself. Nor can eighteenth-century studies, or the American Society that represents it, boast anything close to a racially inclusive membership.

The term structural racism is an illuminating rubric for confronting both the eighteenth century and eighteenth-century studies. Attributed to the legal scholar John Calmore and now in wide use, structural racism describes "a complex, dynamic system conferring social benefits on some groups and imposing burdens on others" through "cultural beliefs, historical legacies, and institutional policies" that "interweave to create drastic racial disparities in life outcomes."¹ The term "identifies dimensions of [Western] history and culture that have allowed privileges associated with 'whiteness' and disadvantages associated with 'color' to endure and adapt over time." Importantly, structural racism is "not something that a few people or institutions choose to practice. Instead it has been a feature of the social, economic, and political systems in which we all exist."² Structural racism is thus tantamount to the air we breathe; it benefits white people and disadvantages people of color regardless of any individual inclination, story, or stance; and, as John A. Powell notes, it explains why "institutional practices and cultural patterns can perpetuate racial inequity without relying on racist actors."³

It should not surprise any eighteenth-centuryist that our period contributed deeply to the forms of structural racism that shape social practices today. Indeed, our education as eighteenth-centuryists is necessarily steeped in the racism of both the period itself and the scholarly values and practices that have formed our discipline. Addressing structural racism in eighteenth-century studies thus means coming to terms with the destructive legacies of a period we might prefer to praise as an age of Enlightenment and the "Rights of Man." It means addressing the biases and silences of the eighteenth-century archive, and it means figuring out how to confront historically shaped practices and cultural representations that perpetuate racial inequality and privilege whiteness in our universities, in our professional organizations, and in ASECS itself. Changing that paradigm will doubtless require interventions in multiple sites through multiple strategies. The second ASECS roundtable on structural racism, which took place in 2018, emerged from the premise that if we do not change the curriculum we will not change the field. The speakers were asked to present models, explore challenges, or propose methods for curricular transformation or pedagogical intervention in order to stimulate a larger conversation about the ways in which ASECS and its members might work actively against racism in our teaching, scholarship, and professional life.

At the roundtable, each speaker offered both conceptual and practical suggestions, grounded in their own teaching experiences, for transforming syllabi, courses, and classroom environments. In planning the session, we assumed that many ASECS members were eager not only for ideas but for conversation about challenges and strategies for curricular change. The conference room was packed, the presentations illuminating, and the discussion lively and informative. There was consensus that an important next step would be a wider sharing of pedagogical resources and ideas. This forum is one step toward that end.

If there is an overarching message for those of us trained as literary scholars—the background of the participants in this forum—it is that the texts we choose and the ways in which we frame them can crucially alter our students' understandings of our period. We might consider the plot resolution of Jane Austen's Persuasion (1818). If we follow the text's narrative logic, we will cheer for the...