"Throughout human history, three caste systems have stood out.  The tragically accelerated, chilling, and officially vanquished caste system of Nazi Germany.  The lingering, millennia-long caste system of India.  And the shape-shifting, unspoken, race-based pyramid in the United States.  Each version relied on stigmatizing those deemed inferior to keep the lowest-ranked people at the bottom and to rationalize the protocols of enforcement.  A caste system endures because it is often justified as divine will, originating from sacred text or the presumed laws of nature, reinforced throughout the culture and passed down through the generations."

-- Isabel Willkerson, Caste (p. 17).

The Mission: 

To carefully read Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins Of Our Discontents and to decide to what degree her attempt to interpret American inequalities primarily through the lens of "caste" rather than "race" is a successful one.

A Necessary Starting Point

Buy the Book!

Copies of Caste are available in the NIC Bookstore.  The books is also available in an E-Text Edition for $15 and there are two copies available on short-term loan from the Reserve section of the NIC Library.  Some of you may alternative ways of accessing the book but you do need access to the entire text.

The Procedure For The Reading Notes And Mini-Essay

1)  Start at the beginning of the book and proceed chapter by chapter.

2)  Read the chapter from beginning to end without stopping to take notes but perhaps do some highlighting as you proceed.  When you have finished a chapter, go back to the beginning and carefully browse through the chapter again, using your highlighting to help you to make bullet point notes on what seem to be the most important and interesting details from the chapter.  Continue this process up through at least Chapter 10 of Caste.

3)  After you have completed your Reading Notes, write a concluding mini-essay (recommended length 500+ words) in which you describe your main takeaways and comments upon the book.  The questions below may be helpful in organizing your thoughts.

Due Date

Wednesday, October 4.

Some Questions To Consider

How does she define each of these concepts, and how does she distinguish them from each other?

How effective is Wilkerson in linking the "caste systems" of the United States, India, and Nazi Germany?  What are the similarities and differences between the respective social systems here, and how useful is it to compare them?  What active historical links does Wilkerson establish between American history and both India and Nazi Germany?  To what extent does bringing them into conversation with each other lead to new insights?

Where and how do Wilkerson's comparisons of the Indian caste system to that of the position of African Americans break down?  Where do they seem to be at their strongest?  What does Wilkerson not understand about Indian caste?

What most surprised you in reading Caste: The Origins Of Our Discontents?

What is the best thing about this book?  The worst?

Wilkerson frequently uses her own experiences as an African American woman to illustrate her points regarding caste.  To what extent do her anecdotes here add to her arguments and can you highlight particularly effective examples of her use of this method?

What role does history play in the arguments of Caste?  How would you begin to characterize Wilkerson's approach to the study of history and her assumptions about the past?

How would you being to dissect the structure of Caste?  How might the decisions apparently made by Wilkerson here help to illuminate her arguments, interpretations, and assumptions?

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