September 28, 2020

Interview: Jessica Blatt on Race and the Making of American Political Science — Epistemic Unruliness 34

In this episode, John welcomes Jessica Blatt, Associate Professor of Political Science at Marymount Manhattan College, for a conversation about her 2018 book Race and the Making of American Political Science. What was political science’s role in shaping a de-radicalizing ‘race relations’ paradigm? How did the early discipline of political science turned to categories of ‘race’ in a bid for foundation funding and claims to scientific knowledge? What are the pedagogical implications for political scientists today of the book and of this genealogy of racism in the discipline? Tune in to explore these and other questions about a sometimes (read: frequently) ahistorical and not particularly self-reflective discipline).

Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Twitter. Like our Facebook page. RSS feed here. Patreon here. Thanks to Bad Infinity for the intro music from their album FutureCommons; always already thanks to B for the outro music. For the mp3 of the episode click here.

https://alwaysalreadypodcast.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/blatt-interview.mp3

Links:

Follow Jessica Blatt on Twitter

A 2019 interview with Blatt at the Society for U.S. Intellectual History

A 2018 interview with Blatt on Detroit Today

A 2018 talk by Blatt, “With a Little Help from our Friends: Scientific Racism and the Making of Modern Political Science“

Books mentioned: Leah Gordon, From Power to Prejudice: The Rise of Racial Individualism in Midcentury America; Robert Vitalis, White World Order, Black Power Politics; Alice O’Connor: Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S. History

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