The study of race and ethnic conflict historically has been hampered by inadequate and simplistic theories. I contend that the central problem of the various approaches to the study of racial phenomena is their lack of a structural theory of racism. I review traditional approaches and alternative approaches to the study of racism, and discuss their limitations. Following the leads suggested by some of the alternative frameworks, I advance a structural theory of racism based on the notion of racialized social systems. "The habit of considering racism as a mental quirk, as a psychological flaw, must be abandoned." -Frantz Fanon (1967:77) he area of race and ethnic studies lacks a _ sound theoretical apparatus. To complicate matters, many analysts of racial matters have abandoned the serious theorization and reconceptualization of their central topic: racism. Too many social analysts researching racism assume that the phenomenon is selfevident, and therefore either do not provide a definition or provide an elementary definition (Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo 1985; Sniderman and Piazza 1993). Nevertheless, whether implicitly or explicitly, most analysts regard racism as a purely ideological phenomenon.

Politics and ideology in Marxist theory

Rethinking racism: toward a structural interpretation *

@contents: Selected Contents: Acknowledgements Why Fiske Still Matters Henry Jenkins Reading Fiske and Understanding the Popular Kevin Glynn, Jonathan Gray and Pamela Wilson Notes on Contributors Preface Chapter 1 The Jeaning of America Chapter 2 Commodities and Culture Chapter 3 Productive Pleasures Chapter 4 Offensive Bodies and Carnival Pleasures Chapter 5 Popular Texts Chapter 6 Popular Discrimination Chapter 7 Politics References Index

background

Understanding popular culture

This essay attempts to assess Althusser's contribution to the reconceptualization of ideology. Rather than offering a detailed exegesis, the essay provides some general reflections on the theoretical gains flowing from Althusser's break with classical Marxist formulations of ideology. It argues that these gains opened up a new perspective within Marxism, enabling a rethinking of ideology in a significantly different way.

Signification, representation, ideology: Althusser and the post‐structuralist debates

In the past two or three decades, marxist theory has been going through a remarkable, but lop-sided and uneven revival. On the one hand, it has come once again to provide the principal pole of opposition to &dquo;bourgeois&dquo; social thought. On the other hand, many young intellectuals have passed through the revival and, after a heady and rapid apprenticeship, gone right out the other side again. They have &dquo;settled their accounts&dquo; with marxism and moved on to fresh intellectual

The Problem of Ideology-Marxism without Guarantees:

This essay sets forth a theoretical rationale for a critical rhetoric and presents eight “principles”; which, taken together, orient the critic toward the act of criticism The theoretical rationale encompasses two forms of critique, styled as a critique of domination and as a critique of freedom Both have in common an analysis of the discourse of power as it serves in the first case to maintain the privilege of the elite and, in the second, to maintain social relations across a broad spectrum of human activities The principles articulate an orientation that sees critique as a transformative practice rather than as a method, recognizes the materiality of discourse, reconceptualizes rhetoric as doxastic as contrasted to epistemic, and as nominalistic as contrasted to universalistic, captures rhetoric as “influential"as contrasted to “causal,”; recognizes the importance of absence as well as presence, perceives the potential for polysemic as opposed to monosemic interpretation, and as an activity that is 

Politics and ideology in Marxist theory

Citations

Rethinking racism: toward a structural interpretation *

Understanding popular culture

Signification, representation, ideology: Althusser and the post‐structuralist debates

The Problem of Ideology-Marxism without Guarantees:

Critical rhetoric: Theory and praxis

Related Papers (5)

Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics

On Populist Reason

Selections from the Prison Notebooks

Hegemony and Socialist Strategy

The Populist Zeitgeist