Week 10 Response

As Professor Hobbs named this class "Racial Identity in the American Imagination," I want to explore the reasons why the word imagination was used. This class could have, in fact, been called "Racial Identity in America." Was imagination used to underscore the fact that race is a construct? Does thinking of racial identity through the lens of imagination color our reading of texts or understandings of the history of race in America? For instance, I think The Hemingses of Monticello would be interesting to think through in terms of imagination in individual actors in comparison to American Racial Imagination as a whole.

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