This collection of original essays by scholars from a diverse range of fields, examines issues of race in a variety of historical and geographical settings, ranging from classical Greece to the contemporary Americas, Europe and Asia. The authors provide an important perspective on race both in its theoretical origins and in its actual appearances while paying close attention to the ways in which the study of race itself has been carried on or ignored by various disciplines.

Chapter 1 Introduction Part 2 I: Questioning the "Science" of Race Chapter 3 1 Why Race is not a Biological Concept Chapter 4 2 From Eighteenth to Nineteenth Century Racial Science: Continuity and Change Chapter 5 3 The Meaning of "Race": Psychology's Troubled History Chapter 6 4 Nazi Antisemitism and the "Science of Race" Part 7 II: Between Race and Slavery: The Variations of Culture Chapter 8 5 Race and Culture: Medieval Notions of Difference Chapter 9 6 Enslavement and Manumission in Ancient Greece Chapter 10 7 American Negro Slavery: A Reconsideration Chapter 11 8 Genealogies of Race and Culture in Anthropology: The Marginalized Ethnographer Part 12 III: Race and the Literary Imagination Chapter 13 9 The Continental Fallacy of Race Chapter 14 10 Getting BasiL Bambara's Re-visioning of the Black Aesthetic Chapter 15 11 Beautiful Americans Chapter 16 12 From Colonization to Immigration: The French School in Francophone African Fiction Part 17 IV: Race or Class: Which is it? Chapter 18 13 Economics and Motivation: (Dis)entangling Race and Class Chapter 19 14 Race and Class: Why All the Confusion? Chapter 20 15 Race and Medicine: The Black Experience Chapter 21 16 The Race for Class