What is Equality? Taking the Long View

In this panel, Lahra Smith will share her experience developing and teaching an interdisciplinary course on "The Question of Equality" at Georgetown University with colleague Samantha Pinto.  Though their home disciplines of Political Science and English inform the course, the foundation of the class comes from historical readings on the formation of ideals of political and racial equality across the West and Africa.   In many ways, history has become their common ground, especially as their own research and student interests center around contemporary debates.  The Enduring Questions format challenges us and our students to take a long view of the development of equality-- and has pushed both of us to investigate continental African concepts of rights, community, and belonging that historicize equality beyond reactions to colonialism.   The course traces the European and US philosophical traditions of equality alongside cross-cultural conceptions and critiques of the term, particularly those produced by African authors and artists.   In doing so, it unsettles easy assumptions about the term's meaning, and to bridge American ideals of equality to a global understanding of the term. The instructors take advantage of nearby resources, including Monticello and museums in Washington, as well as video conferencing with a university class in Africa, to broaden student understanding of conceptions of equality.