Open research questions in Race, History, and American Society
710 gap statements mined from Race, History, and American Society papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 11,370 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.
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What the literature leaves open
The author highlights the need to explore Roosevelt's interactions with Jewish individuals. The book examines the historical context of Roosevelt's presidency and his policies affecting Jews.
The gap is the lack of consideration for transboundary entanglements and slow burning raciality. The gap is the need for a more nuanced understanding of racialization and racism.
There is a gap in understanding the perspectives of Black mothers on policy issues. The study addresses this gap by examining the visions and hopes of Black mothers for change within the first 100 days of a Harris presidency.
“The moms all Agree on one Thing:” Black Women’s Perspectives on Key Agenda Items for the Next President of the United States · 2026 · DOIThe present study has a few limitations worth highlighting. First, we only captured Black mothers’ hopes and visions for a future in which Kamala Harris was president. In asking what mothers wanted in a Trump Administration, we might have gathered different information that would have reflected their perspectives on what the world would look like under a different president than Kamala Harris.
“The moms all Agree on one Thing:” Black Women’s Perspectives on Key Agenda Items for the Next President of the United States · 2026 · DOIThe authors highlight the need for a deeper understanding of the political significance of Reconstruction.
Examining Interpretations of Reconstruction in the Thought and Practice of W. E. B. Du Bois, James S. Allen, and Harry Haywood · 2026 · DOIThe research emphasizes the need to consider the cultural and racial specificity of emotional experiences. The study suggests that Black Collective Effervescence can be a means of resistance and liberation for Black communities.
The study identifies a gap in the literature on collective effervescence, which has largely been studied in universal terms without consideration of racial and cultural specificity. The research highlights the need to center Black joy in discussions of collective effervescence.
Prior work has not fully considered the historical legacies of states' rights and anti-federal narratives in Southern political development.
The lack of consideration of embodied experience in political subjectivity. The need for a framework that prioritizes embodied knowledge and challenges dominant epistemologies.
Further research should consider the application of critical race theories to other areas of study. The importance of intersectionality and feudal-colonial roots in understanding systemic racism should be further explored.
The field of American Political Economy needs to engage with critical race theories to study systemic racism. There is a lack of consideration of intersectionality and feudal-colonial roots in understanding systemic racism.
The authors note the limited resources and lack of recognition for this field of study.
Commemorating the 30 th Anniversary of the APSA Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section and the 10 th Anniversary of the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics · 2026 · DOIThe paper suggests that future research should consider the increasing ecological precarity of the Gulf South and its impact on Black, Indigenous, and poor communities. The paper implies that future research should explore the possibilities of community-led initiatives and desire-based pedagogy.
The paper highlights the need to consider the material and spiritual relationship between Black life and the lands of the Gulf South.
The essay suggests that future research should continue to explore the lessons that thread through McKittrick's oeuvre.
“The Word Black Has Geographic Power”: Itinerant Practices of Black Study in Five Movements · 2026 · DOIThe lack of recognition of early twentieth-century black women thinkers.
Racial Hierarchy and the Balance of Power: Race War in Merze Tate’s International Thought · 2026 · DOIThe study highlights the need for continued collective resistance and intellectual activism.
African American Literature as Resistance: An analysis of the Civil Rights Struggle in the United States · 2026 · DOIThe paper suggests that future research should continue to explore the significance of literary and cultural production in challenging systems of oppression. It highlights the need for further study on the relationship between African American literature and the Civil Rights Movement.
African American Literature as Resistance: An analysis of the Civil Rights Struggle in the United States · 2026 · DOIThe lack of concrete examples in the discussion of the spatial turn in queer studies. The limited focus on movements rather than cultural politics in French homopolitical history.
Review of Settler Common Sense: Queerness and Everyday Colonialism in the American Renaissance, by Mark Rifkin · 2026 · DOIFuture research could explore the implications of Southern Black cosmopolitanism for contemporary social justice movements. It could examine the ways in which McCullers's works can inform strategies for promoting social integration and challenging racial barriers.
Undervalued Black particularism: an untenable Southern Black cosmopolitanism in the novels of Carson McCullers · 2026 · DOIIt highlights the need to consider the tension between universalism and particularism in the context of the South's legacy of slavery and segregation.
Undervalued Black particularism: an untenable Southern Black cosmopolitanism in the novels of Carson McCullers · 2026 · DOIWhile eugenics was mostly limited to a particular historical period, the impulse to draw political conclusions on race out of the human sciences is not.
The essay identifies a gap in understanding Black study and its potential to imagine more livable futures.
“The Word Black Has Geographic Power”: Itinerant Practices of Black Study in Five Movements · 2026 · DOIHow racialization interacts with shifts in the distribution of power. The possibility of racial equality and interest convergence in the international sphere.
Racial Hierarchy and the Balance of Power: Race War in Merze Tate’s International Thought · 2026 · DOIFurther exploration into the role of religion in resistance and identity formation - More detailed analysis of the Haitian Revolution's impact on Black…
Most-cited papers in Race, History, and American Society
- Whiteness as Property · Harvard Law Review · 1993 · 3,617 citations
- From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor · Signs · 1992 · 1,081 citations
- Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness: The Context of a Black Feminist Ideology · Signs · 1988 · 1,060 citations
- Symbolic ethnicity: The future of ethnic groups and cultures in America* · Ethnic and Racial Studies · 1979 · 1,019 citations
- Under the shadow of Tuskegee: African Americans and health care. · American Journal of Public Health · 1997 · 938 citations
- On plantations, prisons, and a black sense of place · Social & Cultural Geography · 2011 · 917 citations
- Fatal Couplings of Power and Difference: Notes on Racism and Geography · The Professional Geographer · 2002 · 753 citations
- The Social Construction of Black Feminist Thought · Signs · 1989 · 658 citations
- African-American Women's History and the Metalanguage of Race · Signs · 1992 · 582 citations
- Changes in the Segregation of Whites from Blacks During the 1980s: Small Steps Toward a More Integrated Society · American Sociological Review · 1994 · 537 citations
Most recent work
- Anglophone Discourses on Race in the 19th Century: British and African Perspectives · Phaidra (Universität Wien) · 2026
- Whiteness as property: re-assessing the convergence of race and property in U.S. history · Ethnic and Racial Studies · 2026
- The Emerging Field of Singlehood Studies: Centering Single People and Surfacing Systems of Inequality · Sociology Compass · 2026
- Critical Race Theory Speaks to the Sociology of Racial and Ethnic Minorities: Investigating Racial Realism and Its Correlates Among Black Adults · Sociological Focus · 2026
- Bowl By Bowl: Black Women, Food Selling, and Survival in the Antebellum North · Journal of Social History · 2026
- Rethinking racism again? Assessing conceptual deadlocks and innovations in race theory · Critical Sociology · 2026
- ANGELA RUTH HOBART (1939–2025) · Anthropology Today · 2026
- The psychological success of the Civil Rights Era · The Journal of Positive Psychology · 2026
- Of masks and veils: understanding raceclass subordination through Fanon and Du Bois · Ethnic and Racial Studies · 2026
- Eldridge Cleaver Unthought · Philosophy Compass · 2026
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