This article introduces Julius Heise’s Marche Triomphale which reveals a history that was eliminated during the nineteenth century race theory publications. Beginning with an account of Iranians’ encounters with European military music, this article provides a brief history of Iranian military bands in European style, or the bands of muzikānchiān. It then addresses racial motivations behind a short account on Iranian music in 1885 by Victor Advielle, a French administrator. Arthur de Gobineau’s race theories were fashionable in nineteenth century Europe, and Victor Advielle used his fellow Artesian, Alfred Lemaire, to prove their racial superiority. Through Advielle’s account, Lemaire became the main figure of European music in Iran in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The article proceeds with biographical information on two European musicians, Marco Brambilla (d.1867 in Tehran) and Julius Heise (d.1870 in Tehran), and uncovers the earliest known piece published for the bands of muzikānchiān: Marche Triomphale, À Sa Majesté Impériale Nassir-Ed-Din Shah Kadjar de Perse.

This essay reconsiders the prospects for postracialist discourse. Critics tend not to take seriously enough the strongest case that can be made for viewing contemporary U.S. racial politics through the postracial lens. As a result, some important criticisms—the ones that survive postracialism’s reformulation in these stronger terms—have yet to be fully developed. It is important to develop a critique of the strongest form of postracialism, because this form of the view shares, or exemplifies, certain problems in garden-variety liberal antiracisms. Clarifying these problems in the more extreme conceptual environment of postracialism may help clarify their implications for the much more widespread commitments of mainstream post-civil rights thinking.

When students of race and racism seek direction, they can find no single comprehensive source that provides them with basic analytical guidance or that offers insights into the elementary forms of racial classification and domination. We believe the field would benefit greatly from such a source, and we attempt to offer one here. Synchronizing and building upon recent theoretical innovations in the area of race, we lend some conceptual clarification to the nature and dynamics of race and racial domination so that students of the subjects—especially those seeking a general (if economical) introduction to the vast field of race studies—can gain basic insight into how race works as well as effective (and fallacious) ways to think about racial domination. Focusing primarily on the American context, we begin by defining race and unpacking our definition. We then describe how our conception of race must be informed by those of ethnicity and nationhood. Next, we identify five fallacies to avoid when thinking about racism. Finally, we discuss the resilience of racial domination, concentrating on how all actors in a society gripped by racism reproduce the conditions of racial domination, as well as on the benefits and drawbacks of approaches that emphasize intersectionality.