In this essay I address a gap in the study of contemporary Russia-US relations. I argue that the concepts of race and racialization are active in these relations and available for analysis, but they continue to receive very little attention as compared to concepts of democratization and securitization. My main intervention is the introduction of “race-conscious reading” as a methodological approach relevant not only to the narrow sphere of Russia-US relations, but to the field of Slavic studies more broadly. Presenting the concept of “race-conscious reading” first, I then sketch out a research agenda that extends W.E.B. Du Bois's race-conscious observation of Soviet Russia's “refusal to be white” into the contemporary era. My goal in sketching out this research agenda is to show how a race-conscious approach to reading post-Soviet Russia-US relations can bring fresh perspectives to long-standing questions—Is Russia part of the west?—and generate new questions of urgent relevance: Is there a difference between American and Russian conceptions of “whiteness,” and how and when do they clash?

中文翻译：

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苏俄“拒绝变白”的来世：杜波依斯对后苏维埃俄美关系的看法

在这篇文章中，我将讨论当代俄美关系研究中的一个空白。我认为种族和种族化的概念在这些关系中是活跃的并且可供分析，但与民主化和安全化的概念相比，它们仍然很少受到关注。我的主要干预是引入“种族意识阅读”作为一种方法论方法，不仅与俄美关系的狭隘领域相关，而且与更广泛的斯拉夫研究领域相关。首先提出“种族意识阅读”的概念，然后我勾勒出一个研究议程，将 WEB Du Bois 对苏俄“拒绝成为白人”的种族意识观察延伸到当代。