Yet she is also perfectly representative, the mascot of a new, very hot academic field called whiteness studies.

And whiteness studies, whatever else it may turn out to be, is the academic trend du jour.

Some of the undergraduates who take whiteness studies courses seem to think so.

Not that the field of whiteness studies can really be described as a coherent whole.

In the 1990's, this awareness gave rise to an academic field called whiteness studies.

Its essays are by authors from many disciplines, including whiteness studies, aesthetics, psychology and music.

The study, which originally took place during the summer of 2003, examined white racial identity, due to its centrality to whiteness studies.

An article notes the rise of "whiteness studies" in academia.

How else to explain the reaction to "whiteness studies," an academic discipline that has emerged in the last few years?

But whiteness studies has also been mightily, and deliberately, misunderstood.