Class Schedules

This course is an introductory look at the historical, theoretical, and critical perspectives on the development and evolution of the concept of "race" and the reality of racism within the United States. Specifically, students will learn how anti-blackness is embedded within the broader social, political, economic, and cultural structures that inform civil society, influencing the emergence of the Movement for Black Lives and the Black Lives Matter Minneapolis chapter. Central to this class is examining how racial categories are socially constructed and shape contemporary Black social life, social movements, and the ongoing struggle to hold police accountable for extrajudicial killings. The first learning goal of the class is to define race as a social construct and understand how racism and anti-blackness have operated in the United States. The second learning goal is understanding how Black thinkers, BLM activists, and the larger Movement for Black Lives have created theories, concepts, and strategies to resist domination affecting Black communities within the United States and the world. By the end of the course, students will be able to historically and theoretically situate the Black Lives Matter Minneapolis chapter in the context of Black freedom movements, abolitionism, intersectionality, and concepts of racial capitalism to prepare themselves for critical contemporary debates on how to address past and present struggles for Black Lives.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Reading Plays guides students in close readings of dramatic literature, in particular of plays that are typically left out of the traditional theatrical canon. Students will learn about the socio-historical context of each play, and in-class exercises will introduce them to the foundation of script analysis: they will examine the play's given circumstances, dialogue, dramatic action, characters, and style. Students will read a new play every week; assignments include weekly in-class writing exercises and short critical papers.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism OR U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

Reading Plays guides students in close readings of dramatic literature, inparticular of plays that are typically left out of the traditional theatrical canon. Students willlearn about the socio-historical context of each play, and in-class exercises will introducethem to the foundation of script analysis: they will examine the play’s givencircumstances, dialogue, dramatic action, characters, and style. Students will read a newplay every week; assignments include weekly in-class writing exercises and short criticalpapers. Some playwrights we may explore are: Ayad Akhtar, Jaclyn Backhaus,Christopher Chen, Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, Prince Gomolvilas, David Henry Hwang,Naomi Iizuka, Rajiv Joseph, Hansol Jung, Haruna Lee, Kimber Lee, Young Jean Lee, QuiNguyen, Jiehae Park, Lloyd Suh, Kristina Wong, Lauren Yee, and Chay Yew.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism OR U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

Reading Plays guides students in close readings of dramatic literature, in particular of plays that are typically left out of the traditional theatrical canon. Students will learn about the socio-historical context of each play, and in-class exercises will introduce them to the foundation of script analysis: they will examine the play's given circumstances, dialogue, dramatic action, characters, and style. Students will read a new play every week; assignments include weekly in-class writing exercises and short critical papers.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism OR U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

In this introductory course, we will study African American literature from its origins to the present.We will study major genres and movements, including the Harlem Renaissance, The Black ArtsMovement, and Afrofuturism. We will learn to use the tools of literary analysis in order to readclosely, critically, appreciatively—and collectively. Themes of national critique, solidarity, andfuturism will focus our study. Authors will include: David Walker, Langston Hughes, Zora NealeHurston, James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, and Janelle Monáe, among others. Requirements include:brief written responses to the readings, a presentation, one essay and a revision of it, and a finalproject that will include a written component. This course fulfills either the foundation course inliterature requirement or the literature by U.S. writers of color requirement for the English major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course will introduce students to interdisciplinary research approaches to the study of race, ethnicity, and other categories of difference. Students will learn to conceptualize and design research projects, and will obtain hands-on experience in executing different methods. The course will also consider the critiques of systems of knowledge production and research approaches that have been informed by scholars from fields such as African American history, gender studies, and critical race studies, as well as from the disciplines. The goal is to develop an understanding of the assumptions embedded in many fields of inquiry, and to learn to apply critical approaches to important research questions. Prerequisite(s): AMST 101 or another AMST course.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In Motion is an introduction to modern African American History from slavery to contemporary times. In Motion emphasizes the idea that both African Americans and the stories of their lives in the United States are fluid, varied and continually being reinterpreted. Rather than a strict chronological survey, this course is organized thematically. Some of the important themes include movement/mobility/migration; work/labor; resistance to systems of oppression; gender/sexuality/culture/performance; politics/citizenship; and sites of (re)memory. While the course is geographically situated in the United States, we will also consider African American life, culture, thought and resistance in global perspectives. In this course, students will read important historical texts, both primary and secondary, engage in discussion, write essays, and make and analyze creative work in digital and traditional art media to critically engage the history of African Americans in the US. Note for Art and Art History majors/minors: this course will count as a Studio Art Elective if taken as ART 294: please ask the Art and Art History Chair to submit a note in Degree Works upon successful completion of the course.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The American West is central to the construction of America's identity and popular culture.  The mythology of the American West, built on a narrow foundation of Euro-American settlement and conquest, is critical to understanding the role of the West in the national narrative of American history. Using a variety of materials, including films, art and photography, literature, and historical sources, this course will examine how writers, artists, actors, settlers, and government officials, among others, shaped the creation of the mythic West.  This course will investigate what - and who - is and is not considered part of this mythology, as well as the ways in which these constructs attempted to make sense of the diverse populations converging in the West. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "North America" fields of the History major.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The experiences of African-descended peoples in the Americas, both in slavery and freedom, varied enormously across geography and changed over time. Focusing on North America and the Caribbean before 1865, this course will highlight ways that people suffered under systems of slavery but also explore how they struggled against bondage, created new identities, and formulated a distinctive Black Protest Tradition. The course will interrogate the changing ways that race functioned legally, politically, and culturally before 1865. It will also examine the various ways that Africans in the Americas resisted legal enslavement through violence, political activism, and cultural creativity. Because this is a history course, we will examine the nature of sources, including archives, to consider how we know what we know about the past. Can count towards "Race and Indigeneity," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism OR U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines Native history since 1871, the year Congress unilaterally chose to stop making treaties with Native nations. By focusing on Native sovereignty, resistance, and the exercise of treaty rights, this course highlights histories and contemporary experiences of Native people in what is now the United States. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course explores cross-cultural encounters in the Americas that characterized the meetings of Europeans, Africans, and Americans in the early modern world between 1492 and 1763.  During this period, the Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent land masses became critical locations for economic, biological, and cultural exchanges.  This course focuses on the Americas as sites for discovery, mutual incomprehension, and exploitation.  The course explores the ways that conquest, resistance, and strategic cooperation shaped peoples' "new worlds" on both sides of the Atlantic. It also considers how colonialism framed and was framed by scientific inquiry, religious beliefs, economic thought, and artistic expression.  Students interrogate primary sources-written, visual and aural--that emerged from these encounters and the secondary literatures that have sought to make sense of them.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Poor and minority populations have historically borne the brunt of environmental inequalities in the United States, suffering disproportionately from the effects of pollution, resource depletion, dangerous jobs, limited access to common resources, and exposure to environmental hazards. Paying particular attention to the ways that race, ethnicity, class, and gender have shaped the political and economic dimensions of environmental injustices, this course draws on the work of scholars and activists to examine the long history of environmental inequities in the United States, along with more recent political movements-national and local-that seek to rectify environmental injustices.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This survey course will explore history, policy, and pedagogy as they relate to race, ethnicity, and culture as education. K-12 public education will be the primary focus with topics including desegregation, standardized testing, multi-cultural and ethnocentric pedagogy, the teacher's role and experience, and significant historical events in education. The course will culminate by analyzing current trends and future expectations in education.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Asian Americans are often overlooked in the study of religion in the U.S., and yet the impact of Asian religious practices can be seen at every turn: yoga studios, mindfulness meditation, "zen" aesthetics of minimalism, and so on. What do we make of the gap between how Asian religions are practiced in Asian American communities and how these traditions have been reinterpreted by predominantly white, educated, middle class adherents? How do Asian American Christians negotiate their identities in the context of non-Asian Christian churches or the intergenerational tensions within their own ethnic churches? The approach of this course is interdisciplinary (and sometimes counterdisciplinary); it draws on theoretical and methodological insights from ethnic studies, religious studies, history, and sociology. Topics include: race and the racialization of Asian Americans; the politics of cultural and religious exchange; the commodification of Asian religious practices; and issues of assimilation and hybridity within Asian American Christian traditions.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course will address the tradition of public intellectuals in numerous Black communities. We will expand the definition of "politics" to include theater, literature, and film. We will interrogate the concept of who chooses the scholarly leaders for Black communities. We will examine numerous topics such as Communism, The American Dream, Incarceration, Feminism, and Ebony Voices in the Ivory Tower.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This discussion-based course is entirely focused on Bruce Lee, the actor and leading martial arts icon of the 20th century. Using American Studies and Critical Race Studies frames to examine the construction of racialized and gendered bodies, we will discuss Bruce Lee in terms of his biography, identities, politics, philosophy, and filmography. We will take time to appreciate the entertainment value and athleticism that Bruce Lee brought to his work, but we will also learn to distinguish the commercialized, commodified Bruce Lee (from t-shirts to posters to action figures) from the serious historical figure who symbolized the spirit of cultural independence and political sovereignty around the world. Among the required books and movies: The Tao of Jeet Kune Do, and "Way of the Dragon" (1972).

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

From notions of the "pure self" to teenage ganguro ("face-blackening"), Japanese culture is rife with instances of ideology and performance that reflect a deep complexity in its engagement with issues of identity and foreignness. This course traces the roots of this complexity back to Japan's beginnings as a modern nation and examines its cultural development into the present day. Works of fiction will be paired with readings in history and criticism to explore the meanings of identity, race, and ethnicity as they are expressed and contested in Japanese culture. The course will cover the literature of Korea and Taiwan, the experience of domestic minorities, and the contemporary cultures of cos-play ("costume-play") and hip-hop. No prior knowledge of Japanese required.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In 1966, sociologist William Peterson published an article in the New York Times titled, "Success Story, Japanese-American Style," which praised Japanese Americans, their family structure, and their culture for achieving education and financial success despite having been incarcerated en masse during World War II. This marks the first articulation of model minority myth, which stereotypes Asian American as being successful, hardworking, law-abiding, and dutiful, relative to other minoritized groups. So, how did Japanese Americans go from being perceived as enemy spies to the original "model minority"? This course will examine the history and experience of Japanese Americans from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, with an eye toward Japanese American activism and resistance. Topics will include: U.S. imperialism in Asia; the effects of incarceration during World War II; Japanese Americans in Hawai'i; Japanese American organizing against Islamophobia and the mass incarceration of migrants at the border; and Japanese American solidarity with the civil rights movement and reparations for African Americans.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course will explore white Christian nationalism, the confluence of white supremacy and the idea that the US is a Christian nation whose laws should conform to Christian values and principles. Although public consciousness of white Christian nationalism has increased since the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, it has a centuries-long history and continues to influence US politics, culture and religious life. Topics in this course include nationalism, racial liberalism, whiteness, and civil religion.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Endarkened Feminist Epistemology (EFE) is an approach to research that honors the wisdom, memory, spirituality, and critical interventions of transnational Black women’s ways of knowing (Dillard, 2016). A framework created by scholar Dr. Cynthia Dillard, it articulates how reality is known from the vantage point of transnational Black women - transnational recognizing the connections between African descended women throughout the diaspora as well as the continent. Through reflecting on course readings, writing, and sacred practice, this class will explore EFE’s claims and methodologies, as well as center other transnational Black women whose work helps us make connections between history, spirituality, and our collective positionality within academia.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

What happens when Minnesota history is narrated from the perspectives of African Americans and Africans? What happens when African Americans and Africans narrate American history in the Midwest? This course will help students understand the past and present struggles of African American and African communities in Minnesota and the larger Midwest region, more specifically students will learn how these communities contribute to regional and national history, culture, and politics. Students will complete a community-based project to amplify the stories of past and current Black Minnesotans, who are underrepresented in the archive and popular memory. Throughout this class, we will alternate between using the terms "African American," "Black American," and "African" to distinguish different interpretations of "Black" in a Minnesota context.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course provides an interdisciplinary discussion of the Latinx experience in the United States with a focus on Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Cuban- Americans. Using fiction, poetry, films and critical essays, we will examine issues of race and ethnicity, language, identity, gender and sexuality, politics, and immigration. This course satisfies the Area 2 requirement for the Spanish major. Prerequisite(s): SPAN 305 or SPAN 306

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Join the conversations around class and the development of the labor movement in the US from the late 1800s to the present day through the lens of the theater and the people who worked in it. We will ask how the economic and political landscape shaped their working conditions, and how the arts themselves then shaped that same landscape. We will engage with this great conversation through 9-10 plays on power, labor and class struggle and analyze them in their context both as pieces of theatrical entertainment and political statements. Throughout the semester, students will also research parallel developments in other parts of the world and will present a research and analysis paper comparing and contrasting their findings with the material presented in class. Not appropriate for First-Year students.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This course explores the history and politics of, and theoretical approaches to, gender and sexuality in relation to the racial politics of mass incarceration, or what Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls the "carceral geography" of the United States. By engaging recent work in queer and trans studies, feminist studies, and critical prison studies, we will consider how prisons and policing have shaped the making and remaking of race, gender, and sexuality from slavery and conquest to the contemporary period, and consider how the racialized harm of the criminal punishment system is often enacted through the policing of gender and sexuality. We will examine how police and prisons have regulated the body, identity, and populations, and the larger social, political, and cultural changes connected to these processes. While we will focus on the carceral system itself, we will also think of policing in a more expansive way by analyzing the racialized regulation of gender and sexuality on the plantation, in the colony, at the border, in the welfare office, and in the hospital, among other spaces, historical periods, and places. This is a community engaged course, and in the second half of the semester, students will work closely with the organization REP MN on a community-engaged project.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

The great African American writer Langston Hughes (1902-1967) is best known as the poet laureate of the Harlem Renaissance. But his career was vaster still. He was a Soviet screenwriter, Spanish Civil War journalist, African literary anthologist, humorist, playwright, translator, social critic, writer of over 10,000 letters, and much more. This course engages Hughes's full career, bridging race and global issues, politics and art, and makes use of little-known archival materials. This course fulfills the U.S. writers of color requirement for the English major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism OR U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The main objectives of this introductory course are: to explore the historical construction of racial categories in the United States; to understand the systemic impact of racism on contemporary social processes; to consider popular views about race in the light of emerging scholarship in the field; and to develop an ability to connect personal experiences to larger, collective realities. We will engage several questions as a group: What are the historical and sociological foundations of racial categories? When does focusing on race make someone racist? What is white privilege, and why does it matter? All students will be asked to think and write about their own racial identity. This course, or its equivalent, is required for majors and minors.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Reading Plays guides students in close readings of dramatic literature, in particular of plays that are typically left out of the traditional theatrical canon. Students will learn about the socio-historical context of each play, and in-class exercises will introduce them to the foundation of script analysis: they will examine the play’s given circumstances, dialogue, dramatic action, characters, and style. Students will read a new play every week; assignments include weekly in-class writing exercises and short critical papers. Some playwrights we may explore are: Ayad Akhtar, Jaclyn Backhaus, Christopher Chen, Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, Prince Gomolvilas, David Henry Hwang, Naomi Iizuka, Rajiv Joseph, Hansol Jung, Haruna Lee, Kimber Lee, Young Jean Lee, Qui Nguyen, Jiehae Park, Lloyd Suh, Kristina Wong, Lauren Yee, and Chay Yew. Frequency: Every year.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism OR U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

Reading Plays guides students in the close reading of dramatic literature, focusing specifically on plays that are often overlooked in the traditional theatrical canon. This Fall 2025 edition will emphasize texts from both the classic and contemporary Black Theatre canon. Students will learn about the socio-historical context of each play, and in-class exercises will introduce them to the fundamentals of script analysis. They will examine the play's given circumstances, structure, dialogue, dramatic questions, characters, and style. Each week, we will focus on a different playwright to deepen our understanding of American theatre through the lens of Black and African American artists. Students will write weekly reflections to enhance their ability to articulate how the plays and playwrights we study address the Black experience in America. For their midterm and final projects, students will curate a theatrical season based on the plays we've read and discussed in class. These papers will explore how the plays relate to one another by reflecting on history, sharing cultural narratives, and examining the ongoing impact of their content on today's audience.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

In this introductory course, we will study African American literature from its origins tothe present. We will study major genres and movements, including the HarlemRenaissance and Afrofuturism. We will learn to use the tools of literary analysis in orderto read closely, critically, appreciatively—and collectively. Themes of prophecy (what W.E. B. Du Bois termed “second sight”), literary experimentation, and beauty will focus ourstudy. Authors will include: David Walker, Harriet Jacobs, W. E. B. Du Bois, LangstonHughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, Danez Smith, and RossGay. Requirements include: a presentation, brief written responses to the readings, onemedium length essay and a revision of it, and a final project that will include a writtencomponent. This course fulfills either the foundation course in literature requirement orthe literature by U.S. writers of color requirement for the English major. It also fulfills thecollege’s USID and WA general education requirements.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course will focus on some of Asian American Literature’s salient texts and recurringthemes. Through readings and class discussion, we will explore issues of ethnicity, race,gender, and community in the work of authors like Jhumpa Lahiri, Maxine HongKingston, Trung Le Nguyen, Solmaz Sharif, and Ocean Vuong, among others. We willalso examine the political formation of the term “Asian American;” question narrativeslike the “model minority;” and consider how news media, pop culture, and the publishingindustry have played a role in shaping the production and reception of Asian Americanwriting. Class events will include guest lectures from Asian American authors withrecently published books. General Education Requirements: Writing WA and U.S. Identities and Differences.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course introduces the basic issues and concepts of Asian American Studies. We begin by looking at the birth of Asian American Studies as a field in response to student protests in the late 1960s. We then proceed to an overview of Asian American history beginning with U.S. imperialism in Asia and moving up to the present moment. For the remainder of the course, we'll focus on particular topics such as: the model minority myth; anti-Asian violence; multiracial Asian American identity; and Asian American activism. The approach of this course is interdisciplinary; it draws on theoretical and methodological insights from academic disciplines such as history, ethnic studies, and sociology.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This introductory-level course approaches the youth-oriented Hunger Games series as a “map and mirror” for our times and a platform for launching adult, scholarly conversations about systems of extraction and exploitation, surveillance and the politics of Reality TV, environmental justice and public health, trauma due to war, and the possibilities for building a Culture of Peace. We will take an interdisciplinary American Cultural Studies approach as we read and watch everything in the Hunger Games series (the trilogy + two prequels) in the first half of the semester. In the second half of the semester, we will connect to various texts including: Parable of the Sower (Octavia Butler), The Autobiography of Mother Jones, Ministry for the Future (Kim Stanley Robinson), and The Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What’s Possible in the Age of Warming (Eric Holthaus). A major goal of the course is to open up our hearts and minds, and to discover more precisely what we hunger for—as scholars, citizens, and human residents of the planet Earth.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The theorization of difference is an important aspect of cultural theory. In this class we will look at the role of difference as it is understood through ideas of representational and aesthetic politics as well as through the practice and production of knowledge. We want to examine the turn to difference within cultural studies and how this move has shifted how we think about power relations and meaning making in society. We will look at the foundational work of critical race and ethnic studies in cultural theory as well more recent scholarly work that focuses on the administration of difference through surveillance technology and social media. The class will expose students to a range of material including print, digital media, film, television, and internet and social media.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The readings and assignments in this course are designed to help students understand how social policies and programs contribute to Americans' lived experiences.  We will examine various theoretical justifications for the policies that constitute the American welfare state, then confront and dissect major strands of the American social safety net to better understand how political institutions and policy mechanisms contribute to both diversity and inequality in individuals' social, economic and political outcomes (based in race, class, gender, dis/ability, region, political jurisdiction, etc.).

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course examines Native history to 1871 -- the year that Congress unilaterally chose to stop making treaties with Native nations -- by considering the multifaceted histories and experiences of Native people in what is now the United States. By looking at Native interactions with (and resistance to) Spanish, French, British, and American explorers, settlers, missionaries, militaries, and government officials, this course argues that Native history is essential to understanding past as well as present issues. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," and or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This class examines the Atlantic commerce in enslaved Africans that took place between 1500 and 1800. We will explore, among other topics, transatlantic commerce, the process of turning captives into commodities, the gendered dimensions of the slave trade, onboard experiences, resistance to the trade, Africans in the Americas, and the abolitionist movement on both sides of the Atlantic. Students will read a range of primary and secondary sources in order to gain a more complex understanding of the trade and how it changed over time. Meets the global and/or comparative history requirement. Meets the pre-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Africa & Atlantic World" fields within the History major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

After a brief but essential global history of drugs, this course will focus primarily on the 20th century to the present. We will examine histories of substance use and abuse, temperance and prohibition, the "War on Drugs," the shifting concept of addiction as a moral failing to addiction as a treatable disease, as well as study the history of the recovery movement and harm reduction. This course is not intended to be an exhaustive, comprehensive history of the subject-but it will provide you with a solid base from which to explore other aspects of this fascinating and contentious aspect of human history.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this course, we will study African American literature from the end of the 18th centuryto the turn of the 20th century, from Phillis Wheatley to Frederick Douglass to Ida B.Wells. Themes of the course include: reading and writing as subversive acts and AfricanAmerican literature as an agent of political and social change. We will also connect crisessurrounding Black citizenship in the United States, so often represented by AfricanAmerican writers before 1900, to the present, honoring their legacy of national critiqueand Black solidarity. We will also foreground early African American literature as art,reading it closely and appreciatively. Requirements include: brief written responses to thereadings, a presentation, a medium-length essay and a revision of it, and a final reflectionessay. This course fulfills the English major requirement either of a course focused onliterature by U.S. writers of color or a course on 19th-century American literature. It alsofulfills the college’s USID and WA general education requirements.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Who hasn’t heard of Critical Race Theory in this day and age? More often than not, "CRT" has served as a paper tiger for white supremacist, right wing attacks. However Critical Race Theory is primarily a legal studies approach, and is just one of many ways of thinking about race. In this course, we will offer a broad, interdisciplinary foundation for understanding, analyzing, and coming to terms with race, racism, and racial inequality in the United States. Students will have the freedom to explore their own interests through in-class discussions and a research paper. Topics will include racial formation in the United States; Asian settler colonialism; racial capitalism; and yes, Critical Race Theory.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Who will save us now? Where might we go when the skies turn deadening andsaffron? And what might an examination of blackness as an alien, monstrouscounterforce help us notice in a time when politics feels critically incapable ofdescending to the moment?This course is a convening at the end of time, at the Door of No Return that carriedAfricans to the Americas and now marks the borders where modern subjectivity isbeing spirited away into exile. Inspired by Yoruba and Afro-diasporic spiritualities,feminist materialities, and Chandler’s/Moten’s concepts of the paraontological,Akomolafe revisits narratives of political transformation through a posthuman lens,examining how resistance and change emerge not through direct opposition butthrough what Édouard Glissant calls “errant lines” and what we might term “weirdfidelities.”Moving beyond traditional frameworks of power and resistance, we explore howblackness operates as a para-political force – neither purely political nor apolitical butworking alongside and beneath conventional political structures.Through concepts like ontofugitivity, white syncopation, sensuous solidarities,making sanctuary, and curapoiesis, we investigate how blackness operates notmerely as identity but as a mode of becoming which troubles fixed categories andnormative perceptions.This course is about fugitivity, trickster gods and the American Dream, about theprior generosity of cracks, about wild gods crossing the infra-thin lines between theethereal and the familiar, about harm, race, identity, about morality and ethics, aboutthe limitations of white virtue, the gift of white syncopation, and the invitation toconsider that other worlds and other gods are now being born, if we know how tolook for them.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

Endarkened Feminist Epistemology (EFE) is an approach to research that honors the wisdom, memory, spirituality, and critical interventions of transnational Black women’s ways of knowing (Dillard, 2016). A framework created by scholar Dr. Cynthia Dillard, it articulates how reality is known from the vantage point of transnational Black women - transnational recognizing the connections between African descended women throughout the diaspora as well as the continent. Through reflecting on course readings, writing, and sacred practice, this class will explore EFE’s claims and methodologies, as well as center other transnational Black women whose work helps us make connections between history, spirituality, and our collective positionality within academia.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This course provides an interdisciplinary discussion of the Latinx experience in the United States with a focus on Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Cuban- Americans. Using fiction, poetry, films and critical essays, we will examine issues of race and ethnicity, language, identity, gender and sexuality, politics, and immigration. This course satisfies the Area 2 requirement for the Spanish major. Prerequisite(s): SPAN 305 or SPAN 306

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course connects students with urban social geography, which studies the social and spatial dimensions of city life. The course explores some of how forces of social exclusion and efforts to promote inclusion contribute to the geographical organization of cities. Our exploration focuses on several issues of contemporary significance in the US context: (1) attempts to ameliorate social inequalities connected to racist patterns of housing and neighborhood segregation; (2) the problematic nature of gentrification; and (3) how to promote social well- being through how we design and manage the urban built environment. Our exploration will include studying theories of justice and prompt recurring reflection on the problems of urban inequality and the possibilities for creating more equitable, inclusive, and just cities. Race, class, gender, and ability are at the heart of these issues. This course therefore also considers how the intersectionality of race, class, gender, and ability affect and are affected by urban landscapes. Prerequisite(s): AMST 101 or GEOG 241 or GEOG 261 or GEOG 262 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

How true is the statement that Prison Studies = American Studies? That “equation” is based on the fact that the United States has the highest rate of incarceration than any independent democratic nation on Planet Earth, with every single U.S. state putting more people behind bars than most entire nations. The implications are so serious that the Junior Seminar, which is required for all American Studies majors, takes as its central focus the topic of “prison culture.” In this seminar, we will explore the multiple ways in which U.S. culture and cultural politics are shaped by incarceration and its underlying values of captivity, surveillance, control, and punishment. Through our study of prison culture–including writings by people in prison, films, podcasts, poetry, and art in the United States and beyond–we will consider what it means to develop a prison abolitionist perspective as we live, study, work, and dream in a society that is steeped in carceral logic and practice.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This course provides an interdisciplinary mechanism for exploring Indigenous feminisms and queer Indigenous studies. We will explore Indigenous histories through women’s, feminist, two-spirit, and queer writings that raise critical questions about normative gender and sexuality, nationhood, colonization, and decolonization. We will also explore the following topics: the relationship between mainstream feminism and Indigenous feminism; gender and sexual violence; settler colonialism and decolonization; law and restorative justice; sexuality; two-spirit, queer, and gender non-conforming subjectivities and politics; sexual and reproductive health; activism; the environment, embodiment, and materialisms; culture and tradition; erotics; biopolitics; Indigenous epistemologies; and sovereignty and governance.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

The Senior Capstone is required of all majors. Majors who meet college criteria are encouraged to conduct an honors project in conjunction with their Senior Capstone.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials