Courses

COURSES IN ETHNIC STUDIES SPRING 2010

CAPSTONE COURSE

ETHS 400  Colloquium                                                       Kimberly Brodkin
TTH 1:50-3:20 PM
Reading and critical analysis of major interpretive works. Organized around themes or analytical problems; comparative study of works in Ethnic Studies exemplifying different points of view, methodologies, subject matter. Final project provides a genealogy of each student's Ethnic Studies coursework. Focus varies depending oinstructor's teaching and research area.

CORE COURSES

HIST 142  Modern Latin American History                        Marianne Samayoa
TTH 9:40-11:10 AM
Confrontation with the complexity of modern Latin America through historical analysis of the roots of contemporary society, politics, and culture. Through traditional texts, novels, films, and lectures, exploration of the historical construction of modern Latin America. Themes of unity and diversity, continuity and change as framework for analyzing case studies of selected countries.

SOCIAL SCIENCES TRACK:

COMM 406  Race, Rhetoric, and Resistance                        Mitch Reyes
T 6:00 - 09:00PM
Role of rhetoric in social conflicts regarding issues of race. Theories and strategies of resistance and the implications for political action. Examination of major race and resistance texts. 

COMM 445Comm, Race & Social Justice                                Mitch Reyes
T 8:00-9:30 AM
Course explores scholarship on race and social justice through the community-based Heroes of Color program, a mentoring program in local inter-racial public schools. Theoretical and methodological frameworks for understanding the role of communication in negotiating racial issues and fostering social justice will be explored through readings, class discussion, writing assignments, and applied field learning experience.

SOAN 240  The Family in Cross-Cultural Perspective           Gloria González
M 3:00-4:30; Th 3:30-5:00 PM
As the most basic social institution, the family is important not only to individual members, but also to other social institutions and society as a whole. Understanding human behavior in the context of the family, therefore, includes the individual, group, institutional, and societal levels of analysis. This course examines the family from various cross cultural perspectives. Throughout the semester we will address the roles of race, gender, age, social class, and sexual orientation in the family as a social institution. First we will see how the family as a social institution has changed over time in the United States and in particular and how immigration affects families. Social processes that take place in the context of the family (as a social institution), such as dating, courtship, marriage and parenting comprise another aspect of this course. We will also look at social situations that challenge families and family members, such as work – both inside and outside the home, poverty and domestic violence.  While most of the course readings emphasize theory and empirical research, we will also examine public debate about family structure and processes that have appeared recently in the popular media.

SOAN 266  Social Change in Latin America                           Bruce Podobnick
T3:30  - 5:00PM; F 3:00-4:30 PM
Examines dynamics of social change in Latin America, with a particular focus on revolutionary transformations. The course engages in a comparative analysis of social change in Cuba, Guatemala, Peru, Mexico, and other countries.  Students are introduced to key concepts from development theory, social movements research, cultural studies, and political economy analysis.

SOAN 270  Cultural Politics in East Asia                                 Jennifer Hubbert
TTh1:50 - 3:20 PM
Ethnographic analysis of the role of the state and the political economy in cultural and social change in East Asia (China, Japan, South Korea). Course will consider the region comparatively, examining both shared cultural and historical legacies and diverse contemporary experiences.  Drawing upon classic ethnographic texts as well as internet sites, personal memoirs and documentaries, topics may include nationalism, family, class, religion, globalization.

SOAN 355  Migration in Africa                                                   Tim Mechlinski
M3:00 - 4:30 PM; Th 3:30 - 5:0 PM
Examination of the historical and contemporary movements of Africans on their continent and abroad. Special attention paid to West and Southern African migration systems. Specific topics of focus include impact of environmental factors, politics and migration, economic development, brain drain, refugee issues, and
African immigrant settlement, work, and incorporation in the United States and Europe.

SOAN 356  Nationalism and Identity in Japan                        Linda Angst
TTh1:50 - 3:20 PM
This course examine the classic literature on the rise of nationalism, then moves to a study of the case of modern Japan as the non- Western example par excellence of modern nation- building at the end of the 19th century. Questions about how Japan fits the Western model of nation- state formation, but also departs from the model as an example of an alternate modernity. We examine the historical production of official narratives of national identity through "assimilation" processes, both violent and non- violent, of culturally distinct minority groups as well as forms of resistance by those groups.  Issues of center and periphery "civilization" and frontier in the processes of making modern state and citizen, with implications for contemporary Japanese identity.

ARTS and HUMANITIES TRACK:

ART 451  Topics in Art History                                                 Linda B. Tesner
TTh 9:40-11:10 AM
Reading and critical analysis organized around themes or problems in art history. Focus varies depending on instructor's teaching and research area. 

SPAN 230   Hispanic Literature in Translation                       Wendy Woodrich
TTh9:40AM - 11:00AM
Major works of Latin American narrative literature, with emphasis on authors who treat relevant social, political, historical, or cultural issues. Topics vary from year to year. Taught in English; no background in Spanish language or Hispanic literature required.

SPAN 370 Latin America & Spain: Enlight. to Present        Matthieu P. Raillard
MWF 10:20-11:20 AM
Introduction to major trends in Latin American and Spanish literature from the Enlightenment period to present day. Selected works from Latin America and Spain read in the context of cultural and historical events. 

HIST 345  History of Race and Nation in Latin America        Elliott Young
TTh 1:50 - 03:20 PM
Social thought about race and nation in Latin America. The Iberian concept of pureza de sangre, development of criollo national consciousness, 20th-century indigenista movements. Linkages between national identities and constructions of race, particularly in the wake of revolutionary movements. Freyre (Brazil), Marti (Cuba), Vasconcelos (Mexico), and Sarmiento (Argentina).

COURSES IN ETHNIC STUDIES FALL 2009

ETHNIC STUDIES CORE COURSES:

SOAN 225 Race/Ethnicity:  Global Perspective T,TH 9:40-11:10 am                      Gloria Gonzalez

Sociological and anthropological analysis of how the notions of racial and ethnic groups, nations and nationalities, indigenous and non-indigenous groups, and states and citizenships have evolved cross- culturally. How they might be reconfiguring in the present context of economic globalization, mass migrations, and diasporic formations.  Causes and consequences of the recent resurgence of ethnicity and the content, scope, and proposals of ethnic movements.

HIST 330  Race/Ethnicity American History     T,TH 1:50-3:20 pm                        Reiko Hillyer

The distinct experiences and culture of African-Americans in relation to other minority ethnic and racial groups. The uniqueness of the African-American experience; racism and prejudice; strategies of accommodation and resistance including gender and family relationships; the development of liberation movements. Readings of first-person narratives, secondary sources.

ETHNIC STUDIES ELECTIVES:

INTERDISCIPLINARY COURSES

ETHS 298  Black/Latino/a Popular Cultures    M 3:00-4:30pm, Th, 3:30-5:00         Uri McMillan

From Drag Balls to Hip-Hop, an interdisciplinary course examining the politics of cultural representation in musical and literary subcultures, films, mass media, and other forms of black and latino/a popular cultures. Topics/texts will include: pop music: Michael Jackson and Latino crossover, blaxploitation film, stand-up comedy, Afro-Punk, Locas: Love and Rockets, Paris is Burning, gender and sexuality debates in hip-hop, and reggaeton, etc. Students will make use of a rich mix of historical and theoretical materials, including the scholarship of Judith Butler, Zora Neale Hurston, Stuart Hall, Raquel Rivera, Juan Flores, Coco Fusco, Jeff Chang, and others.

SOCIAL SCIENCES COURSES

COMM 313 Politics of Public Memory  T  6:00-9:00 pm 
Mitch Reyes

Investigation of public memory as the public negotiation of the past for political purposes in the present. Course explores how different cultures have remembered and rhetorically constructed traumatic historical events such as the Holocaust and
institutionalized slavery. Consideration of the role of communication and persuasion in public acts of remembrance.

COMM 445  Communications, Race, and Social Justice  T 9:40-11:10 am   Mitch Reyes                                                                                                       Course explores scholarship on race and social justice through the community-based Heroes of Color program, a mentoring program in local inter-racial public schools. Theoretical and methodological frameworks for understanding the role of communication in negotiating racial issues and fostering social justice will be explored through readings, class discussion, writing assignments, and applied field learning experience.

SOAN 261  Gender/Sexuality Latin America        MWF 11:30-12:30 pm 
Gloria Gonzalez                                                                                           Exploration of gender and sexuality in Latin America through an anthropologicallens. Ethnographic and theoretical texts-including testimonial and film material-dealing with the different gender experiences of indigenous and nonindigenous peoples, lowland jungle hunter-gatherers, highland peasants, urban dwellers, and transnational migrants. 4 semester credits.

SOAN 273 Japanese Culture: Gender & Identity        MWF 10:20-11:20 am
Linda Isako Angst
Historical and ethnographic approaches to the study of Japanese culture and what it means to be Japanese, with a specific focus on gender roles. Various contexts for presentation and negotiation of maleness and femaleness with Japanese culture, and implications of gender definitions for larger social systems such as family, work, nation.  

SOAN 274 Chinese Culture Through Film   M 3:00-4:40 pm; TH 3:30-5:00 pm   Jennifer Hubbert                                                                                              Pairing contemporary ethnographic studies with Chinese feature films as an additional ethnographic source of political and cultural expression and critique, to explore cultural and social change in the late 20th and early 21^st century China. Particular attention paid to the effects of the political economy on changing family, gender, labor, class, ethnicity, and youth culture formations.

SOAN 275  Africa: Social/Cultural Perspective  M 3:00-4:30 pm; TH 3:30-5:00pm                                                                                                               Tim Mechlinski                                                                                                      The diverse peoples of Africa from precolonial times to the present day. Comparisons of religion and aesthetic expression based on political, economic, and social organization. Historical and ethnographic readings challenging the stereotypical view of a continent of isolated, unchanging tribes. Processes such as migration, trade, conquest, and state formation that have brought African societies into contact with one another and with other continents since prehistoric times.

SOAN 285 Culture/Power in the Middle East  M,W 11:30 am-1:00 pm                   Oren Kosansky                                                                                                    Introduction to the diverse cultures of Islam. Anthropological approaches to Islam as a religion. Developing a critical awareness of stereotypical views of Muslim peoples and politics. Emphasis on gender, particularly women and Islam. and Europe.

SOAN 350 Global Inequality    T,TH 9:40-11:10am                                               Tim Mechlinski                                                                                                   Issues in the relationships between First World and Third World societies, including colonialism and transnational corporations, food and hunger, women's roles in development. Approaches to overcoming problems of global inequality.

ARTS & HUMANITIES COURSES

ART 20 Pre-Columbian Art        MWF 11:30am-12:30pm               
Matthew Johnson
This course is an overview of Precolumbian art in Central and South America, focusing on the principal civilizations of the Aztec, Maya, and Inca, but also covering major earlier cultures, especially those that were influential in shaping the artistic customs of the region. This class will focus on identifying how the development of the arts played a key role in this process, through monumental decorative projects in palaces, temples, and whole cities, mass production of ceramics and other wares, and royal funerary art.

HIST 141  Colonial Latin American History    T,TH 9:40-11:10 am                  Elliott Young                                                                                                   Confrontation with the complexity of modern Latin American through historical analysis of the roots of contemporary society, politics, and culture.

HIST 229 The Holocaust in Comparative Perspective   T,TH  9:40-11:10 am  Maureen Healy                                                                                              Introduces students to the history of genocide in the twentieth century. We will look at three instances of genocide (Armenia, Holocaust, Rwanda) in their distinct historical contexts and from them identify the components of "modern" mass killings. We will look at the ways that historical actors have challenged the enlightenment ideal of humanity--a unified body of all people--by excluding some people from the category human.

HIST 348  Modern Cuba       T,TH  1:50 - 03:20 pm                                          Elliott Young                                                                                                Development of the modern Cuban nation from the independence movement of the mid-19th century to the contemporary socialist state. Focus on how identity changed under the Spanish colonial, U.S. neocolonial, Cuban republic, and revolutionary states. 1840s-1898: wars of independence, slavery, and transition to free labor. 1898-1952: U.S. occupation and neocolonialism, Afrocubanismo, and populism. 1952-present: Castro revolution, socialism, U.S.-Cuban-Soviet relations.

MUS 306  World Music: Latin American/Caribbean  M,W 11:30 am-1:00 pm  Franya Berkman                                                                                               Survey of musical traditions and styles of the Caribbean and Middle and South America, including Afro-Cuban music, salsa,
Latin jazz, and folk music of the Andes. Study of the music, instruments, and performance through readings, recordings, live
performance when possible. Historical developments, how the music is used. Social function, political context, art, poetry, literature, religion as they assist in understanding the music and its culture.

SPAN 360 Latin America/Spain: Pre-Columbia to Baroque MWF 1:50-2:50pm                                                                                                            Juan Carlos Toledano                                                                                Introduction to major trends in Latin American and Spanish literature from the beginnings to the Baroque period. Selected works from Latin American and Spain read in the context of cultural and historical events.

SPAN 410  Major Periods in Spanish Literature     M,W,F12:40-1:40pm Matthieu P. Raillard                                                                                      Introduction to the literature and culture of Spain in the context of the historical background. Major trends in Spanish literature. Readings of selected texts by writers representative of major periods of literary history.