Ethnic Studies

COURSES IN ETHNIC STUDIES

ETHNIC STUDIES COURSES:  FALL 2014

CORE COURSES:  
HIST 240  Race & Ethnicity/U.S.                                       Jane Hunter
MWF 1:50-2:50 pm
Investigation of the history of categories of race and ethnicity in the United States, primarily focused on the historical production of conceptions of racial and ethnic difference. Examines the origins, uses, and mutations of ideologies of race and ethnicity, as well as how these ideologies intersect with empire and nationalism, sexuality and gender, capitalism and labor relations, and scientific knowledge. Considers both chronological and thematic approaches. Examines scholarly work, visual culture, and memoir. Open to all students.         

ELECTIVES:  Arts & Humanities

ART 451         Art in the Qing Dynasty                               Ben David
MW 3- 4:30 pm        
Reading and critical analysis organized around themes or problems in art history. Focus varies depending on instructors teaching and research areas

ENG 319           Post-Colonial Lit: Afr/Ind/Carib          Rishona Zimring
TTh 1:50-3:20 pm
Post-World War II literary works and essays exploring the literary and cultural issues raised by the collapse of the colonial world order. Western travel and primitivism; decolonization and national allegories; authenticity and the invention of tradition; immigrant dreams; constructions of race; women and the nation; adolescence and the novel of education. Rhys, Rushdie, Emecheta, Coetzee, Achebe, Ghosh. 

FREN 330       Francophone Literature                        Philippe Brand
MWF 1:50-2:50 pm
Major works by Francophone writers outside of France (Africa, Canada, Caribbean). Focus on sociocultural issues as expressed in literature. Class discussion, short papers, oral presentations, midterm, final.

HIST 141        Colonial Latin American History                Elliott Young
TTh 9:40-11:10
History of Latin America from Native American contact cultures through the onset of independence movements in the early 19th century. Cultural confrontations, change, and Native American accommodation and strategies of evasion in dealing with the Hispanic colonial empire.

HIST 209        Japan at War                                                STAFF
MWF 12:40-1:40
In-depth study of the causes, dynamics, and outcomes of the wars fought by Japan in Asia and the Pacific from the late 19th century through World War II. The trajectories of Japanese imperialism, sequence of events leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor, social impact of total war. Japan’s wartime culture as seen through diaries, newspaper articles, propaganda films, short stories, government documents. Short- and long-term effects of the atomic bomb and the American occupation of Japan.

HIST 222        Britian: Age Revolution 1688-1815       David Campion
MWF8:00-9:00 am
A history of Britain and its people from the Glorious Revolution to the end of the Napoleonic War. The end of absolutism and the rise of the constitutional monarchy; the Augustan Age: arts, letters, and religion; the Atlantic world and British overseas expansion; the Enlightenment and
scientific revolution; the American Revolution and its aftermath; union with Scotland and Ireland and the creation of the British national identity; the revolution in France and the wars against Napoleon; the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution.

HIST 226        Twentieth-Century Germany                Maureen Healy
TTH 9:40 – 11:10 a.m.
Origins and consequences of World War I; attempts to develop a republican government; Nazism; evolution of the two Germanies after 1945 and their reunification. Readings on relationship between individual and state, pressures for conformity, possibility of dissent.

HIST 239        Construct American Landscape               Reiko Hillyer
TTh 9:40-11:10 am
Political, social, economic, and aesthetic forces that have helped shape ordinary built environments: farms, fast-food restaurants, theme parks, sports stadiums, highways, prisons, public housing. Patterns of economic growth and decline, technological innovation, segregation, gentrification, capital migration and globalization, historic preservation, and changing ideologies about nature and the city.                                         

HIST 328        The British Empire                                   David Campion
MWF 10:20-11:30
The history of British overseas expansion from the early 17th century to the end of the 20th century. Theories of imperialism; Britain’s Atlantic trade network; the Victorian empire in war and peace; collaboration and resistance among colonized people; India under the British Raj; Africa and
economic imperialism; the effects of empire on British society; the creation of the British Commonwealth; the rise of nationalism in India, Africa, and the Middle East; decolonization and postcolonial perspectives. Extensive readings from primary sources

HIST 348        Modern Cuba                                                Elliot Young
TTH 1:50 – 3:20 p.m.
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 to 1898: wars of independence, slavery, transition to free labor. 1898 to 1952: U.S. occupation and neocolonialism, Afrocubanismo, populism. 1952 to the present: Castro revolution, socialism, U.S.-Cuban-Soviet relations

HIST 400      Reading Colloquium - History of History    Elliott Young
W 6:00-9:00 pm
Reading and critical analysis of major interpretive works. Organized around themes or problems; comparative study of historical works exemplifying different points of view, methodologies, subject matter. Focus varies depending on instructor’s teaching and research area.

HIST 450        History Seminar                                          Jane Hunter
TTH 9:40 – 11:10 a.m.
Work with primary documents to research and write a major paper that interprets history. Topical content varies depending on instructor’s teaching field. Recent topics: the Americas; the United States and Asia; European intellectual history since 1945; women in American history; Indian policy on the Pacific slope; World War II, the participants’ perspectives; the British Raj; cultural nationalism in East Asia. May be taken twice for credit. Enrollment preference given to history majors and minors.

IA 296            Human Rights/Int’l Politics       Heather Smith-Cannoy
MW 3:00-4:30 pm
Tensions surrounding sovereignty, or nonintervention, in the face of increasingly severe human rights abuses. Overview of the philosophical underpinnings of human rights as well as prominent debates in the human rights literature. Critical examination of the doctrine of sovereignty in international relations theory and practice. Analysis of the international community’s ways of preventing human rights violations, including political and judicial enforcement of human rights norms.

LAS 200         Latin American Stds    Juan Carlos Toledano Redondo
MWF 1:50-2:50 pm
Theoretical approaches to the study of Latin American culture. Focused study of particular writers, artists, and musicians. Topics include indigenismo, nationalism, post-colonialism, the African diaspora, borderlands, and hybridity. Interdisciplinary approach integrates literary, historical, and anthropological modes of inquiry in this team-taught, bilingual class. To earn Hispanic studies credit, students must do their papers in Spanish.

MUS 306       World Music:  Latin Am/Car            Beth Szczepanski
TTh 9:40-11:10 am
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       LatAm/Spain: PreColumbian-Barq   Matthieu Raillard
MWF 12:40 -1:40 pm
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 446    Hisp Lit/Culture: Scifi    Juan Carlos Toledano Redondo
MWF 9:10-10:10 am
Study of a genre, an author, a literary movement, or a topic in Hispanic literatures and cultures (Peninsular and/or Latin American, or U.S. Latino). Extensive oral and written work culminating in a research paper written in Spanish. May be taken twice for credit with change of topic.

Electives:  Social Sciences
RHMS 406       Race, Rhetoric and Resistance          Kundai Chirindo  
MW 6:00-7:30 pm  
How gendered identities and relationships are rhetorically constructed through everyday interaction. Role of rhetoric in social scientific study of gender and interaction. Survey of theories and empirical research on gender similarities and differences in communication with attention both to the explanations given as well as the rhetorical strategies scholars use to persuade.

SOAN 266        Social Change in Latin American            Sarah Warren
TTh 9:40-11:10 am    
Dynamics of social change in Latin America, with a particular focus on revolutionary transformations.  Comparative analysis of social change in Cuba, Guatemala, Peru, Mexico, and other countries. An introduction to key concepts from development theory, social movements research, cultural studies, and political economy analysis.

SOAN 285        Culture/Power in Middle East                Oren Kosansky
MW 3:00-4:30 pm 
Introduction to the anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa, with an emphasis on the relationship between global and local forms of social hierarchy and cultural power. Topics include tribalism, ethnicity, colonialism, nationalism, gender, religious practices, migration, the politics of identity.

SOAN 334       Anthropology of Suffering             Sepideh Bajracharya
TTh 1:50-3:20 pm                              
An anthropological perspective on the modern subject and experience of suffering. Topics include the role, experience, and representation of suffering in illness, addiction, grief, poverty, inequality, religion, globalization, and violence. The relationship that social, economic, political, and subjective perspectives on suffering have to practices and possibilities of healing, rights, pleasure, peace, resistance, and faith. The methods and ethics of studying and representing suffering in popular culture, modern social theory, and ethnography.

SOAN 349      Indigenous People                                    Sarah Warren
TTh 11:30-1:00 pm
Indigenous peoples, indigenous identity, and social movements for indigenous rights. How indigenous identity is defined, constructed, and maintained, and the rights that indigenous people have and can claim. The relationship between international organizations, including the United
Nations, and indigenous movements. Central focus on North and South America with some comparative cases from Asia. Sociological theories of social movements, identity politics, and racial
formation.

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ETHNIC STUDIES ELECTIVES:  SPRING 2014

SOCIAL SCIENCES COURSES

RHMS 340  Media Across Cultures                            TTh 1:50-3:20pm    Peter Christenson
Theoretical perspectives on the political and social role of mass communication in developed and developing nations. Mass communication organizations, content, regulatory models, audiences in diverse cultures. Implications of public versus private ownership of mass media. Evaluation of claims of U.S. cultural imperialism. Minority and ethnic media.

RHMS 406  Race, Rhetoric, and Resistance             M 6:00-9:00pm Kundai Chirindo
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.

SOAN 225 Race/Ethnicity:  Global Perspective        TTh 9:40-11:10 am  Sarah Warren
Sociological and anthropological analysis of how the notions of racial and ethnic groups, nations and nationalities, indigenous and nonindigenous 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.

SOAN 251  Myth, Ritual, and Symbol          MWF 11:30 am-12:30 pm  Bruce Podobnik
Sociocultural approaches to the study of myth, ritual, and symbol. The nature of myth and ritual in a variety of cultures, including the United States. Introduction to analytical approaches to myth, ritual, and symbolic forms including functionalism, structuralism, psychoanalysis, interpretive and performative approaches.

SOAN 274  Contemporary Chinese Society             TTh 9:40-11:10am   Jennifer Hubbert
Anthropology of late 20th- and early 21st-century China. Particular attention paid to the effects of the political economy on family, gender, labor, class, ethnicity, and urban life. Extensive use of feature film as a contemporary ethnographic source of political/cultural expression and critique.

SOAN 324  Anthropology of Violence                        TTh 1:50-3:20 pm   Sepideh Bajracharya
An upper-level introduction to the anthropology of violence, including recent literature in the field as well as classical examples of the study of violence by anthropologists. Questions of control, responsibility/accountability, public-/private-sphere boundaries, ritual/symbolic meanings. Topics include possible biological bases of aggression; symbolic enactment of violence; nationalism and militarism; the politics of gender, race, class, and ethnic identity; state violence; human rights.

SOAN 350  Global Inequality                                      MWF 1:50-2:50pm  
Bruce Podobnik
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.

SOAN 363    Imagining the Nation                             TTh 1:50-3:20pm     
Sarah Warren
Examines the rise of the modern nation-state and nationalism, including imperialism, colonialism, and postcolonial experiences. Reviews how Asian models exhibit similarities and differences from Western models of nation-state formation. Investigates narratives of national identity, and compares violent and nonviolent dynamics of “assimilation” of minority groups.

ARTS & HUMANITIES COURSES

ART 207   Pre-Columbia Art                                  MWF  10:20-11:20am  
Matt Johnston
Overview of the art of the Aztec, Maya, and Inca civilizations, other major early Central and South American cultures. Examination of architecture, sculpture, ceramics, painting; how the arts played a key role in developing a sense of continuity within these societies across time and distance.

ART 451 Art of the American West                       Th 11:30am-1:00pm      Matt Johnston
This course examines how visual materials have shaped perceptions of the American West from the nineteenth century to the present. In particular, we investigate not only how images of the West have changed over time, but what they meant to the different social, ethnic, and economic groups who had a stake in claiming it as a home. Although we examine traditional painting and sculpture, the focus will be on less traditional high-culture art forms and the texts surrounding them, such as mass market prints and illustrations in dime novels, geological and mapping survey materials, early film and advertising, native arts, and Spanish colonial architecture. 

FREN 450     Special Topics                                           TTh 1:50-3:20       Isabelle DeMarte
Special topics or issues of French/Francophone literature and culture. Emphasis on stylistics, fine points of idiomatic usage and academic writing. Extensive oral and written work culminating in a research paper written and presented in French.

HIST 142 Modern Latin America                                 TTh 9:40-11:10am   Elliott Young
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.

HIST 298  Afr American History 1865 to Present   TTH 9:40-11:10am
Reiko Hillyer
This course will be a survey of African American history from emancipation to the present.  We will examine the demise of slavery, the rise of Jim Crow, the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Depression and the transformation of the rural South, the civil rights movement, black power and white backlash, the rise of the prison-industrial complex, and the development of hip-hop culture.  We will supplement our reading of written primary and secondary sources with an examination of art, film, and theater.  

HIST 450   History Seminar                                              T 6:00-9:00pm     Elliott Young
Work with primary documents to research and write a major paper that interprets history. Topical content varies depending on instructor’s teaching field. Recent topics: the Americas; the United States and Asia; European intellectual history since 1945; women in American history; Indian policy on the Pacific slope; World War II, the participants’ perspectives; the British Raj; cultural nationalism in East Asia. May be taken twice for credit. Enrollment preference given to history majors and minors.

IA 232  Southest Asian Politics                              MWF 10:20-11:20am   Cari Coe
Political and economic context of contemporary Southeast Asian states using a comparative perspective. Topics may include the effects of colonial and Cold War legacies on state development; the relationships among ethnicity, religion, and conflict; political transition and democratization; economic development policy; regional environmental issues; and Southeast Asian economic integration.

SPAN 370  LatinAm/Spain: Ent-Present     MWF 11:30-12:30pm   
J. Toledano Redondo
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.

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