Minoring

ENG 326: African American Literature

M/W/F 10:20 – 11:20
R. Cole

In this class, we will study the African American literary tradition from slavery through the present. Topics will include the particularity and plurality of the African American experience; Black authors’ participation in and departures from the broader tradition of American literature; and discussion of what it means to define oneself and one’s community, other people and their communities, or a literary tradition with reference to race. Authors may include Wheatley, Douglass, Jacobs, Sejour, Washington, Du Bois, Chesnutt, Hughes, Bennett, Toomer, Larsen, Ellison, Baldwin, Wright, Brooks, Giovanni, Baraka, Lorde, Morrison, Butler, Cole, Dove, Trethewey, Smith.

ETHS 200: Intro to Ethnic Studies

T/TH 9:40 – 11:10
M. Rabasa

Introduction to the academic field of ethnic studies. Students will grapple with classic and contemporary literature in the field to develop the tools for approaching race and ethnicity as categories of analysis. Exploration of the social production of conceptions of racial and ethnic difference rather than discussion of specific ethnic and racial groups. Examination of the origins, uses, and mutations of ideologies of race and ethnicity; analysis of how these ideologies intersect with empire and nationalism, sexuality and gender, capitalism and labor relations, and scientific knowledge. How methods from different disciplines contribute to an understanding of ethnic studies.

ETHS 345: Ethnic Studies Symposium Chair

TBD
K. Brodkin

Student chairs perform substantive analytic work related to this interdisciplinary field of study, conducting extensive research to explore speakers, develop panels, identify important issues, and develop the program of events. Working closely with each other, the planning committee, and the faculty director, chairs also develop leadership and professional responsibilities. Preference given to minors in ethnic studies, but students with relevant coursework or other experience will be considered.

HIST 135: The U.S. in the 20th Century

T/TH 9:40 – 11:10
R. Hillyer

The power of the United States in the world, from the Spanish-American War to Iraq. Central themes are freedom, the state, and empire. Overall, our topics include the rise of imperialism; the demise of Reconstruction and the development of industrial capitalism; Progressivism; the World Wars; urbanization; consumer culture; the Great Migration; the depression and New Deal; the Cold War; the rights revolutions of the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s; Vietnam; and the rise of the Right.

HIST 141: Colonial Latin American History

T/TH 9:40 – 11:10
E. Young

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 243: African American History

M/W 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.
N. Gallman

A survey of African American history from emancipation to the present: the process of emancipation, Reconstruction, 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. An examination of art, film, and theatre will supplement written primary and secondary sources.

HIST 328: The British Empire

M/W/F 11:30 – 12:30
D. Campion

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 390: Immigration and Asylum Law

T/TH 11:30 – 1:00
E. Young

Introduces students to immigration and asylum law in the United States. Students will work with instructor on several asylum cases for which instructor serves as expert witness for country conditions. Countries we cover include Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Venezuela. Asylum claims cover a variety of topics, including political persecution, drug cartel and gang violence, sexual violence, and gender and sexual orientation-based discrimination. Guest speakers will include immigration lawyers, immigration advocates, and immigration law professors. Students will apply liberal-arts research and writing skills to draft declarations for asylum petitioners, and they will work in teams on several cases during the semester, participating in intake interviews with clients to hearings before an immigration judge.

HIST 400: Slavery in the United States

T 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.
R. Hillyer

Perhaps no subject has undergone the most drastic reinterpretation than American slavery; and perhaps, there is no subject whose reinterpretation has had more significant political implications. Until the 1950s, the traditional view of slavery was that it had been a benign institution made necessary by the natural inferiority of African Americans. Not until the era of the modern civil rights movement did historians launch a full-scale refutation of this traditional interpretation and demonstrate that slavery was a brutal and exploitative system. Though we can neither examine all aspects of American slavery nor all of the scholarship on slavery, we will try to investigate some of the central questions in the historical literature, such as how historians have explained slavery’s origins and transformation, its variation over time and place, the invention of race, the experience of enslaved people, the relationship of slavery to capitalism, the nature of slave resistance, and the institution’s ultimate disintegration.

HIST 450: Seminar: Transnational Europe

M 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.
M. Healy

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 in International Relations

T/TH 1:50 – 3:20
S. Chaudhry

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.

IA 342: Perception and International Relations

T/TH 11:30 – 1:00
B. Mandel

Processes and patterns of intergroup and international perception, views of enemies, perception in foreign policy-making and deterrence, ways of reducing perceptual distortions. Students analyze and theorize about the role of misperception - distortions in one state’s perception of other states - in international relations.

MUS 106: Workshops in World Music

T/TH 1:50 – 3:20
K. Mason

Examines folk, popular, and art musical traditions from around the world with a special focus on the Andes, Ireland, Indonesia, Ghana, and India. Drawing on historical and visual sources, recordings, and contemporary ethnography, the course develops interpretive skill sets for analyzing the sound structures, performance contexts, and cultural significance of music in rituals, festivals, politics, schools, recording studios, cinema, the internet, and global stages. In addition to learning about key topics in the field of ethnomusicology, we engage with traditions firsthand through an ethnographic assignment in Portland and a weekly workshop with performance faculty on campus. Organized into three small-group sessions, the workshops introduce music and dance from Indonesia, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Spain, Latin America, and/or North India. Specific content may change from year to year.

MUS 236: Music of Asia

M/W/F 9:10 – 10:10
K. Mason

Survey of musical traditions from the Asian continent. Study of music, instruments, and performance through readings, recordings, and live performance when possible. Historical developments, how the music is used. Social function, political context, art, poetry, literature, and religion as they assist in understanding the music and its culture.

PHIL 217: Topics: Philosophy of Race & Racism

T/TH 1:50 – 3:20
E. Lichtenstein

Introduction to the philosophical study of race and racism. Examination of six areas of philosophical inquiry: epistemology of race (how we know things about race); metaphysics of race (what race is); genealogies of race (how racial identities historically emerged); phenomenology of race (lived experiences of race); political philosophy and race (how race has been excluded from Western political thought); theories of antiracist action (how to successfully combat racism). 

RHMS 321: Argument and Social Justice

T/TH 9:40 – 11:10
M. Reyes

Investigation of argumentation and social justice. Exploration and application of scholarship through the community-based Thank You for Arguing, a mentoring program run with local inner-city public schools. Theoretical and methodological frameworks for understanding the role of argumentation in fostering social justice explored through readings, class discussion, and writing assignments.

RHMS 406: Race, Rhetoric, and Resistance

M/W 3:00 – 4:30
K. 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 255: Medicine, Healing, and Culture

M/W 3:00 – 4:30
S. Bajracharya

Culturally patterned ways of dealing with misfortune, sickness, and death. Ideas of health and personhood, systems of diagnosis and explanation, techniques of healing ranging from treatment of physical symptoms to metaphysical approaches in non-Western and Western traditions.

SOAN 285: Culture and Power in the Middle East

T/TH 9:40 – 11:10
O. Kosansky

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 360: Decolonizing Anthropology

M/W 3:00 – 4:30
O. Kosansky

Exploration of the relationship between colonialism, knowledge production, and power in anthropology and associated fields. Critical approaches to the study of imperial ideologies, colonial representation, colonial resistance, and postcolonial identity. Consideration of how anthropology has variously operated as a tool of colonial control and a critique of continuing forms of colonial power. Recent and contemporary efforts to redress enduring colonial aspects of anthropological methods, theories, and aims.

SPAN 360: Latin Am/Spain: Pre-Columbian to Baroque

M/W/F 10:20 – 11:20
J. Toledano Redondo

Introduction to major trends in Latin American and Spanish literature from their beginnings to the baroque period. Selected works from Latin America and Spain read in the context of cultural and historical events.

SPAN 370: Topics in Transatlantic Culture

M/W/F 12:40 – 1:40
F. Vilches

This class studies the development of the modern story in the Spanish-speaking world. Through the critical analysis of representative texts of the genre, we will learn about their literary context and the way in which these stories dialogue with the historical and political moment in which they were written. We will also study the relationship between the story and cinematographic language and examine several examples of stories that have been adapted to the big screen. Finally, we will analyze the way in which this short - and sometimes very brief - genre has been cultivated (reproduced, parodied and transformed) to become one of the most read and practiced literary genres in the Spanish-speaking world.

SPAN 440: Topics: Borders & Translation

T/TH 11:30 – 1:00
M. Rabasa

The geopolitical, cultural, linguistic, economic, and social borders that currently exist in the Americas are the product of colonialism, as a historical process, and of coloniality, as a logic of domination. But borders are also productive spaces, where new ways of thinking and being in the world are generated. With the goal of expanding our thinking about what the concept of the border is-and what it does-the course explores the cultural production that emerges from border experiences, identities, and spaces. What does it mean to cross, live, translate, speak, and think the border? How are these diverse and complex experiences represented in material culture?