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Your search for courses · tagged with AMST Race Ethnicty Indign · returned 39 results
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AMST 142 U.S. Latinx Identity and Representation: Cultures of Belonging 6 credits
Popular culture and mass media serve as key sites of identity formation. In this course we will examine U.S. Latinx identity formation by focusing on three case studies: Selena Quintanilla, the singer; telenovelas; and the Disney films Coco and Encanto. These case studies will help us explore how transnationalism, intergenerational knowledge and trauma, and civic and cultural belonging contribute to the shaping of U.S. Latinx collective identities. We will attend to the particular processes of production and reception as we study how audiences engage with cultural producers both in private and in public (notably on social media).
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AMST 217 Race, Gender, and Sports in America 6 credits
How have American sports made visible discourses about race and gender? How do Americans who engage with sports—both as spectators and participants—imagine athletics when viewed through raced and gendered lenses? How do sports reflect assumptions about race and gender? Examining moments in the history of American athletics both from the distant and more recent pasts, students in this course will explore those issues while training a precise, critical eye on American culture and society. Key discussions will center on questions of the athletic body, integration, privilege and inequality, protest, power, and commercialism.
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AMST 238 9/11 and the War on Terror in American Culture 6 credits
An exploration of how the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 and the subsequent War on Terror impacted American culture. We will focus on issues of both form (the elements determining the look and feel of post-9/11 artwork) and content (the social and moral concerns driving post-9/11 culture). Shared texts will include novels, short stories, poetry, music, art, and films. Particular attention will be paid to themes such as race and racism, religion and religious discrimination, immigration and xenophobia, debates over American exceptionalism, critiques of American capitalism, the “death of irony,” attempts to define “truth,” and the spread of conspiracy theories.
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AMST 250 Asian American Reckonings 3 credits
As both targets of racism and beneficiaries of privilege, Asian Americans defy easy categorization. In a timely intervention, Cathy Park Hong, in her 2020 essay collection Minor Feelings, undertakes an “Asian American Reckoning.” Following Hong’s lead, this five-week course will reckon with Asian America in its most vexing aspects. Through an exploration of memoir, cultural criticism, poetry, fiction, and film/media, we will think hard about questions of privilege and discrimination, interracial politics, settler colonialism, and transnational ties. Grappling with the past and looking towards the future, this course asks: What does it mean to be Asian American?
Meets for the 1st 5 Weeks
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AMST 263 Ethics of Indigenous Engagement 3 credits
This course explores ethical questions raised in academic civic engagement with Indigenous Nations, communities, and organizations. How might curricular, co-curricular, and institutional engagement proceed “in a good way”? How can we interrupt a history of extractive relationships between academic institutions and Native peoples? How should partnerships reflect Indigenous sovereignty and work from meaningful overlaps between academic and Indigenous priorities? What is the right relationship between scholarship and advocacy? How can Indigenous knowledges, values, and pedagogies reshape academic inquiry? These questions will be explored through case studies, conversations with Indigenous partners, and structured reflection on student's varied engagement experiences.
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AMST 269 Woodstock Nation 6 credits
“If you remember the Sixties, you weren’t there.” We will test the truth of that popular adage by exploring the American youth counterculture of the 1960s, particularly the turbulent period of the late sixties. Using examples from literature, music, and film, we will examine the hope and idealism, the violence, confusion, wacky creativity, and social mores of this seminal decade in American culture. Topics explored will include the Beat Generation, the Vietnam War, Civil Rights, LSD, and the rise of environmentalism, feminism, and Black Power.
Extra time
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AMST 321 Indigenous Chicago: Indigenous Histories and Futures in Zhegagoynak 6 credits
Before Chicago as we know it today existed, many Indigenous nations had long standing relationships with this place. They knew it as Zhegagoynak, Gaa-zhigaagwanzhikaag, Zhigaagong, Šikaakonki, Shekâkôheki, Sekakoh, and Guušge honak, among others. This course emerges from four years of community-engaged curriculum development and examines Chicago histories through five themes: Chicago's lands and environment, Chicago as a Native place, Chicago as a place of convergence, activism and resistance in Chicago, and community-driven education movements in Chicago. Drawing from History, American Studies, Education, and Indigenous Studies, students will also examine how research and curricula can center Indigenous perspectives and sources.
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ARCN 112 Archaeology of Native North America 6 credits
When did humans first migrate to North America? How long have people lived in Minnesota? This course will examine the material culture of Indigenous peoples throughout the North American continent above Mexico, from c. 20,000 years ago to present. Cultural groups include the Inuit, Iroquois, ancient Puebloans, Cahokia, Great Plains villages, and Pacific Northwest (Kumash) peoples. We will study Indigenous oral histories, genetic data, linguistics, material remains, and ethnohistorical accounts to examine migration, trade, and contact, with an emphasis on decolonization and Indigenous archaeologies.
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DANC 254 Jazz Dance: Roots and Grooves 3 credits
This course positions jazz and related social dance styles as forms with African diasporic roots and American branches. Composed of 60% in-class movement investigation and 40% both in-class and out of class reading, viewing, writing, and creating, Jazz Dance: Roots and Grooves will ask students to invest in how the elements of groove, improvisation and interaction unite different approaches to jazz and make it a form that appreciates the past, centers the present and innovates for the future. Some dance experience recommended.
- Winter 2025
- ARP, Arts Practice PE, Physical Education
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EDUC 338 Multicultural Education 6 credits
This course focuses on the respect for human diversity, especially as these relate to various racial, cultural and economic groups, and to women. It includes lectures and discussions intended to aid students in relating to a wide variety of persons, cultures, and life styles.
Extra time
- Spring 2025
- IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies SI, Social Inquiry
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): One 100 or 200 level Educational Studies (EDUC) course with grade of C- or better.
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ENGL 211 Haunting the Margins of American Literature 6 credits
Nineteenth-century Americans were hardly strangers to ghosts and the world beyond. In fact, many actively sought communion with the dead by attending table-rapping séances and sitting for spirit photographs. This class will analyze a variety of literary hauntings from the long nineteenth century to explore the cultural anxieties and desires they might represent. Paying particular attention to questions of race, gender, and sexuality, we will consider how figures ghosted from history become present in ways that demand attention and, at times, redress. Authors will include Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rose Terry Cooke, Alice Brown, and Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins.
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ENGL 227 Imagining the Borderlands 6 credits
This course engages the borderlands as space (the geographic area that straddles nations) and idea (liminal spaces, identities, communities). We examine texts from writers like Anzaldúa, Butler, Cervantes, Dick, Eugenides, Haraway, and Muñoz first to understand how borders act to constrain our imagi(nation) and then to explore how and to what degree the borderlands offer hybrid identities, queer affects, and speculative world-building. We will engage the excess of the borderlands through a broad chronological and generic range of U.S. literary and visual texts. Come prepared to question what is “American”, what is race, what is human.
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ENGL 230 Studies in African American Literature: From the 1950s to the Present 6 credits
We will explore developments in African American literature since the 1950s with a focus on literary expression in the Civil Rights Era; on the Black Arts Movement; on the new wave of feminist/womanist writing; and on the experimental and futuristic fictions of the twenty-first century. Authors to be read include Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Malcolm X, Audre Lorde, Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed, Alice Walker, August Wilson, Charles Johnson, Ntozake Shange, Gloria Naylor, Suzan-Lori Parks, Kevin Young, and Tracy Smith.
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ENGL 233 Writing and Social Justice 6 credits
Social justice is fairness as it manifests in society, but who gets to determine what fairness looks, sounds, feels like? The self-described Black Canadian poet Dionne Brand says that she doesn’t write toward justice because that doesn’t exist, but that she writes against tyranny. If we use that framework, how does that change our own writing and our own notions of justice in our or any time? What is the role of literary writing, especially fiction, the essay, and poetry in the collective and individual quest to understand and build conditions that could yield increased potential for social justice? In this course, students will read, analyze, discuss, and write about various texts that might be considered to be against myriad tyrannies, if not necessarily toward social justice. Authors may include Octavia Butler, Phillip Metres, Toni Morrison, Myung Mi Kim, and M. NourbeSe Philipe.
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ENGL 253 Food Writing: History, Culture, Practice 6 credits
We are living in perhaps the height of what might be called the “foodie era” in the U.S. The cooking and presentation of food dominates Instagram and is one of the key draws of YouTube and various television and streaming networks; shows about chefs and food culture are likewise very popular. Yet a now less glamorous form with a much longer history persists: food writing. In this course we will track some important genres of food writing over the last 100 years or so. We will examine how not just food but cultural discourses about food and the world it circulates in are consumed and produced. We will read recipes and reviews; blogs and extracts from cookbooks, memoirs and biographies; texts on food history and policy; academic and popular feature writing. Simultaneously we will also produce food writing of our own in a number of genres.
- Spring 2025
- ARP, Arts Practice WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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ENTS 220 Sovereignty and Sustainability 6 credits
This course explores the legal, cultural, and environmental foundations of Tribal and Indigenous environmental stewardship and natural resource management. Students will examine the historical significance of treaties, Tribal sovereignty, and federal trust responsibility, as well as key laws that have shaped Tribal resource use. The evolution of Tribal co-management with federal and state agencies will be analyzed through case studies, highlighting challenges and successful partnerships. Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and Indigenous worldviews on land stewardship will complement critical discussions on climate change, environmental justice, and the ongoing balance between economic development and ecological sustainability in Tribal resource use.
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GWSS 398.00 Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Popular Culture 6 credits
This capstone seminar reads representations of racial, gender, and sexual minorities in popular culture through the lenses of feminist, critical race, queer, and trans theories. Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” in the late 1980s to describe an approach to oppression that considered how structures of power act multiply on individuals based upon their interlocking racial, class, gender, sexual, and other identities. This seminar takes up the charge of intersectional analysis—rejecting essentialist theories of difference while exploring pluralities—to interpret diversity (or lack thereof) in forms of art and entertainment, focusing on film, TV, and digital media.
- Spring 2025
- WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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HIST 116 Intro to Indigenous Histories, 1887-present 6 credits
Many Americans grow up with a fictionalized view of Indigenous people (sometimes also called Native Americans/American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians within the U.S. context). Understanding Indigenous peoples’ histories, presents, and possible futures requires moving beyond these stereotypes and listening to Indigenous perspectives. In this class, we will begin to learn about Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island and the Pacific through tribal histories, legislation, Supreme Court cases, and personal narratives. The course will focus on the period from 1887 to 2018 with major themes including (among others) agency, resistance, resilience, settler colonialism, discrimination, and structural racism.
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HIST 125 African American History I: From Africa to the Civil War 6 credits
This course is a survey of early African American history. It will introduce students to major themes and events while also covering historical interpretations and debates in the field. Core themes of the course include migration, conflict, and culture. Beginning with autonomous African politics, the course traces the development of the United States through the experiences of enslaved and free African American women and men to the Civil War. The main aim of the course is for students to become familiar with key issues and developments in African American history and their centrality to understanding U.S. history.
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HIST 126 African American History II 6 credits
This course analyzes Black Freedom activism, its goals, and protagonists from Reconstruction until today. Topics include the evolution of racial segregation and its legal and de facto expressions in the South and across the nation, the Great Migration and Harlem Renaissance, Black activism in the New Deal era, the effects of World War II and the Cold War, mass activism in the 1950s and 1960s, white supremacist resistance against Black rights, Black Power activism and Black Internationalism, the “War on Drugs,” racialized welfare state reforms, and police brutality, the election of Barack Obama, and the path to #BlackLivesMatter today.
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HIST 209 Slavery in the Atlantic World 6 credits
This course explores the history of enslavement in the Atlantic World, including West Africa, South America, the Caribbean, North America, and Europe. The course examines the intersecting themes of power, labor, law, race, gender, sexuality, and resistance. It will consider how these themes each shaped the construction of different institutions of enslavement while simultaneously focusing on the experiences of the enslaved who lived and died within in these systems. Using a comparative methodology, we will ask canonical questions, such as what constitutes a slave society and which forms did resistance, rebellion, and revolution by enslaved people take.
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HIST 220 From Blackface to Blaxploitation: Black History and/in Film 6 credits
This course focuses on the representation of African American history in popular US-American movies. It will introduce students to the field of visual history, using cinema as a primary source. Through films from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the seminar will analyze African American history, (pop-)cultural depictions, and memory culture. We will discuss subjects, narrative arcs, stylistic choices, production design, performative and film industry practices, and historical receptions of movies. The topics include slavery, racial segregation and white supremacy, the Black Freedom Movement, controversies and conflicts in Black communities, Black LGBTQIA+ history, ghettoization and police brutality, Black feminism, and Afrofuturism.
Extra time
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HIST 301 Indigenous Histories at Carleton 6 credits
Carleton’s new campus land acknowledgement affirms that this is Dakota land, but how did Carleton come to be here? What are the histories of Indigenous faculty, students, and staff at Carleton? In this course, students will investigate Indigenous histories on our campus by conducting original research about how Carleton acquired its landbase, its historic relationships to Dakota and Anishinaabeg people, histories of on-campus activism, the shifting demographics of Native students on campus, and the histories of Indigenous faculty and staff, among others. Students will situate these histories within the broader context of federal Indian policies and Indigenous resistance.
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LING 145 Dialectology 6 credits
This course explores dialectology, the study of dialects. Participants learn the field’s history before turning to World Englishes, with special attention to the current dialects of American English. We analyze the earliest colonial American English dialects, highlighting language contact with indigenous and other languages, the linguistic impact of the Atlantic slave trade, and subsequent impacts of westward migration. Participants also assess speakers’ perceptions of dialects; analyze dialectal variation as portrayed in media, either accurately or stereotypically; and re-examine what constitutes standard/non-standard dialects, and how ‘standardness’ has changed over time. Not open to students who have taken LING 140.
Not open to students who have taken LING 140
- Winter 2025
- IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies SI, Social Inquiry
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Not open to students who have taken LING 140 – Language in the US.
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MUSC 232 Golden Age of R & B 6 credits
A survey of rhythm and blues from 1945 to 1975, focusing on performers, composers and the music industry.
Not open to students who have taken MUSC 132
- Fall 2024
- IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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Not open to students that have taken MUSC 132 – Golden Age of R & B
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POSC 122 Politics in America: Liberty and Equality 6 credits
An introduction to American government and politics. Focus on the Congress, Presidency, political parties and interest groups, the courts and the Constitution. Particular attention will be given to the public policy debates that divide liberals and conservatives and how these divisions are rooted in American political culture.
- Fall 2024, Winter 2025
- IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies QRE, Quantitative Reasoning SI, Social Inquiry
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POSC 204 Media and Electoral Politics: 2024 United States Election 6 credits
Our analysis of media influences on politics will draw from three fields of study: political psychology, political behavior and participation, and public opinion. Students will conduct a study of the effects of campaign ads and news using our multi-year data set of content analyzed election ads and news. We study a variety of quantitative and qualitative research methods to learn how political communication affects U.S. elections.
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POSC 224 Political Campaigns & Electoral Behavior 6 credits
Representative government requires the occurrence of regular elections. This course is designed to introduce you to the key issues and controversies surrounding the study of campaigns and elections in the United States. It will analyze the rules and processes that define the presidential and congressional electoral systems, the actors who engage one another within those systems, the campaign strategies candidates use to persuade and turnout voters, and the considerations Americans use to determine their vote on Election day. This course also provides insight into why (and how) campaigns and elections are normatively important for maintaining a healthy democracy.
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POSC 271 Constitutional Law I 6 credits
This course will explore the United States Constitution and the legal doctrines that have emerged from it, using them as lenses through which to understand the history—and shape the future—of this country. Using prominent Supreme Court opinions as teaching tools and loci of debate (including cases on the Court’s recent and current docket), this course will explore the different kind of theoretical approaches with which to make Constitutional arguments and interpret the Constitution. It is one of two paired courses (the other being POSC 272) that complement each other. Both courses will address the structure and functioning of the United States government, and will explore in greater depth the historic Constitutional “trends” towards greater equality and more liberty (albeit slowly, haltingly, and with steps both forward and backward). This course will focus in particular on how matters of racial justice have been a Constitutional issue from the very beginning of the nation—and very much remain unfinished legal work. In exploring matters of personal liberty, this course will focus in particular on First Amendment freedom of religion. Finally, in examining governmental structures, this course will emphasize federalism and the distribution of power between the national and state governments, including the rise of a nationwide economic system and the modern administrative state. The course will require close reading of judicial opinions and other texts, and learning how to construct arguments using logic and precedent. A special feature of this course will be detailed examination and intra-class mock debate of the cases the Supreme Court will hear this fall challenging raced-based affirmative action programs at private and public universities.
- Fall 2024
- SI, Social Inquiry
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POSC 272 Constitutional Law II 6 credits
This course will explore the United States Constitution and the legal doctrines that have emerged from it, using them as lenses through which to understand the history—and shape the future—of this country. Using prominent Supreme Court opinions as teaching tools and loci of debate (including cases on the Court’s recent and current docket), this course will explore the different kind of theoretical approaches with which to make Constitutional arguments and interpret the Constitution. It is one of two paired courses (the other being POSC 271) that complement each other. Both courses will address the structure and functioning of the United States government, and will explore in greater depth the historic Constitutional “trends” towards greater equality and more liberty (albeit slowly, haltingly, and with steps both forward and backward). This course will focus in particular on how gender equality is very much unfinished Constitutional work on our way towards a “more perfect union.” This topic will include an examination of the Court’s recent controversial decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In exploring matters of personal liberty, this course will focus in particular on First Amendment freedom of speech and other fundamental rights protected under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Finally, in examining governmental structures, this course will emphasize the separation of powers across the branches of the federal government. The course will require close reading of judicial opinions and other texts, and learning how to construct arguments using logic and precedent. POSC 271 is not a prerequisite for POSC 272. The two courses can be taken independently, although having taking POSC 271 will provide students with a broader and more nuanced foundation for exploring the themes covered of this course
- Spring 2025
- SI, Social Inquiry
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POSC 273 Race and Politics in the U.S. 6 credits
This course addresses race and ethnicity in U.S. politics. Following an introduction to historical, sociological, and psychological approaches to the study of race and ethnicity, we apply these approaches to understanding the ways in which racial attitudes have been structured along a number of political and policy dimensions, e.g., welfare, education, criminal justice. Students will gain an increased understanding of the multiple contexts that shape contemporary racial and ethnic politics and policies in the U.S., and will consider the role of institutional design, policy development, representation, and racial attitudes among the general U.S. public and political environment.
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POSC 302 Subordinated Politics and Intergroup Relations 6 credits
How do social and political groups interact? How do we understand these interactions in relation to power? This course will introduce the basic approaches and debates in the study of prejudice, racial attitudes, and intergroup relations. We will focus on three main questions. First, how do we understand and study prejudice and racism as they relate to U.S. politics? Second, how do group identities, stereotyping, and other factors help us understand the legitimation of discrimination, group hierarchy, and social domination? Third, what are the political and social challenges associated with reducing prejudice?
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POSC 315 Polarization and Democratic Decline in the United States 6 credits
The United States is more politically polarized today than at any time since the late nineteenth century, leaving lawmakers, journalists, and experts increasingly concerned that the toxicity in our politics is making the country vulnerable to political instability, violence, and democratic decline. Moreover, citizens are increasingly willing to call into question the legitimacy of this country’s core electoral and governing institutions. How did the U.S. get to this point? What can be done about it? This course will examine political polarization as a central feature of American politics and the consequences for American democracy.
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PSYC 384 Psychology of Prejudice 6 credits
This seminar introduces students to major psychological theories and research on the development, perpetuation and reduction of prejudice. A social and historical approach to race, culture, ethnicity and race relations will provide a backdrop for examining psychological theory and research on prejudice formation and reduction. Major areas to be discussed are cognitive social learning, group conflict and contact hypothesis. Psychology 256 or 258 recommended preparation.
- Winter 2025
- IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies SI, Social Inquiry
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): PSYC 110 – Principles of Psychology with a grade of C- or better or received a score of 4 or better on the Psychology AP exam or received a score of 6 or better on the Psychology IB exam.
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RELG 261 Race & Empire in American Islam 6 credits
From colonial times when Muslims were brought to America as slaves, to the aftermath of the Spanish-American War when the United States found itself ruling over a large Muslim population in the Philippines, to the more recent War on Terror, Muslims and Islam have long been entangled in the politics of race and empire in America. This course will examine these entanglements through primary and secondary sources to better understand the role that race, religion, and empire have played in the forging of American Islam today.
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SOAN 125 Southeast Asian Migration and Diasporic Communities 6 credits
2025 is the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Many Southeast Asian (SEAn) refugees resettled in the U.S. in the aftermath. First, we begin in Southeast Asia (SEA) to understand the social, political, and historical circumstances that have led to SEA migration. Then we will examine how SEAn have adapted to life in the U.S. and how those communities—many are here in Minnesota—are thriving today. We’ll work on a project in collaboration with SEAn organizations to commemorate the 50th anniversary and also travel to SEAn communities in the Twin Cities, dates TBD.
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SOAN 225 Social Movements 6 credits
How is it that in specific historical moments ordinary people come together and undertake collective struggles for justice in social movements such as Black Lives Matter, Me Too, Standing Rock, immigrant, and LGBTQ rights? How have these movements theorized oppression, and what has been their vision for liberation? What collective change strategies have they proposed and what obstacles have they faced? We will explore specific case studies and use major sociological perspectives theorizing the emergence of movements, repertoires of protest, collective identity formation, frame alignment, and resource mobilization. We will foreground the intersectionality of gender, sexuality, race, and class in these movements.
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SOAN 278 Urban Ethnography and the American Experience 6 credits
American sociology has a rich tradition of focusing the ethnographic eye on the American experience. We will take advantage of this tradition to encounter urban America through the ethnographic lens, expanding our social vision and investigating the nature of race, place, meaning, interaction, and inequality in the U.S. While doing so, we will also explore the unique benefits, challenges, and underlying assumptions of ethnographic research as a distinctive mode of acquiring and communicating social knowledge. As such, this course offers both an immersion in the American experience and an inquiry into the craft of ethnographic writing and research. The department strongly recommends that Sociology/Anthropology 110 or 111 be taken prior to enrolling in courses numbered 200 or above.
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SOAN 283 Immigration, Citizenship, and Belonging in the U.S. 6 credits
Immigration has been a defining feature of the United States that is tied to legal and cultural forms of citizenship, and more broadly, to questions of belonging. This course explores these three concepts through multiple aspects of immigration, including the migration experience, immigration policy, community, education, culture, and others, for both immigrants and the children of immigrants. Special attention is given to how differences among immigrants—such as race, gender, class, national origin, and others—matter in all of these areas. These questions and issues are explored through academic readings, popular and public discourse, immigrant voices, and civic engagement in local communities.
The department strongly recommends that 110 or 11 be taken prior to enrolling in courses number 200 or above.