ETHN 1004 Introduction to Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (4 Credits)

Critically examines the concept of race, ethnicity, and indigeneity as categories of social, political, historical, and cultural significance, in the United States and internationally, followed by an investigation of colorblindness, diversity ideology, and modern manifestations of racial inequality. Race and ethnicity are examined as they intersect with gender, sexuality, social class, indigeneity, and immigration status. This course counts toward the Scientific Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

ETHN 2004 Quantitative Methods in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (4 Credits)

Students will be introduced to concepts and methodologies for research and writing in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES). Building on what students learned in the Introduction to Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, this course aims to expose students to the various quantitative ways that knowledge about CRES is formed. Students will practice quantitative techniques using SPSS and empirical writing about race, ethnicity, and inequality. Prerequisite: ETHN 1004.

ETHN 2102 1492: Indigeneity, Settler Colonialism, Race (1-2 Credits)

The year 1492 inaugurated a profoundly destructive phase in the history of humanity, but more so for the Indigenous peoples of this hemisphere as Christopher Columbus arrived at the shores of the “New World.” Within a couple of centuries after his arrival, thriving Indigenous civilizations found themselves in dire straits, if not completely laid to waste, causing untold suffering to the original inhabitants of this continent. The waves of European settlers who followed Columbus not only forcefully settled Indigenous lands by dispossessing Native peoples, but enforced a series of spiritual, cultural, social, political, and economic changes that had devastating effects on Indigenous lifeways. Yet, Indigeneity continues to not only thrive but challenges the ongoing disruption caused by settler-colonial occupation of lands and lives. This course, which is the first of a three-part sequence, takes Indigeneity and its repression by settler-colonialism as a foundational structure that inaugurated other projects of global consequence, including (anti)Black slavery and European colonization of the “Old World.” While Indigeneity is an international concept, our focus in this class will be on New World Indigeneity, especially North America. We will approach settler colonialism not as a thing of the past but as an ongoing incursion into the lives of Indigenous people, who continue to challenge it in new and innovative ways.

ETHN 2104 Drumming Across the Americas (4 Credits)

This course looks at rhythm as a fundamental organizing principle for Black music, dance, and life in the Americas. We will focus on multiple percussion-and-dance traditions from North America, South America, and the Caribbean as a window onto the people, cultures, and histories of the African diaspora. We will be especially attuned to the intersection and divergence of practices across present day national boundaries, due to political shifts and alternative cultural geographies forged through ongoing circulation of people and culture throughout the hemisphere. We will also explore trans-temporal rhythmic connections between practices originating in various eras. Overall, we will consider thematic links across genres, including issues of identity (race, gender, sexuality, ability, class), technology, freedom seeking, and spirituality. We will learn by doing, with music and dance practice at the center of our meetings. We will begin our study with the Gullah-Geechee ring shout, next engage in comparative work with Afro-Puerto Rican bomba, and finally apply the rhythmic lessons learned to the contemporary electronic practices of hip hop, reggaeton, and dance hall. Guest artists will visit some of our sessions to provide additional insight and guidance in these forms. Our practice will be supported by reading, listening/viewing, and discussion about our core styles as well as others, providing a critical framework for our creation. We will also attend several performances in order to see how these practices function in a live setting. No prior experience is necessary, only a willingness to jump in!.

ETHN 2174 Music of the Civil Rights Era (4 Credits)

The decades of the mid-20th century were an explosion of political unrest, social change, and cultural innovation. While the world was rocked by numerous anti-colonial struggles, disenfranchised populations in the U.S. forged their own battles in what is commonly referred to as the Civil Rights Era. In this course, we engage music as a way to understand this history — both as a record and agent of change. We explore a variety of music and other art from this period, including genres related to the African American freedom movement, multiracial folk revival, and Asian American, Chicano, and Women’s movements. In what ways did social movements employ culture as a political tool? What do we mean by the word “political”? How can music express politics, with or without words? How might music provide an alternative record of history? In order to address these questions and more, we will engage readings on music, politics, history, and identity. We will also view, listen to, and perform the traditions we study. Ultimately, while the tale of the Civil Rights Era is often told as separate, compartmentalized struggles based around identity, our investigations will reveal the intense interracial and intercultural political solidarities and creative dialogues that took place.

ETHN 2202 1619: Slavery and Its Afterlives (1-2 Credits)

The year 1619 marked the arrival of the first slave ship on the shores of what would come to be known as the United States of America. In August of that year, an English ship reached Point Comfort on the Virginia Peninsula where 20 Black people were sold for food and other essentials. This event inaugurated what would soon become a foundational institution of the New World—anti-Black chattel slavery—which undergirded all aspects of life in the U.S. Even though slavery had existed in many forms and in many places across the globe, what the U.S. model of slavery succeeded in doing was linking slavery with Blackness. This made slavery an inescapable part of Blackness, ensuring that whoever was born Black was also born into slavery. The celebrated theorist Toni Morrison has called slavery “America’s original sin.” Although slavery was formally abolished through the Emancipation Proclamation issued on Jan 1, 1863, it has continued to structure contemporary Black life, which the theorist Saidiya Hartman has termed the “aftermaths of slavery.” In other words, for critical Black theorists such as Hartman, slavery never ended but transformed into other structures that continue to render Black lives disposable. This class embraces Hartman’s understanding of slavery as an institution that has survived in (c)overt forms, as critical to understanding contemporary issues faced by Black people.

ETHN 2224 Race, Crime, and Documentaries (4 Credits)

Students in this course will view, interrogate, and write about full-length urban crime documentaries through the lenses of critical theories of race and ethnicity and criminological scholarship on the media’s distortion of crime reporting. A significant portion of class time will be spent investigating how crime documentaries frame urban racial minority communities that host the highest rates of violent crime and how race plays a role in what the larger society is taught about urban crime through the documentary genre. This focus has a goal of stimulating a more critical consumption of popular media.

ETHN 2302 1848: Settler Colonialism to Settler Imperialism (1-2 Credits)

Description: 1848 marked the signing of the Treaty of Guadalope-Hidalgo between the U.S. and Mexico. Apart from ending the U.S.-Mexico war, the treaty forced Mexico to cede about half of its territory, including present-day states of Texas as well as California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, parts of Colorado, and many other states. This makes it one of the largest land grabs in human history. More importantly, this treaty facilitated the westward expansion of settlers, leading to new forms of racial antagonisms while escalating existing ones. This class approaches this moment as also marking the emergence of the U.S. as an imperialist superpower on the world stage as its war making, which was hitherto focused exclusively on Indigenous groups, would now be expanded to new terrains and increasingly outside the New World. We will also pay attention to how colonial expropriation and racialization of Indigenous and Black people would provide the grammar that the U.S. would use as it encountered racial others both within its newly established but unstable borders as well as across the world. In sum, this class will explore different antagonisms that comprise the "cacophony of empire" (Byrd, 2011) and how racialized groups have fought back as well as remained complicit in reinscribing the supremacy of the U.S.

ETHN 2701 Topics in Critical Race & Ethnic Studies (1-4 Credits)

ETHN 3004 Theories of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (4 Credits)

Students will be introduced to concepts and theories for research and writing in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES). Building on what students learned in the Introduction to Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, this course aims to expose students to the key writings the formed the Critical Race Theory (CRT) movement, CRT’s interdisciplinary uses, the modern American controversies surrounding it, and introduce other critical theories of race and ethnicity. Prerequisite: ETHN 1004.

ETHN 3035 Whitewalling: Racial Politics of the Art World (4 Credits)

Aruna D’Souza defines whitewalling as “a neologism that expands in many directions: the literal site of contention, i.e., the white walls of the gallery; the idea of ‘blackballing’ or excluding someone; the notion of ‘whitewashing,’ or covering over that which we prefer to ignore or suppress; the idea of putting a wall around whiteness, of fencing it off, of defending it against incursions.” By examining the state of the art world through the lens of critical race and ethnic studies, this course will investigate a series of case studies that highlights these many manifestations of whitewalling in modern and contemporary art. Through lectures, readings, discussions, and written assignments, the course aims to explore the following questions: How does race intersect with art and art history? How do the shifting racial politics of the art world map histories of racial construction, systemic oppression, and subversive resistance? Should artistic freedom be prioritized, limited, or censored when an artwork includes harmful racial representations or ideologies? How can art institutions be critiqued as sites of contention? And perhaps most importantly, how can art scholars, workers, and creators collectively move towards a politics of racial justice? In this course, students will not only engage in art historical debates that address the critical role that art has played in shaping perceptions of race and racism, but students will also consider how the art world can provide platforms for anti-racist solidarity and protest.

ETHN 3204 Afrofuturism in Music (4 Credits)

Numerous Black artists have used images of space travel, extraterrestrials, mysticism, the future, science fiction, and technology in their creations. This course will examine the recurrence of these elements in African diasporic music, focusing on genres including jazz, funk, hip hop, and experimental music. How have artists’ racialized views of the future served to critique their contemporary worlds and pose radical visions of the future? In what ways has Black music shaped and been shaped by recording and other technologies? What are “technology” and “Blackness,” and how can one help us to understand the other? To answer these questions, we will engage a variety of readings on music, race, gender, sexuality, sound technology, and cyber-theory and view/listen to key Afrofuturist performances. We will also engage in our own music making (no experience required). In all, we will come to better understand the long encounter between people of the African diaspora and the so-called modern world.

ETHN 3804 Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Capstone (4 Credits)

Students will learn how to conduct in-depth qualitative analyses for research and writing in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES). Building on what students learned in the Introduction to Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Research Methods, and Theory, this course aims to enable students to produce their own empirical research. Various qualitative data analysis and research paper writing lessons will be covered throughout the quarter, and it is expected that students will produce a theoretically informed empirical paper centering on CRES topics. Prerequisites: ETHN 1004, ETHN 2004, and ETHN 3004.

ETHN 3991 Independent Study (1-10 Credits)