AMST 3300 - Introduction to Latinx Studies Credits: 3

This small lecture course offers students close study and analysis of significant texts or cultural artifacts that are printed, visual, oral or musical representing the perspective and contributions of the main Latino populations in the United States. These works include, but are not limited to, cultural manifestations from Puerto Rican, Chicano, Dominican, Central American and Cuban American origin.

AMST 2321 - Latinx Fiction and Film Credits: 3

This course explores the diverse and also converging experiences of Latinos in the US. We will read contemporary novels and poetry by Latinx authors from different Latinx groups (Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Central American and South American). We will discuss reasons for migration, concepts of the “border” and the impact of bilingualism on group identity. We will view films that depict the Latinx experience in the US.

AMST 3321 - Race and Ethnicity in Latinx Literature Credits: 3

This course examines the construction of race and ethnicity in Latinx literature by examining key texts by individuals from varying Latinx groups in the US. We will examine how US-American identity shapes Latinx notions of race and how the authors’ connections with Latin America and the Caribbean do the same. We will explore from a hemispheric perspective how race and ethnicity are depicted in Latinx literature and culture.

AMST 3322 - Latinx Feminisms Credits: 3

AMST 3323 - Hemispheric Latinx Literature and Culture Credits: 3

This course offers a survey of Latinx literature and film from a hemispheric perspective. Engaging texts from colonial times to the present day, we explore how the histories of the US, Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia come together to produce novels, poems, essays and films that are now referred to as distinctly Latinx.

AMST 3355 - Border Media Credits: 3 or MDST 3355 

In this course we consider the depiction of the U.S.-Mexico border from the perspective of popular and mass media cultures. We examine the border as a site of cultural exchanges, resistance and critical negotiation; interchanges that impact the construction of race, ethnicity, sexuality and gender from both sides of the border.

AMST 4321 - Caribbean Latinx: Cuba, Puerto Rico and the DR Credits: 3

In this course we will read texts by Latinx writers from Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. We will explore how their works speak to issues of race, colonialism and imperialism based on their individual and shared histories. We will discuss their different political histories and migration experiences and how these in turn impact their literary and artistic productions in the US.

AMST 4500 - Fourth-Year Seminar in American Studies Credits: 3

This seminar is intended to focus study, research, and discussion on a single period, topic, or issue, such as the Great Awakening, the Civil War, the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Depression, or the 1960s. Topics vary.

MDST 3105 - Latina/o Media Studies Credits: 3

This course is designed to introduce students to critical analyses of media texts, media industries, and media audiences that help explain the social, political, economic, and cultural locations of Latinas/os in America.

AAS 1010 - Introduction to African-American and African Studies I Credits: 4

This introductory course surveys the histories of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean from approximately the Middle Ages to the 1880s. Emphases include the Atlantic slave trade and its complex relationship to Africa; the economic systems, cultures, and communities of Africans and African-Americans in the New World, in slavery and in freedom; the rise of anti-slavery movements; and the socio-economic systems that replaced slavery in the late 19th century.

AAS 1020 - Introduction to African-American and African Studies II Credits: 4

This introductory course builds upon the histories of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean surveyed in AAS 1010. Drawing on disciplines such as Anthropology, History, Religious Studies, Political Science and Sociology, the course focuses on the period from the late 19th century to the present and is comparative in perspective. It examines the links and disjunctions between communities of African descent in the United States and in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa. The course begins with an overview of AAS, its history, assumptions, boundaries, and topics of inquiry, and then proceeds to focus on a number of inter-related themes: patterns of cultural experience; community formation; comparative racial classification; language and society; family and kinship; religion; social and political movements; arts and aesthetics; and archaeology of the African Diaspora.

AAS 3200 - Martin, Malcolm and America Credits: 3

An intensive examination of African-American social criticism centered upon, but not limited to, the life and thought of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. We will come to grips with the American legacy of racial hatred and oppression systematized in the institutions of antebellum chattel slavery and post-bellum racial segregation and analyze the array of critical responses to, and social struggles against, this legacy.

AMST 2233 - Contemporary Native American Literature Credits: 3

In this course we use contemporary Native American literature, authored by individuals from diverse tribal backgrounds, as an accessible avenue to better understand the history of federal Indian policy, its complexity, legal construct, and the ways federal Indian policy influences the lives of American Indian people.

AMST 3050 - Critical Ethnic Studies Credits: 3

This core seminar is an introduction to key issues and methods in the comparative and critical study of ethnicity and race. The course highlights an interdisciplinary approach to the studies of systematic oppression in the United States, and the global implication of these structures. We will consider how Ethnic Studies presents a progressive intellectual challenge to global and local configurations of power in the name of global justice.

AMST 3180 - Introduction to Asian American Studies Credits: 3 or ENAM 3180

An interdisciplinary introduction to the culture and history of Asians and Pacific Islanders in America. Examines ethnic communities such as Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Asian Indian, and Native Hawaiian, through themes such as immigration, labor, cultural production, war, assimilation, and politics. Texts are drawn from genres such as legal cases, short fiction, musicals, documentaries, visual art, and drama.

AMST 3407 - Racial Borders and American Cinema Credits: 3 or MDST 3407

This class explores how re-occurring images of racial and ethnic minorities such as African Americans, Jews, Asians, Native Americans and Latino/as are represented in film and shows visual images of racial interactions and boundaries of human relations that tackle topics such as immigration, inter-racial relationships and racial passing.

AMST 3641 - Native America Credits: 3

This course will introduce students to deep history of Native North America. Using primary and secondary sources, we will cover such topics as mutually beneficial trade and diplomatic relations between Natives and newcomers; the politics of empire; U.S. expansion; treaties and land dispossession; ecological, demographic, and social change; pan-Indian movements; legal and political activism; and many, many others.

ANTH 2153 - North American Indians Credits: 3

Ethnological treatment of the aboriginal populations of the New World based on the findings of archaeology, ethnography, linguistics, biological anthropology, and social anthropology.

MDST 4301 - Global Indigenous Media Credits: 3

Close study of contemporary media produced by members of indigenous communities worldwide. Readings in media studies, critical theory, and critical anthropology. Seminar with presentations, short papers, and a research paper. Prerequisite: one course in Media Studies, English, Anthropology, or a related discipline.

SOC 3410 - Race and Ethnic Relations Credits: 3

Introduces the study of race and ethnic relations, including the social and economic conditions promoting prejudice, racism, discrimination, and segregation.  Examines contemporary American conditions, and historical and international materials.

AMST 3354 - Race and Media Credits: 3

We explore issues related to white supremacy, anti-blackness, mixed-race, settler colonialism, immigrant and transqueer phobia, and the production of racial difference. We examine these topics within their historical context and explore representations across all forms of visual culture, predominantly television but with reference to advertising, film, music, and digital media.

AMST 3407 - Racial Borders and American Cinema Credits: 3 or MDST 3407

This class explores how re-occurring images of racial and ethnic minorities such as African Americans, Jews, Asians, Native Americans and Latino/as are represented in film and shows visual images of racial interactions and boundaries of human relations that tackle topics such as immigration, inter-racial relationships and racial passing.

AMST 4500 - Fourth-Year Seminar in American Studies Credits: 3 - Surveillance and US Empire

This seminar is intended to focus study, research, and discussion on a single period, topic, or issue, such as the Great Awakening, the Civil War, the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Depression, or the 1960s. Topics vary.

AMST 4401 - Literature of the Americas Credits: 3

This course explores a wide range of (broadly defined) fictions from and about the Americas, from writings by Columbus and the conquistadors through modern and contemporary novels, novellas, and short stories. Students consider the intersection of fiction and history through topics that include New world “discovery” and conquest; borderlands and contact zones; slavery and revolution; and the haunting of the global present by the colonial past.

AMST 4403 - Transamerican Encounters Credits: 3

This comparative, interdisciplinary course focuses on the encounter between the U.S. and the wider Americas as represented in literature, history, and film. Working across a range of historical periods, it explores the varied international contexts underpinning narratives of U.S. national identity and history. It also considers how cultural forms access histories and perspectives outside of official accounts of the past and present.

ENAM 3570 - Contemporary Ethnic American Fiction Credits: 3

This course introduces students to the growing body of fiction by recent American writers of ethnic and racial minorities. For more details on this class, please visit the department website.

MDST 4108 - Media, Drugs, and Violence in Latin America Credits: 3

This course will give you a critical understanding of the complex relationships between social violence, drug cartels, media, and Latin American nations. Together we will wrestle with the way Mexican, Colombian, and Brazilian drug violence has impacted and shaped new artistic forms and media practices that confront or, complexly, support the violence.