Class Schedules

Reading Plays guides students in close readings of dramatic literature, in particular of plays that are typically left out of the traditional theatrical canon. This edition of Reading Plays will focus on texts from the classic and contemporary Black Theatre canon. Students will learn about the socio-historical context of each play, and in-class exercises will introduce them to the foundation of script analysis: they will examine the play’s given circumstances, dialogue, dramatic action, characters, and style. We will read one play a week to deepen our understanding of Black American theatre. Students will write weekly; and work on a final paper that will undergo revisions after they receive notes from the instructor. Examples of Playwrights that could be featured in the class are Douglas Turner Ward, George C. Wolfe, Katori Hall, Pearl Cleage, Ifa Bayeza, Stacey Rose, and Alice Childress.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This course will introduce students to interdisciplinary research approaches to the study of race, ethnicity, and other categories of difference. Students will learn to conceptualize and design research projects, and will obtain hands-on experience in executing different methods. The course will also consider the critiques of systems of knowledge production and research approaches that have been informed by scholars from fields such as African American history, gender studies, and critical race studies, as well as from the disciplines. The goal is to develop an understanding of the assumptions embedded in many fields of inquiry, and to learn to apply critical approaches to important research questions. Prerequisite(s): AMST 101, AMST 103, or AMST 110.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The American West is central to the construction of America's identity and popular culture.  The mythology of the American West, built on a narrow foundation of Euro-American settlement and conquest, is critical to understanding the role of the West in the national narrative of American history. Using a variety of materials, including films, art and photography, literature, and historical sources, this course will examine how writers, artists, actors, settlers, and government officials, among others, shaped the creation of the mythic West.  This course will investigate what - and who - is and is not considered part of this mythology, as well as the ways in which these constructs attempted to make sense of the diverse populations converging in the West. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "North America" fields of the History major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines Native American history since 1871. We begin with an introduction to indigenous history before 1871, characterized by centuries of Euro-American attempts to colonize and Christianize, to assimilate Native bodies and allot Native lands. We will then analyze the ways in which Native Americans have continually fought to sustain their cultures, languages, and religions, as well as their political and socio-economic structures, throughout the 20th and into the 21st centuries. Focusing on themes such as Native resistance to the development of U.S. federal policies and the proliferation of Native culture, we will also consider the shifting nature of Native American sovereignty and the importance of indigenous identity in regards to the experiences of Native Americans. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields of the History major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines traditions of 20th century African American women's activism and the ways in which they have changed over time.  Too often, the narrative of the "strong black woman" infuses stories of African American women's resistance which, coupled with a culture of dissemblance, makes the inner workings of their lives difficult to imagine. This course, at its heart, seeks to uncover the motivations, both personal and political, behind African American women's activism. It also aims to address the ways in which African American women have responded to the pressing social, economic, and political needs of their diverse communities. The course also asks students to consider narrative, voice and audience in historical writing, paying particular attention to the ways in which black women's history has been written over the course of the twentieth century.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course explores cross-cultural encounters in the Americas that characterized the meetings of Europeans, Africans, and Americans in the early modern world between 1492 and 1763.  During this period, the Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent land masses became critical locations for economic, biological, and cultural exchanges.  This course focuses on the Americas as sites for discovery, mutual incomprehension, and exploitation.  The course explores the ways that conquest, resistance, and strategic cooperation shaped peoples' "new worlds" on both sides of the Atlantic. It also considers how colonialism framed and was framed by scientific inquiry, religious beliefs, economic thought, and artistic expression.  Students interrogate primary sources-written, visual and aural--that emerged from these encounters and the secondary literatures that have sought to make sense of them.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Poor and minority populations have historically borne the brunt of environmental inequalities in the United States, suffering disproportionately from the effects of pollution, resource depletion, dangerous jobs, limited access to common resources, and exposure to environmental hazards. Paying particular attention to the ways that race, ethnicity, class, and gender have shaped the political and economic dimensions of environmental injustices, this course draws on the work of scholars and activists to examine the long history of environmental inequities in the United States, along with more recent political movements-national and local-that seek to rectify environmental injustices.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Asian Americans are often overlooked in the study of religion in the U.S., and yet the impact of Asian religious practices can be seen at every turn: yoga studios, mindfulness meditation, "zen" aesthetics of minimalism, and so on. What do we make of the gap between how Asian religions are practiced in Asian American communities and how these traditions have been reinterpreted by predominantly white, educated, middle class adherents? How do Asian American Christians negotiate their identities in the context of non-Asian Christian churches or the intergenerational tensions within their own ethnic churches? The approach of this course is interdisciplinary (and sometimes counterdisciplinary); it draws on theoretical and methodological insights from ethnic studies, religious studies, history, and sociology. Topics include: race and the racialization of Asian Americans; the politics of cultural and religious exchange; the commodification of Asian religious practices; and issues of assimilation and hybridity within Asian American Christian traditions.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course explores James Baldwin's life and work as a writer and activist. Baldwin was a black queer man in an antiblack and heteronormative world. His queer imagination and spirituality are part of the same cloth. Deeply scared by the black church, Baldwin's spirituality and art were, nevertheless, profoundly shaped by the spirit and language of black church religiosity. Through a heterogenous body of writing and the life he lived, Baldwin explored the souls of black folks (including queer blackness) and the nature of American identity.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Since the development of the first atomic weapon, nuclear power has come to define the American and global political and cultural landscape. Fantasies of annihilation and ruin not only define the contemporary political imaginary but also obscure the past and delimit notions of time, space, and futurity  Join us as we trace contemporary U.S. history and environmental policy and the stakes of "wastelanding" through art, culture and activism.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

After a brief but essential global history of drugs, this course will focus primarily on the 20th century to the present. We will examine histories of substance use and abuse, temperance and prohibition, the "War on Drugs," the shifting concept of addiction as a moral failing to addiction as a treatable disease, as well as study the history of the recovery movement and harm reduction. This course is not intended to be an exhaustive, comprehensive history of the subject-but it will provide you with a solid base from which to explore other aspects of this fascinating and contentious aspect of human history.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This discussion-based course is entirely focused on Bruce Lee, the actor and leading martial arts icon of the 20th century. Using American Studies and Critical Race Studies frames to examine the construction of racialized and gendered bodies, we will discuss Bruce Lee in terms of his biography, identities, politics, philosophy, and filmography. We will take time to appreciate the entertainment value and athleticism that Bruce Lee brought to his work, but we will also learn to distinguish the commercialized, commodified Bruce Lee (from t-shirts to posters to action figures) from the serious historical figure who symbolized the spirit of cultural independence and political sovereignty around the world. Among the required books and movies: The Tao of Jeet Kune Do, and "Way of the Dragon" (1972).

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

In 1966, sociologist William Peterson published an article in the New York Times titled, “Success Story, Japanese-American Style,” which praised Japanese Americans, their family structure, and their culture for achieving education and financial success despite having been incarcerated en masse during World War II. This marks the first articulation of model minority myth, which stereotypes Asian American as being successful, hardworking, law-abiding, and dutiful, relative to other minoritized groups. So, how did Japanese Americans go from being perceived as enemy spies to the original “model minority”? This course will examine the history and experience of Japanese Americans from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, with an eye toward Japanese American activism and resistance. Topics will include: U.S. imperialism in Asia; the effects of incarceration during World War II; Japanese Americans in Hawai’i; Japanese American organizing against Islamophobia and the mass incarceration of migrants at the border; and Japanese American solidarity with the civil rights movement and reparations for African Americans.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course explores Malcolm X: the man, the myth, and the movement. X was a man of many pieces, sometimes contradictory, that we explore through various representations: autobiographical, screenplay and film, hip hop music and culture, black international opinion, FBI surveillance documents, and a young adult novel co-written by his daughter Ilyasah Shabazz. To some extent, we will engage in a genre study. How does genre —autobiography, biography/history, fiction, hip hop and outlaw cultures —influence representation? How should we think about the continuities and discontinuities among historical, autobiographical, and fictional representations of Malcolm X? Questions we will explore include: Who is representing Malcolm, how and why? How are the various representations inflected by their respective media and genre? Why do we engage in myth-making? Can we distinguish Malcolm the man from Malcolm the myth? How does the religious studies category of “hagiography help us to understand some representations of Malcolm X? What are the perils of hagiography? Was Malcolm’s religion merely a prop for his politics? Assuming it was not, how do we do justice to the religious dimensions of his life? How does Malcolm X’s religious itinerary help us understand who he was? In the last third of the course, we explore Malcolm X as a revolutionary by comparing him with two contemporaries, Frantz Fanon, a revolutionary activist, anti-colonial theorist, and critic of antiblackness (1925-1961); and Amilcar Cabral, revolutionary poet and leader of the anticolonial struggle in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (1924-1973).

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course will explore white Christian nationalism, the confluence of white supremacy and the idea that the US is a Christian nation whose laws should conform to Christian values and principles. Although public consciousness of white Christian nationalism has increased since the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, it has a centuries-long history and continues to influence US politics, culture and religious life. Topics in this course include nationalism, racial liberalism, whiteness, and civil religion.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Students in this course will learn about the challenges faced by immigrants navigating the world of work in the U.S, and about how people use storytelling about work to create meaning in their lives. Working in partnership with the International Institute of Minnesota, an organization based in St. Paul that prepares recently arrived immigrants and refugees for the workplace, students will interview local émigrés from different parts of the world about the first jobs that they had in the U.S., and will create a video based on these conversations. Our goal will be to preserve and share these stories in order to encourage public engagement with issues of immigration, labor, and economic justice, and to foster understanding of and compassion for the members of the diverse immigrant communities in the Twin Cities. Another aim of this course will be to help students think through their own ideas about work and potential career paths as they engage with community members who have grappled with these issues. Each week in class we will discuss shared readings, which will include literary texts, media articles, and scholarship, and will work together to advance our project. No prior experience or knowledge are required.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course provides an interdisciplinary discussion of the Latinx experience in the United States with a focus on Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Cuban- Americans. Using fiction, poetry, films and critical essays, we will examine issues of race and ethnicity, language, identity, gender and sexuality, politics, and immigration. This course satisfies the Area 2 requirement for the Spanish major. Prerequisite(s): SPAN 305 or SPAN 306

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In his unpublished essay, "I choose exile," Richard Wright declared, "To live in Paris is to allow one's sensibilities to be moved by physical beauty.  I love my adopted city.  Its sunsets, its teeming boulevards, its slow and humane tempo of life have entered deeply into my heart."  Paulette Nardal wrote in her essay "Awakening of Racial Consciousness" that living in Paris in the 1920s had created for Black women the "need of racial solidarity that would not be merely material" and an "awakening to race consciousness" that they had not experienced or understood fully before leaving home and meeting Blacks from other countries in Paris.

This course will look at the relationship that Blacks have had to France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  We will explore the art, literature, music and political protest that were generated in the "City of Lights."  The presence of African Americans has usually been seen, by both themselves and others, as a commentary on race.  We will examine the lives of Blacks who left the United States expressly to escape the burdens of discrimination and came to Paris as self-conscious refugees from racism.  We will also examine the lives of Blacks who left the French colonies to pursue a western education in France, but who developed broader philosophical ideologies, including the cultural, artistic and literary movements of la Négritude. We will examine their experiences and critique the myth of a color-blind France. Prerequisite(s): FREN 204 or higher

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course connects students with urban social geography, which studies the social and spatial dimensions of city life. In this course, we will explore some of the ways in which urban society is organized geographically. We will also consider how the spatial patterns of urban life influence public policy issues in the North American context. Topics covered in this course include causes of racial segregation, debates about gentrification, sustainable urban development, the transition to shared governance in cities, and the delivery of urban services that affect the welfare of urban populations. Students will learn current research, engage debates about critical urban issues, and learn techniques useful for analyzing spatial patterns in the urban landscape. Prerequisite(s): GEOG 241 or GEOG 261 or GEOG 262 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course explores the history and politics of, and theoretical approaches to, gender and sexuality in relation to the racial politics of mass incarceration, or what Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls the "carceral geography" of the United States. By engaging recent work in queer and trans studies, feminist studies, and critical prison studies, we will consider how prisons and policing have shaped the making and remaking of race, gender, and sexuality from slavery and conquest to the contemporary period. We will examine how police and prisons have regulated the body, identity, and populations, and the larger social, political, and cultural changes connected to these processes. While we will focus on the carceral system itself, we will also think of policing in a more expansive way by analyzing the racialized regulation of gender and sexuality on the plantation, in the colony, at the border, in the welfare office, and in the hospital, among other spaces, historical periods, and places.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the diversity of twentieth century visual culture of the United States, within the historical, social, and cultural contexts in which it is created. It will analyze the intersection and the social dynamics of race and ethnicity, along with gender and class, and how these shaped the experience of American artists and their audiences at various historical moments during the last century. Studying the work of Native American, African-American, Asian-American, and Latinx-American artists in response to the mainstream US art and culture, will provide students with broad and complex understanding of concepts of race, ethnicity, class, and gender as reflected in artistic production of this marginalized artists and art groups. Frequency: Offered in the fall every two years.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

Reading Plays guides students in close readings of dramatic literature, in particular of plays that are typically left out of the traditional theatrical canon. Students will learn about the socio-historical context of each play, and in-class exercises will introduce them to the foundation of script analysis: they will examine the play’s given circumstances, dialogue, dramatic action, characters, and style. Students will read a new play every week; assignments include weekly in-class writing exercises and short critical papers. Some playwrights we may explore are: Ayad Akhtar, Jaclyn Backhaus, Christopher Chen, Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, Prince Gomolvilas, David Henry Hwang, Naomi Iizuka, Rajiv Joseph, Hansol Jung, Haruna Lee, Kimber Lee, Young Jean Lee, Qui Nguyen, Jiehae Park, Lloyd Suh, Kristina Wong, Lauren Yee, and Chay Yew.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism OR U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

In this introductory course, we will study African American literature from its origins to the present. We will study major genres and movements, including the Harlem Renaissance and Afrofuturism. We will learn to use the tools of literary analysis in order to read closely, critically, appreciatively—and collectively. Themes of prophesy (what Du Bois termed “second sight”), literary experimentation, and beauty will focus our study. Authors will include: David Walker, Harriet Jacobs, W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, Claudia Rankine, and Ross Gay. Requirements include: a presentation, brief written responses to the readings, one medium length essay and a revision of it, and a final project that will include a written component. This course fulfills either the foundation course in literature requirement or the literature by U.S. writers of color requirement for the English major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course introduces the basic issues and concepts of Asian American Studies. We begin by looking at the birth of Asian American Studies as a field in response to student protests in the late 1960s. We then proceed to an overview of Asian American history beginning with U.S. imperialism in Asia and moving up to the present moment. For the remainder of the course, we'll focus on particular topics such as: the model minority myth; anti-Asian violence; multiracial Asian American identity; and Asian American activism. The approach of this course is interdisciplinary; it draws on theoretical and methodological insights from academic disciplines such as history, ethnic studies, and sociology.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This introductory-level course uses the youth-oriented Hunger Games trilogy (plus prequel) as a platform for launching an adult and scholarly conversation about global inequality, environmentalism, Reality TV, race/gender/sexuality, war, revolution, and the power of love. We will take an interdisciplinary approach; we will read, discuss, write, and interact in ways that are less concerned about adhering to disciplinary traditions than about exploring ideas and problems that are relevant to the 21st century. We will take archery lessons and share recipes for baking bread. A major goal of the course is to open up our hearts and minds, and to discover more precisely what we hunger for—as scholars, citizens, and human residents of the planet Earth. Prerequisites: Before the course starts, you should have finished all the books, including the prequel. We will watch the films together in a movie marathon weekend early in the semester.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

From the Philippine-American War (1898-1910) to the global uprisings of May 2020, white supremacy and US imperialism have marched hand-in-hand, buttressed by cultures of violence and literal guns and tanks. Yet cracks in the walls of racism and empire have also always existed, with hopeful gestures of solidarity and activist movements pushing forward with new possibilities and imagined futures. In this discussion-based course, we will look for the common threads that link David Fagen (Black U.S. army soldier who defected and joined the Philippine nationalists in 1899) to the Vietnam antiwar movement (1955-1975) to Grace Lee Boggs (Chinese American philosopher activist based in Detroit, 1915-2015) along with many other individuals and events. Among the significant questions we will consider are: How can we change the separatist mindset of "zero-sum" and move toward solidarity on a world scale? What lessons can be drawn from the global COVID pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine? How can we replace a culture of violence with a culture of peace?

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The theorization of difference is an important aspect of cultural theory. In this class we will look at the role of difference as it is understood through ideas of representational and aesthetic politics as well as through the practice and production of knowledge. We want to examine the turn to difference within cultural studies and how this move has shifted how we think about power relations and meaning making in society. We will look at the foundational work of critical race and ethnic studies in cultural theory as well more recent scholarly work that focuses on the administration of difference through surveillance technology and social media. The class will expose students to a range of material including print, digital media, film, television, and internet and social media.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

The readings and assignments in this course are designed to help students understand how social policies and programs contribute to Americans' lived experiences.  We will examine various theoretical justifications for the policies that constitute the American welfare state, then confront and dissect major strands of the American social safety net to better understand how political institutions and policy mechanisms contribute to both diversity and inequality in individuals' social, economic and political outcomes (based in race, class, gender, dis/ability, region, political jurisdiction, etc.).

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

The readings and assignments in this course are designed to help students understand how social policies and programs contribute to Americans' lived experiences.  We will examine various theoretical justifications for the policies that constitute the American welfare state, then confront and dissect major strands of the American social safety net to better understand how political institutions and policy mechanisms contribute to both diversity and inequality in individuals' social, economic and political outcomes (based in race, class, gender, dis/ability, region, political jurisdiction, etc.).

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

In less than ten years we have gone from Laverne Cox gracing the cover of Time Magazine, declaring that we have reached the “transgender tipping point,” to a broad based anti-trans culture war. From Caitlyn Jenner to Laverne Cox, CeCe MacDonald to Chelsea Manning, Transparent to Pose, trans people have experienced unprecedented media coverage over the past ten years. And yet, alongside this positive media coverage, trans exclusion has emerged as a key component of the global rise of white nationalism, and we see legislatures across the country foment fear of the transsexual child predator, pass bills to restrict trans kid’s participation in sports, and limit gender affirming medical care for youth and adults. Even more concerning, The National Coalition of Antiviolence Projects reports that 2021 saw a record number of murders of transgender individuals, in particular trans women of color. In all of these instances, it’s useful to consider how and why the specter of transness is raised. What social and political work does that figure do? This course investigates the ways that ideas about normative and non-normative gender are produced in the context of white supremacy and capitalism, recognizing that discourses about gender, race, class, sexuality and nation are co-constitutive and historically contingent. Foregrounding intersectionality, we begin with situating the production and policing norms around gender and sexuality as a key tactic of settler colonialism, and then we move forward in time through the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries to think about how norms around racialized gender and sexuality have been policed, resisted, and transformed in various historical moments.This course will examine transness as practices of gender transgression, rather than solely an identity category, practices that are historically and geographically contingent. In doing so, we will ask: What has gender non-conformity meant in various historical moments? How do race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability structure trans lives and communities? How have key institutions within the US constructed ideas about gender normativity and policed gender transgression? How has that policing impacted and shaped trans life? What is the relationship between feminism and trans people and trans liberation? How have trans people envisioned and fought for social justice? What space can trans embodiment and politics open up for new ways of living, relating, and imagining otherwise?

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

The course examines the post-World War II Civil Rights Movement led by African Americans in the United States.  In the class, students will analyze key people, issues, events, and debates within movement history, including, but not limited to, gender and leadership; struggles for civil rights in the south, west, and urban north; the impact of the Cold War on race relations; student activism; movement strategies; and the emergence of Black Power.  Throughout the semester, students will read a wide variety of primary and secondary texts to illuminate the activities and life stories of individual participants as well as the broad historical forces that characterized this long era of insurgency.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines Native history to 1871 -- the year that Congress unilaterally chose to stop making treaties with Native nations -- by considering the multifaceted histories and experiences of Native people in what is now the United States. By looking at Native interactions with (and resistance to) Spanish, French, British, and American explorers, settlers, missionaries, militaries, and government officials, this course argues that Native history is essential to understanding past as well as present issues. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines traditions of 20th century African American women's activism and the ways in which they have changed over time.  Too often, the narrative of the "strong black woman" infuses stories of African American women's resistance which, coupled with a culture of dissemblance, makes the inner workings of their lives difficult to imagine. This course, at its heart, seeks to uncover the motivations, both personal and political, behind African American women's activism. It also aims to address the ways in which African American women have responded to the pressing social, economic, and political needs of their diverse communities. The course also asks students to consider narrative, voice and audience in historical writing, paying particular attention to the ways in which black women's history has been written over the course of the twentieth century.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Poor and minority populations have historically borne the brunt of environmental inequalities in the United States, suffering disproportionately from the effects of pollution, resource depletion, dangerous jobs, limited access to common resources, and exposure to environmental hazards. Paying particular attention to the ways that race, ethnicity, class, and gender have shaped the political and economic dimensions of environmental injustices, this course draws on the work of scholars and activists to examine the long history of environmental inequities in the United States, along with more recent political movements-national and local-that seek to rectify environmental injustices.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This class examines the Atlantic commerce in enslaved Africans that took place between 1500 and 1800. We will explore, among other topics, transatlantic commerce, the process of turning captives into commodities, the gendered dimensions of the slave trade, onboard experiences, resistance to the trade, Africans in the Americas, and the abolitionist movement on both sides of the Atlantic. Students will read a range of primary and secondary sources in order to gain a more complex understanding of the trade and how it changed over time. Meets the global and/or comparative history requirement. Meets the pre-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Africa & Atlantic World" fields within the History major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this course, we will study African American literature from the end of the 18th century to the turn of the 20th century, from Phillis Wheatley to Frederick Douglass to Ida B. Wells. Themes of the course will include forging Black solidarity and writing as means of self-construction and resistance. We will also foreground early African American literature as art, as an at once aesthetic and political project, reading it closely and appreciatively. We will frame our semester’s work with sound studies, exploring how this literary tradition engages with oral culture and with the sonic. Requirements include: brief written responses to the readings, a presentation, a medium-length essay and a revision of it, and a final reflection. This course fulfills the English major requirement either of a course focused on literature by U.S. writers of color or a course on 19th-century American literature.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Join us as we explore the roots and routes of Native Cultural Studies through photography, film, television, print and media. How have Indigenous people been represented in visual culture? And what can Indigenous visual artists or film theory teach us about the past, present and future in the United States? No previous coursework required.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Who hasn’t heard of Critical Race Theory in this day and age? More often than not, "CRT" has served as a paper tiger for white supremacist, right wing attacks. However Critical Race Theory is primarily a legal studies approach, and is just one of many ways of thinking about race. In this course, we will offer a broad, interdisciplinary foundation for understanding, analyzing, and coming to terms with race, racism, and racial inequality in the United States. Students will have the freedom to explore their own interests through in-class discussions and a research paper. Topics will include racial formation in the United States; Asian settler colonialism; racial capitalism; and yes, Critical Race Theory.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Monuments to enslavers, colonizers, torturers, dictators, war criminals, and other unsavory historical figures often garner substantial news media attention and hold symbolic and cultural significance. The death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police forces in 2020 reignited an ongoing global discussion over such monuments that points to their continuing importance as a global issue and their role in political efforts to reshape narratives around national and regional identities. Monuments are also increasingly connected to movements to decolonize places and pursue (or deny) social justice. This interdisciplinary geography course focuses on monuments and memory within a contemporary global context. It surveys controversies over tearing down, re-contextualizing, removing, renaming, and relocating problematic monuments and memorials, as well as efforts to construct new monuments (sometimes called counter-monuments or counter-commemoration) to underrepresented, colonized, or otherwise marginalized groups. Monuments to enslavers across the Americas in countries like the United States and Brazil and to colonizers in Europe, Africa, and Asia will occupy much of the course reading and discussion. The course will also involve a field-based component in which we physically visit, reflect on, and interpret local memorials in the Twin Cities area.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

In this class, we will explore how love resides at the very heart of the African American literary tradition by studying how African American writers of the 20th and 21st centuries have consistently expressed, theorized, and embraced love. Our readings will represent multiple kinds of romances and sexualities, yet all will center the love that both emerges from and helps to create Black collectivity, solidarity, and joy. Our readings will also reveal and challenge the oppressive forces that Black love and lovers so often must withstand. Authors will include: W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, and Samuel Delany. In addition, we will read some scholarship related to the course topic and to our texts. Course requirements include: discussion questions on our readings, a presentation, a short essay, and a final project. This course fulfills the U.S. writers of color requirement for the English major. Prerequisite: One prior English course numbered in the 100s.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The Senior Capstone is required of all majors. Majors who meet college criteria are encouraged to conduct an honors project in conjunction with their Senior Capstone.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials