Ethnicity, Race, & Migration (ER&M)
* ER&M 0097a / AMST 0097a, Food, Race, and Migration in United States Society Quan Tran
Exploration of the relationship between food, race, and migration in historical and contemporary United States contexts. Organized thematically and anchored in selected case studies, this course is comparative in scope and draws from contemporary work in the fields of food studies, ethnic studies, migration studies, American studies, anthropology, and history. SO
TTh 2:35pm-3:50pm
* ER&M 0581a / MUSI 0081a / SOCY 0074a, Race and Place in British New Wave, K-Pop, and Beyond Grace Kao
This seminar introduces you to several popular musical genres and explores how they are tied to racial, regional, and national identities. We examine how music is exported via migrants, return migrants, industry professionals, and the nation-state (in the case of Korean Popular Music, or K-Pop). Readings and discussions focus primarily on the British New Wave (from about 1979 to 1985) and K-Pop (1992-present), but we also discuss first-wave reggae, ska, rocksteady from the 1960s-70s, British and American punk rock music (1970s-1980s), the precursors of modern K-Pop, and have a brief discussion of Japanese City Pop. The class focuses mainly on the British New Wave and K-Pop because these two genres of popular music have strong ties to particular geographic areas, but they became or have become extremely popular in other parts of the world. We also investigate the importance of music videos in the development of these genres. Enrollment limited to first year students. SO
MW 4pm-5:15pm
* ER&M 1611a / EAST 4720a / SOCY 3425a, Migration in East Asia and Beyond Angela McClean
Over the past few decades, East Asia has become a new destination region for migrants, the phenomenon of which is continuing to cause fierce public and political discussions on national identity and immigration and integration policies. This course explores various types, debates, and industries of migration in contemporary East Asia. While we focus largely on Japan and South Korea, we also have an opportunity to discuss migrant experiences in other popular destination and origin countries in Asia including China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan. Starting with the major theories and concepts in international migration, we examine East Asian migration regimes, connections between migration and high- and low-skilled labor, gender, co-ethnics, and families, as well as state, public, and civil society responses to migration. SO
T 1:30pm-3:25pm
* ER&M 1614a / AFST 3360a / ANTH 3860a, African Migration and Diaspora Leslie Gross-Wyrtzen
This seminar examines the politics of migration to, from, and within Africa. We explore intercontinental, regional, and rural-urban migratory circuits and diasporic formations to consider mobility and immobility in relation to race, colonialism, capitalism, neoliberalism, and globalization. Drawing on sources ranging from colonial travel accounts and trade diaspora histories to black critical theory and fiction, we examine theorizations and representations both about migration and by diasporic peoples to unsettle and re-theorize imaginaries of globalization, nationalism, and the politics of belonging. SO
T 1:30pm-3:25pm
* ER&M 1681b / WGSS 2205b, Bodies and Pleasures, Sex and Genders Regina Kunzel
This seminar explores questions of embodiment -- its pleasures, perplexities, and pains - to interrogate sex, sexuality, and gender as analytical categories. Its aim is to evaluate formative concepts, theories, and debates within feminist, gender, and queer studies, critical race studies, and history. We will consider how terms like “women” and “men,” “femininity” and “masculinity,” “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality,” and “gender” and “transgender” have structured people’s experiences and perceptions of bodies – their own and others’. We will interrogate the dynamic and often contested relationship between “gender” and sexuality,” and their constitution through other axes of power and difference, including race, class, and (dis)ability. SO
W 1:30pm-3:25pm
* ER&M 1691a / HIST 3131a, Urban History in the United States, 1870 to the Present Jennifer Klein
The history of work, leisure, consumption, and housing in American cities. Topics include immigration, formation and re-formation of ethnic communities, the segregation of cities along the lines of class and race, labor organizing, the impact of federal policy, the growth of suburbs, the War on Poverty and Reaganism, and post-Katrina New Orleans. WR, HU
M 4pm-5:55pm
ER&M 2000a, Introduction to Ethnicity, Race, and Migration Staff
Historical roots of contemporary ethnic and racial formations and competing theories of ethnicity, race, and migration. Cultural constructions and social practices of race, ethnicity, and migration in the United States and around the world. HU, SO 0 Course cr
TTh 1:30pm-2:20pm
ER&M 2519a / HIST 1219a / JDST 2000a / MMES 1149a / RLST 1480a, Jews and the World: From the Bible through Early Modern Times Ivan Marcus
A broad introduction to the history of the Jews from biblical beginnings until the European Reformation and the Ottoman Empire. Focus on the formative period of classical rabbinic Judaism and on the symbiotic relationships among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Jewish society and culture in its biblical, rabbinic, and medieval settings. Counts toward either European or non-Western distributional credit within the History major, upon application to the director of undergraduate studies. HU RP 0 Course cr
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm
ER&M 2541b / ANTH 1840b / SOCY 1840b, The Corporation Douglas Rogers
Survey of the rise, diversity, and power of the capitalist corporation in global contexts, with a focus on the 20th and 21st centuries. Topics include: the corporation as legal entity and the social and cultural consequences of this status; corporations in the colonial era; relationships among corporations, states, and non-governmental organizations in Western and non-Western contexts; anti-corporate critique and response; corporate social responsibility; and race, gender, and indigeneity. HU, SO 0 Course cr
MW 2:35pm-3:50pm
ER&M 2772b / HIST 1772b, Colonialism, 1492-Present Omnia El Shakry
This course is a thematic exploration of colonialism as an historical, political, cultural, and psychological experience. We highlight struggles between Europeans and colonized peoples and think historically about global structures of inequality, that is to say, the exploitation of human differences within capitalism and colonialism. Topics may include: Columbus and ‘the cannibals’; the Spanish conquest of Mexico; the Atlantic slave trade; racial capitalism and modernity; the Haitian Revolution; British colonialism in India and Egypt; the Belgian Congo; the relation between Self and Other in the colonial encounter; the ideology of race and racism; anticolonial nationalism and decolonization, with special attention to the Algerian War of decolonization; and U.S. Imperialism in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The emphasis is on a discursive understanding of colonialism, rather than comprehensive chronological and geographical coverage. We engage a diverse array of primary and secondary sources, novels, art, and films in our exploration. HU 0 Course cr
MW 10:30am-11:20am
* ER&M 3000a / AMST 2262a, Comparative Ethnic Studies Ximena Lopez Carrillo
Introduction to the methods and practice of comparative ethnic studies. Examination of racial formation in the United States within a transnational framework. Legacies of colonialism, slavery, and racial exclusion; racial formation in schools, prisons, and citizenship law; cultural politics of music and performance; social movements; and postcolonial critique. SO
W 4pm-5:55pm
* ER&M 3032a / HSHM 4520a, Cultural and Racial History of Mental Health Ximena Lopez Carrillo
Since the 1960s, social scientists have analyzed how the scientific ideas about mental illness, mental health policies, institutions, healing practices, and popular discourses surrounding mental health have been influenced by the social and cultural contexts. This course introduces students to the debates and questions guiding the history of mental health since the Civil Rights and the Psychiatric Survivor Movements in the 1960s, especially those that relate to Critical Race Theory. Through primary sources and secondary literature, students learn about the intersections between mental illness, race, and ethnicity. The class materials include topics such as disability justice, psychopharmacology, the community mental health movement, and the history of asylums in a comparative perspective. SO
W 9:25am-11:20am
* ER&M 3046a / ENGL 2846a, Critical Reading Methods in Indigenous Literatures Tarren Andrews
This course focuses on developing critical readings skills grounded in the embodied and place-based reading practices encouraged by Indigenous literatures. Students are expected to think critically about their reading practices and environments to consciously cultivate place-based reading strategies across a variety of genres including: fiction and non-fiction, sci-fi, poetry, comic books, criticism, theory, film, and other new media. Students are required to keep a reading journal and regularly present critical reflections on their reading process, as well as engage in group annotations of primary and secondary reading materials. This course is offered during the fall and spring term and may be taken both terms for credit. During the fall term the focus is on Indigenous literatures and new media from North America produced primarily in the 21st century. Critical readings include some historical context, both pre- and post-contact, as well as Indigenous literary theory. During the spring term, the focus becomes Indigenous literatures and games in a global context with emphasis on Indigenous land relations and ecocriticism across the 20th and 21st centuries. WR, HU
MW 4pm-5:15pm
* ER&M 3073a, Race & Indigeneity in the Pacific Hi'ilei Hobart
Since the so-called Age of Discovery, the Pacific has been conceptualized as a crossroads between the East and the West. By the twentieth century, places like Hawaiʻi came to be idealized as harmonious multicultural societies. Drawing from works within Indigenous studies, ethnic studies, and critical race studies, students will address themes of sovereignty, settler colonialism, diaspora, and migration in order to interrogate and problematize the concept of the multicultural ‘melting pot’ across time. This course draws upon a number of disciplinary approaches to race, space, power, and culture to address questions that are central to people living across the Pacific and those who seek “R&R” in those “far away” places. HU
T 9:25am-11:20am
* ER&M 3087a, Migrants and Borders in the Americas Alicia Schmidt Camacho
Migration and human mobility across North America, with a focus on 1994 to the present. Critical and thematic readings examine Central America, Mexico, and the United States as integrated spaces of migration, governance, and cultural and social exchange. Migrant social movements, indigenous migration, gender and sexual dynamics of migration, human trafficking, crime and social violence, deportation and detention, immigration policing, and militarized security. HU, SO 0 Course cr
M 1:30pm-3:25pm
* ER&M 3304a or b / AMST 3304a or b / ANTH 3304a or b / HUMS 3304a or b / SOCY 3104a or b, Ethnography & Journalism Madiha Tahir
While each is loathed to admit it, journalism and ethnography are cousins in some respects interested in (albeit distinct) modes of storytelling, translation, and interpretation. This methods course considers these shared grounds to launch a cross-comparative examination. What can the practies of each field and method—journalism and ethnography—tell us about the other? How do journalists and ethnographers engage ideas about the truth? What can they learn from each other? Students spend the first four weeks studying journalistic methods and debates before shifting to ethnographic discussions, and finally, comparative approaches to writing; data and evidence; experience and positionality. HU, SO
HTBA
* ER&M 3502a / AMST 3375a / HIST 3102a, Asian Americans and the Law in 20th C. U.S. History Mary Lui
This junior history seminar explores 20th century Asian American history through the themes of law and justice. Specifically, we examine the ways in which U.S. laws and legal institutions have defined race and belonging for Asian Americans by focusing on three topics―education, housing, and criminal justice. These broad themes allow us to understand historic changes in Asian migration, family and community formation, political organizing, and social justice activism as well as situate Asian American history in the broader context of Civil Rights struggles throughout the 20th century. The course also explores a wide array of primary sources and historical methods used to develop a research project based on Asian American encounters with the U.S. legal system. WR, HU
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm
* ER&M 3507a / AMST 4422a / HIST 3151a, Writing Tribal Histories Ned Blackhawk
Historical overview of American Indian tribal communities, particularly since the creation of the United States. Challenges of working with oral histories, government documents, and missionary records. WR, HU
Th 9:25am-11:20am
* ER&M 3508b / AMST 3398b / HIST 2158b, American Indian Law and Policy Ned Blackhawk
Survey of the origins, history, and legacies of federal Indian law and policy during two hundred years of United States history. The evolution of U.S. constitutional law and political achievements of American Indian communities over the past four decades. HU
T 9:25am-11:20am
* ER&M 3512a / AMST 3302a / HSHM 4930a / WGSS 3312a, Technology, Race and Gender Kalindi Vora
In this course, we discuss technology and the politics of difference through a survey of topics including artificial intelligence, digital labor (crowdsourcing), and robotics and computer science. Materials for study include humanistic and social scientific critique, ethnographies of technology, technical writing and scientific papers, as well as speculative art practices including design, visual art and fiction. What assumptions and politics of imagination govern the design and development of new technologies? What alternative imaginaries, politics, or even speculations, can be identified with a feminist analytic lens? The seminar also includes a practicum component where we practice the politics of speculation through writing and design projects. To do this we study everything from active STEM projects at Yale to speculative fiction and film to think about how structures of race, gender, sexuality, ability, nation, and religious difference inform how we "speculate" or imagine the future through the ways we design and build technological worlds in practice and in fiction. HU, SO
W 1:30pm-3:25pm
* ER&M 3514a / AMST 3314a / WGSS 3306a, Gender and Transgender Greta LaFleur
Introduction to transgender studies, an emergent field that draws on gender studies, queer theory, sociology, feminist science studies, literary studies, and history. Representations of gender nonconformity in a cultural context dominated by a two-sex model of human gender differentiation. Sources include novels, autobiographies, films, and philosophy and criticism. RP
MW 1:05pm-2:20pm
* ER&M 3519a / AMST 3350a / SAST 4750a / TDPS 3029a, Drama in Diaspora: South Asian American Theater and Performance Shilarna Stokes
South Asian Americans have appeared on U.S. stages since the late nineteenth century, yet only in the last quarter century have plays and performances by South Asian Americans begun to dismantle dominant cultural representations of South Asian and South Asian American communities and to imagine new ways of belonging. This seminar introduces you to contemporary works of performance (plays, stand-up sets, multimedia events) written and created by U.S.-based artists of South Asian descent as well as artists of the South Asian diaspora whose works have had an impact on U.S. audiences. With awareness that the South Asian American diaspora comprises multiple, contested, and contingent identities, we investigate how artists have worked to manifest complex representations of South Asian Americans onstage, challenge institutional and professional norms, and navigate the perils and pleasures of becoming visible. No prior experience with or study of theater/performance required. Students in all years and majors welcome. HU
T 4pm-5:55pm
* ER&M 3530a or b / AMST 3303a or b / EP&E 247 / FILM 2980a or b / SAST 2620a or b, Digital War Madiha Tahir
From drones and autonomous robots to algorithmic warfare, virtual war gaming, and data mining, digital war has become a key pressing issue of our times and an emerging field of study. This course provides a critical overview of digital war, understood as the relationship between war and digital technologies. Modern warfare has been shaped by digital technologies, but the latter have also been conditioned through modern conflict: DARPA (the research arm of the US Department of Defense), for instance, has innovated aspects of everything from GPS, to stealth technology, personal computing, and the Internet. Shifting beyond a sole focus on technology and its makers, this class situates the historical antecedents and present of digital war within colonialism and imperialism. We will investigate the entanglements between technology, empire, and war, and examine how digital war—also sometimes understood as virtual or remote war—has both shaped the lives of the targeted and been conditioned by imperial ventures. We will consider visual media, fiction, art, and other works alongside scholarly texts to develop a multidiscpinary perspective on the past, present, and future of digital war. none HU, SO
HTBA
* ER&M 3536b / AMST 2233b / HIST 2196b / WGSS 2235b, Another “Other” – Introducing Critical Theories and Histories of Disability Jiya Pandya
What is disability? How has its definition changed over time? How do people “become” disabled and how does one inhabit a disabled body? In what ways has the disabled body become a site for enacting imperial, national, and resistant politics? Where and how are alternate, radical visions of health being developed? This introductory course in Disability Studies poses answers to these and other related questions through an overview of key texts and debates in the growing field of disability studies. Students learn about the transnational history of disability and disability rights, think about the intersections of disability, race, sexuality, gender, and citizenship, and engage with questions of accessibility and activism that already exist in spaces around you.
M 1:30pm-3:25pm
* ER&M 3559b / HIST 3545b, Gender and the State in Latin America and the Caribbean Anne Eller
This seminar offers an introduction to historical constructions of gender identity and gendered polities in Latin America and the Caribbean from pre-colonial native societies into the twentieth century. We begin with an analysis of gender in the Inca empire and several lowland societies, focusing on spirituality, agriculture, and land tenure particularly. The arrival of Spanish colonialism brings tremendous and complex transformations to the societies that we consider; we analyze discourses of honor, as well as how various subjects navigated the violence and the transforming colonial state. Our readings turn to Caribbean slavery, where studies of gendered experiences of enslavement and resistance have grown considerably in recent decades. Building on these insights, we analyze the gendered experiences of abolition and inclusion into contentious new Latin American and Caribbean nations of the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, we consider some of the most salient analyses of the growth of state power, including dictatorships, in multiple sites. Throughout we maintain an eye for principle questions about representation, reproduction, inclusion, political consciousness, sexuality, migration, kinship, and revolutionary struggle through a gendered lens. WR, HU
T 1:30pm-3:25pm
* ER&M 3561a / AMST 3361a, Comparative Colonialisms Lisa Lowe
Settler colonialism, slavery, racialized immigration, and imperial war have been integral to the emergence of the U.S. nation, state, and economy, and the consequences of these histories continue today. In this interdisciplinary undergraduate seminar, we examine the relevance of these historical and ongoing formations to the founding and development of the United States, giving attention to the independence of each, as well as to their differences, convergences, and contestations. We consider the strengths and limits of different analytic frames for understanding these histories of colonialism, enslavement, capitalism, and empire. We approach the study through readings in history, anthropology, political economy, literature, arts, and other materials. HU
W 4pm-5:55pm
* ER&M 3567b / AMST 4447b / EDST 2270b, Contemporary Native American K-12 and Postsecondary Educational Policy Matthew Makomenaw
This course explores Native American educational policy issues, programming, funding, and success. Native American representation in policy conversations is often incomplete, complicated, or relegated to an asterisk resulting in a lack of resources, awareness, and visibility in educational policy. This course examines the challenges and issues related to Native education; however, the impetus of this course centers on the resiliency, strength, and imagination of Native American students and communities to redefine and achieve success in a complex and often unfamiliar educational environment. EDST 1110 recommended. SO
W 9:25am-11:20am
* ER&M 3594a / ANTH 4809a / EVST 4422a / F&ES 422 / GLBL 4394a, Climate and Society: Perspectives from the Social Sciences and Humanities Michael Dove
Discussion of the major currents of thought regarding climate and climate change; focusing on equity, collapse, folk knowledge, historic and contemporary visions, western and non-western perspectives, drawing on the social sciences and humanities. WR, SO
Th 1:30pm-3:25pm
* ER&M 3686b / AMST 2232b / WGSS 2232b, Latine Queer Trans Life Deb Vargas
This course provides an introduction to Latinx queer trans* studies. We approach the field of Latinx queer trans* studies as an ongoing political project that emerges from social justice activism, gay/lesbian/queer/trans studies, critical race feminism, cultural practitioners, among other work. We pay particular attention to the keywords “trans,” “queer,” “Chicanx,” and “Latinx” by placing them in productive tension with each other through varied critical genealogies. HU, SO
M 1:30pm-3:25pm
* ER&M 3695a / AMST 3365a / EP&E 4399a, Platforms and Cultural Production Julian Posada
Platforms—digital infrastructures that serve as intermediaries between end-users and complementors—have emerged in various cultural and economic settings, from social media (Instagram), and video streaming (YouTube), to digital labor (Uber), and e-commerce (Amazon). This seminar provides a multidisciplinary lens to study platforms as hybrids of firms and multi-sided markets with unique history, governance, and infrastructures. The thematic sessions of this course discuss how platforms have transformed cultural production and connectivity, labor, creativity, and democracy by focusing on comparative cases from the United States and abroad. The seminar provides a space for broader discussions on contemporary capitalism and cultural production around topics such as inequality, surveillance, decentralization, and ethics. Students are encouraged to bring examples and case studies from their personal experiences. HU, SO
M 4pm-5:55pm
* ER&M 4020a, Indigenous Thought and Anticolonial Theory Tarren Andrews
This seminar provides a comprehensive overview of the theoretical landscape of Native American and Indigenous Studies. The readings approach NAIS from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. We explore the major debates, methodologies, and concerns that ground the field, and provide critical context for ethical engagement with Indigenous communities and knowledges. Students learn the disciplinary standards for the evaluation of scholarly sources based on criteria derived from the most outstanding recent scholarship in the field. Students are required to read, write, and think extensively and critically about a variety of issues that are of concern for global Indigenous communities. Mastery of these skills is honed through in-depth discussion and weekly writing assignments. HU
W 9:25am-11:20am
* ER&M 4049b / AMST 3037b / HIST 3737b / HSHM 4460b, Globalizing Disability: Histories and Theories from the Non-West Jiya Pandya
Is disability a universal identity? Who decides who is disabled and how they get treated? How do experiences of illness, disability, access, and care differ in different modern global contexts? Can (and should) disability – as identity, rights, and pathology – be decolonized? We tackle these and other questions in this course, which offers students insight into historical and theoretical contributions from the growing fields of disability studies and mad studies. We focus primarily on ideas and critiques that emerge from scholars and practitioners working in and on the complex geographies that are given the uneven labels of the non-West, Third World, Developing World, and Global South. Tracing histories across multiple countries and regions from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we examine how the forces of colonialism, post-colonial nation-building, and international governance shaped the lives of people who were labeled or came to identify as disabled. Structured thematically, we read historical, anthropological, critical theory, and cultural studies interventions into topics such as global medicine, humanitarianism, rights, war, welfare, and mental health. Even as we read widely, we center disability (and its intersections with race, gender, sexuality, and class) as a political methodology and a form of radical embodiment. Students from all disciplinary backgrounds may take this class, which both works alongside and builds on WGSS 2235’s broader introduction to disability studies. WR, HU
HTBA
* ER&M 4050a / AMST 3339a, Bad Bunny: Musical Aesthetics and Politics Albert Laguna
This course examines the music of Bad Bunny as a point of departure for developing our skills as close listeners attentive to how cultural production creates interpretive avenues for understanding how aesthetics, history, and politics intersect. Topics include the history of Puerto Rico and its colonial past and present (tourism, debt crisis, hurricanes); the evolution of musical forms (bomba, plena, salsa, reggaeton) and their travels across the Americas; and the Puerto Rican diaspora in New York City. none HU
W 9:25am-11:20am
* ER&M 4062b / AMST 4462b / WGSS 4463b, The Study of Privilege in the Americas Ana Ramos-Zayas
Examination of inequality, not only through experiences of the poor and marginal, but also through institutions, beliefs, social norms, and everyday practices of the privileged. Topics include: critical examination of key concepts like “studying up,” “elite,” and “privilege,” as well as variations in forms of capital; institutional sites of privilege (elite prep schools, Wall Street); living spaces and social networks (gated communities, private clubs); privilege in intersectional contexts (privilege and race, class, and gender); and everyday practices of intimacy and affect that characterize, solidify, and promote privilege. SO
T 1:30pm-3:25pm
* ER&M 4067a / AFAM 4357 / AFST 4457a / AMST 4470a / BLST 4357a / FREN 4810a, Racial Republic: African Diasporic Literature and Culture in Postcolonial France Fadila Habchi
This is an interdisciplinary seminar on French cultural history from the 1930s to the present. We focus on issues concerning race and gender in the context of colonialism, postcolonialism, and migration. The course investigates how the silencing of colonial history has been made possible culturally and ideologically, and how this silencing has in turn been central to the reorganizing of French culture and society from the period of decolonization to the present. We ask how racial regimes and spaces have been constructed in French colonial discourses and how these constructions have evolved in postcolonial France. We examine postcolonial African diasporic literary writings, films, and other cultural productions that have explored the complex relations between race, colonialism, historical silences, republican universalism, and color-blindness. Topics include the 1931 Colonial Exposition, Black Paris, decolonization, universalism, the Trente Glorieuses, the Paris massacre of 1961, anti-racist movements, the "beur" author, memory, the 2005 riots, and contemporary afro-feminist and decolonial movements. HU
W 1:30pm-3:25pm
ER&M 4091a, The Senior Colloquium: Theoretical and Methodological Issues Staff
A research seminar intended to move students toward the successful completion of their senior projects, combining discussions of methodological and theoretical issues with discussions of students' fields of research.
HTBA