Comparative Race & Ethnic Studies Courses
CRES 10103 Engaging Difference and Diversity in America
This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of comparative race and ethnic studies. Students will examine the interconnections between race, ethnicity, and social, political, and cultural frameworks and attitudes in the U.S. Questions the course explores include: When and how did the concept of race arise? How does race connect with other forms of difference such as class, gender, and sexuality? How do our personal experiences with racial identity and racism relate to the structure of our society? How have Race and Ethnic Studies scholars explored areas such as immigration, popular culture, education, and imperialism? And how have concerns for social justice and equity shaped the field of Race and Ethnic Studies?
CRES 20003 Gateway Seminar in Critical Race Theory
Prerequisites: CRES 10103 Engaging Difference and Diversity in America (recommended) OR any one (1) approved CRES-attribute course. This course will provide an intermediate survey of Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies, focusing on Critical Race Theory. Students will explore race as a social structure, a historical process, a mode of power, and a lived experience. While the idea of race as socially constructed has become common sense in the twenty-first century, we will go further by using Critical Race Theory to examine how scholars, artists, and activists have applied these methods across and beyond the university. Themed units will focus on intersectionality, whiteness, indigeneity, racial capitalism, and mass incarceration.
CRES 20103 Intro to Black Studies
Introduction to Black Studies surveys global Black life and culture. Grounded in formative histories uniting Black people across the world - namely the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade, colonialism, contemporary migrations and cultural developments - this course is guided by these questions - How is blackness both a dynamic concept and one that has been constituted across time through various political events, rebellions, forced and voluntary migrations, and cultural forms? How has Black studies evolved in the academy and what are its futures? Through their engagement with various texts, writing, research and presentations, students will explore such questions and more.
CRES 20203 Introduction to Ethnic Studies
This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies. Students will examine the interconnections between race, ethnicity, and social, political, and cultural frameworks and attitudes in the U.S.
CRES 30003 Research Inequality
Prerequisites: One approved CRES-attribute course or instructor permission. Students will have a firsthand experience learning how to research different forms of inequality (i.e., race, gender, class, intersectional). This course serves as a practical guide for students on 'how to do research as they conduct projects based on their interests. Students can use the research that is developed in this course as the first part of a Capstone project, Honors Thesis, McNair Scholar's research, writing sample for graduate/law school or other program of interest.
CRES 30203 Social Justice Organizing & Activism
Prerequisites: WGST 20003 or CRES 10103. This interdisciplinary course examines mass movements from an intersectional perspective, emphasizing how intersecting social identities (e.g. race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, citizenship status, etc.) influence how systemic oppressions are experienced and, thus, should shape the social economic, and political interventions employed in the name of social justice. The course incorporates empirically grounded and theoretical scholarship from multiple disciplines to consider diverse methods of mass movement organizing and mobilization on the local and/or global levels to shift power and privilege dynamics. Students will examine the philosophical, relational and logistical barriers to undertaking social justice organizing and activism, develop technical skills for building consensus across difference, and design their own organizing campaigns.
CRES 30263 Environmental Justice
Prerequisites: SOCI 20213 OR CRES 20003 OR CRES 20103 OR LTNX 20003 OR ANTH 20623. Black, Indigenous, other people of color, working class, immigrant, women, and other marginalized groups bear the brunt of environmental problems in the United States and across the world, facing disproportionate impacts from things like air and water pollution, toxic chemicals, climate change, industrialization, and biodiversity loss. Why are certain groups systematically exposed to greater environmental burdens and fewer environmental amenities while other groups have access to clean air and water? What effect does this have on people's health and well-being? Who benefits from these inequalities and who makes decisions about environmental policies? This course draws on the work of interdisciplinary scholars from the social sciences, biophysical sciences, public health, and humanities, to examine how social, political, and economic systems create environmental injustices and health disparities across intersections of race, ethnicity, class, and gender. In turn, we explore how people work to remedy environmental problems. These lessons are applied to understanding, researching, and addressing contemporary environmental justice issues.
CRES 30303 Feminisms of Color
Prerequisites: Any WGST-prefix or attribute course OR any CRES-prefix or primary attribute course. An interdisciplinary course exploring the feminist theories, traditions, activisms, discourses, and praxes of women of color in a US context. Using an intersectional approach, the course examines how race, class, gender, sexuality, citizenship status, ability, religion, and other markers of identity create complex systems of marginalization in the lives of women of color in the United States. Students will analyze the contributions US women of color have made to contemporary feminist thought and how these theories have influenced their activism.
CRES 30403 Transnational Gender & Sexuality
This interdisciplinary course considers the fundamental place of gender and sexuality in shaping a range of cultural narratives and examines how various movements related to gender and sexuality have been constructed, contextualized, and regulated in different parts of the world. The course analyzes the gendered dimensions of complex phenomenon such as colonialism, globalization, and capitalism and situates liberal Western feminism's history and contemporary articulation within global systems of power. Students will develop an analytical framework for examining the intersections of social justice, transnational identities, and feminism.
CRES 30503 Crimmigration
Prerequisites: One approved CRES-attribute course. This course will examine issues within crimmigration studies that raise questions about immigration, race/racism, crime/criminalization, policy, citizenship, and resistance and will explore how Latinas/os/xs and immigrants encounter the criminal justice system and immigration enforcement in the United States. Students will come to understand important questions regarding crimmigration, such as its origins in the United States, how policy has historically racialized and excluded migrants, debunking myths surrounding immigrants and crime/jobs, and ways to counterprogram and resist crimmigration.
CRES 30803 TCU Justice Journey
An experiential-learning course focused on racial justice, intersectional activism, leadership development, and social change. Topics vary each offering, but they include the African American freedom struggle (civil rights movement), the Chicano/a Movement, Latino/a politics, immigrant rights, LGBT liberation, and mixtures of these subjects. The class centers on the TCU Justice Journey, a weeklong immersion trip related to the content, and also includes part-time internships or other community-engaged pedagogy. Course may be retaken on different topics for additional credit.
CRES 30993 Special Topics in Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies
Courses dealing with subjects or issues related to race and ethnicity both within and/or beyond the United States, focusing on a particular area of specialization. The specific topics will be changed from semester to semester, and the course may be repeated for credit when the topic is different.
CRES 32103 Black Life and Resistance
Prerequisites: CRES 20103. Black Life and Resistance Seminar explores the historic and contemporary experiences of African-descended peoples who comprise the African Diaspora. Taking an interdisciplinary approach that draws upon fields of history, sociology, literature, religion, and performance, we will deepen our understanding of blackness in the world. This course adds complexity to prevailing discourses on black experience.
CRES 40003 CRES Capstone Seminar
Prerequisites: CRES 30003, Interdisciplinary Inquiry OR an approved research methods course listed under the CRES Associated Requirements OR another methods course with program permission. Limited to CRES majors and minors OR minors in CRES-affiliated programs with approval. This course gives each student the opportunity to produce an article-length, substantive original research paper or the equivalent length new media, creative, or legacy project with accompanying justification essay. Using one or more (inter-) disciplinary approaches to inquiry, students will choose a particular problem or subject, design a plan for how to tackle the issue, and then explore it in great detail for the entire semester, culminating in a polished capstone project essay as well as a community presentation of their research findings or creative products.
CRES 40903 Independent Study in CRES
Specialized study under faculty supervision.
CRES 40993 Internship & Field Research Experience
Prerequisites: Permission of the Internship Coordinator. Supervised internships where students will integrate comparative race and ethnic theory and practice in a professional settings. Students are expected to spend 150 hours in a local placement and work closely with Internship Director.
For more information, see the course catalog.