Comparative Race & Ethnic Studies Courses
CRES offers eight CRES-prefixed core courses, one for each stage of a student’s academic career. The program also requires students to sample a wide range of CRES-affiliated courses offered by traditional departments.
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?
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
CRES 20003: Gateway Seminar in Critical Race Theory
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.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: CRES 10103 (recommended) OR any one (1) approved CRES-attribute course.
CRES 30003: Researching Inequality
This course will introduce students to basic concepts, methods, and issues of interdisciplinary
research methods pertinent to the study of race and ethnicity. This course will focus
on the broader issues surrounding the production of knowledge, and students will acquire
a variety of data or information collection and analytic skills. Students will develop
a thesis proposal of their own design in the field of race and ethnic studies.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: CRES 20003
WGST/CRES 30203: Social Justice Organizing & Activism
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.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: WGST 20003 or CRES 10103
WGST/CRES 30303: Women of Color Feminisms
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.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: Any WGST-prefix or attribute course OR any CRES-prefix or primary attribute course.
WGST/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.
Credits: 3
CRES 30503: Crimmigation
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.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: One approved CRES-attribute course.
CRES 40003: CRES Capstone Seminar
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.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: CRES 30003, Interdisciplinary Inquiry OR an approved research methods course listed under the
CRES Associated Requirements OR another methods course with program permission.
CRES 40993: Internship & Field Research
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.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: Permission of the Internship Coordinator.