Race, Ethnicity & U.S. Society

Instructor: Angela Simms

What is “race”? What is “ethnicity”? How are they related and how do they shape the life chances of people in the United States? In this class, we discuss racism’s origin story, particularly how capitalist interests motivated the creation of racial hierarchy. We focus on how White-controlled institutions and elite actors mediate racial and ethnic groups’ access to material and social resources, leading to Whites disproportionately benefiting from U.S. social processes. We investigate social processes through intersectional—noting relationships between race, class, and gender—and historical lens, highlighting how racism evolves over time in response to resistance. We also examine the consequences of racism across social domains. Our course concludes by grappling with the questions: (1) How effective have social movements, and other forms of social organization, been in resisting and ending racism? (2) What are the implications for current racial justice activism?

Queer Studies

Instructor: Thomas March

U.S. high schools are only just beginning to incorporate the history of LGBTQ people in their History curricula, and many lag far behind. Without understanding the obstacles and discrimination that a group has faced, one cannot fully appreciate that their demand for equal treatment is in fact a struggle for civil rights. Covering queer U.S. History and Culture from the early 20th Century through the present, this course introduces students to how enforcement of and reaction against institutionalized discrimination have shaped the LGBTQ experience in this country. Students will learn not just about events but about often-overlooked people who shaped the course of this history—often heroically. Our study of historical sources will be supplemented by visits from influential and dynamic guest speakers in the arts and humanities. Students will have an opportunity to study our guests’ work in advance and discuss it with them when they visit. This course is not restricted to students who identify as LGBTQ—this history is important for everyone, so allies are welcome and encouraged!

Fashion & Dress in World Cultures

Instructor: Zingha Forma

Fashion and dress are considered markers of individual and social identities, used to express religious beliefs, group association, class, ceremonial functions, domestic functions, gender dynamics, and sexuality dynamics. This course will explore global fashion and dress— focusing on textiles and body ornaments used in different cultures throughout history. The course will be organized geographically—Asia, Africa, the Americas, etc. — spanning from the early modern period to the contemporary era. The course will encourage students to engage with theoretical frameworks from material culture, anthropology, history, and textile and fashion study.

Leading by Example: Theories of Leadership from Antiquity to the Present 

Instructor: Alejandro Cuadrado

How should those in positions of power use it? What is the role of society, mentorship, education, and individuals in preparing people for leadership roles? This course will take a historical view at the ways in which people in various cultures and societies across different time periods have sought to answer these questions. In approaching this topic, we will consider the role of exemplarity—the idea that someone else’s actions, behaviors, and political ideas might inform our own practice. To this end, we will read texts that use exemplarity to model political and non-political leadership. This class will consist of several readings, brief writing assignments, and a final in-class symposium in which students will present the results of a research project.

Lean in or Dig Deep

Instructor: Michelle Smith

We examine the theory and practice of two “models” of feminist leadership: liberal-individualist and radical-collective. Advocates of both models seek women’s empowerment. However, they disagree over the means and ends of women’s activism. Broadly, liberal feminists seek equal power in political institutions and corporations as well as equal access to the means for social and economic advance. Liberal feminists may pursue “reproductive rights” and consider gender-equality the mark of feminist success. Social justice feminists seek nothing less than the end of sexism and all forms of subjugation (racial, class, sexual orientation ETC.) which sustain existing anti -egalitarian, sexist, racist and hetero-normative structures. Social justice feminists may pursue “reproductive justice” and consider the transformation of existing gender, social and economic relations success. Culture, language, and representation are important venues for all sorts of feminist action and theorizing. But again, disagreement is more common than not.  In this course, we ask more questions than we answer. What sorts of feminist commitments do the #METOO movements manifest?   What might a truly intersectional feminism achieve?  Should feminism necessarily be sex-positive?   Can women seek BOTH freedom from subjugation AND inclusion in the existing socio-political order? (How) can feminists who disagree nevertheless ally with each other in pursuit of common ideals and objectives? Do feminists seek gender justice or freedom? And post-Dobbs, how much can any of these questions matter when women’s bodily autonomy, the cornerstone of feminist demands, is once more under threat?  Assignments consist of multiple drafts of a <7-page final paper, a group “zine” project, daily journaling in response to readings, and participation in facilitated classroom discussion.

Sex and Gender Across Long Time

Instructor: Ross Hamilton

The idea of gender is a relatively recent formulation, often complicated by the ferocity distinction between the sexes found across history. This course (divided into two parts) uses art objects, literary texts, philosophy, psychology and finally film and digital media to interrogate the ideas of sex and gender, to explore the violent ways in which female sexuality has been denied or constrained, that same sex desire was erased or pathologized, and how the transgender experience, even as it works to deny sexual difference, complicates the relations between both sex and gender.

Slavery, Resistance and Public Memory

Instructor: Sonya Williams

This course is a general overview of the methods and approaches to the histories written on slavery and resistance. In it, we will consider the expansive reach of the Transatlantic slave trade to the Americas, its relationship to modern-day capitalism, and the contemporary debates on reparations. Students will learn to interpret and read various sources that contemplate the political and socioeconomic realities of slave societies. We will mainly examine the experiences of enslaved African-descended people through Black feminist approaches and methods. Therefore, the course will mainly focus on the location of women in these societies and the construction of gendered and racialized identities within these frameworks. In effect, this course explores how Black people, particularly Black women, have organized resistance strategies during slavery and through the re-narration of slave histories in academic and public spaces.

In the second half of the course, students will consider the relationship between studies on slavery and the collective public memory of slavery in Europe, coastal Africa, the Caribbean, and North and South America. To better understand activism and the construction of memory, students will visit various “memory spaces” in New York City, including the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the African Burial Ground, and the Flatbush Burial Ground. As this course demonstrates, the history of slavery is often written and narrated outside of official institutions and academic spaces. From this perspective, we will also engage with alternative methods (i.e., the body/corporeal forms) to narrate the slave past in theater, public protest, and “rest as activism” through outlets like the “Unheard Voices” theater workshop and yoga/ meditative practices. Overall, the course will unpack issues of gender and race by studying slavery and its narration throughout the transatlantic world and how the descendants of enslaved people have “rewrote” these histories in their intellectual work, art, and political activism.

Activist NYC: Historical Efforts to Shape Policing Practices in the City

Instructor: Oliver Murphey

Policing crime and public order has been a polarizing and politicized endeavor from the the first days that uniformed police took to Manhattan's streets in the 1840s. Since then our notions of the role of police, what needs to be policed, and by whom, have continued to be the subject of heated debate and contests over political power. This class will examine the history of the police as an institution and the politics of law and order, in order to understand how activism might contribute to how the police and policing might be shaped in the future.

American Gun Violence: Causes and Consequences

Instructor: Nora Gross

This course will examine the American epidemic of gun violence sociologically. Specifically we’ll consider gun violence as a racialized and gendered phenomenon using case studies related to neighborhood gun violence, mass shootings, and police violence. We’ll also spend time thinking about grief and other emotions in the aftermath of violence through a sociological lens and we’ll highlight the kinds of resilience, resistance, and activism that emerge among individuals and in communities after experiences of gun violence. The course will engage with academic and popular culture readings, podcasts, films, field trips and guest speakers – and students will collaborate with each other on an ongoing creative solution-focused project throughout the course.

Changes, Spaces and Mobilities: Women in Urban New York

Instructor: Kristina Chesaniuk

This course will examine the changing status and role of women and their mobility in various social and cultural contexts in the shifting urban landscape of early twentieth-century New York City. Over the course of three weeks, we will read work by Nella Larsen, Djuna Barnes, Sui Sin Far, Anzia Yezierska, and Faith Baldwin. Through these texts we will explore questions such as: what factors influenced women’s mobility and how did these factors change/develop over time? What spaces were women allowed/expected to occupy? What spaces were considered taboo or off limits? How do race and class impact mobility and space? We will also hone our critical thinking and close reading skills through focused discussions, activities, and site visits that will allow us to gain a deeper understanding of the expanding and evolving positions of women during this time.