This course introduces students to Russia's astounding ethnic diversity. We will study the histories of the Sami, the Khanty, the Evenks, the Nenets, the Yakuts, the Chukchi, and others, from Ivan the Terrible's conquests in the 16th century to Vladimir Putin's policies today. The students will explore the impacts of colonialism and capitalism on the lives of the indigenous peoples; the issues of environment and sustainability; the struggle for preservation of the peoples' languages and traditions; the creative expression of culture through the traditional music, costumes, ceremonial dances, and literature.

his course offers a study of the histories, theories, and practices associated with hierarchy and injustice based on caste. We focus primarily on caste in modern India, from the colonial period to today, and explore debates in the understanding of caste as a form of identity and social structure. We then turn to “caste” in other historical and social contexts and analyze the politics of comparison and translation in the application of “caste” to other contexts, such as racialization in the United States. Throughout the course, our discussions highlight the struggles and achievements of anti-caste activists and the movements against caste injustice.

This groundbreaking course centers multidisciplinary ways of thinking rooted in healing epistemologies that counter violence as hegemonic ways of thought that inform the being, doing, living, existing, and energies of human beings. It imagines possibilities of being human in ways that de-center violence as a hegemonic way of thinking that consequently shapes our lives. Students will engage work from The Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC), The Wellbriety Journal to Forgiveness, The Center for the Practice of Somatic Extimacy, mindfulness practices, scholarly sources, and a field trip to Santa Fe.

Over the last decade, Europe, and Germany in particular, have received an unprecedented number of refugees. This course looks at recent and historical conditions of movement and displacement, from European colonialism, Nazi Germany, postwar labor migration, and European integration to the fall of the Berlin Wall, current EU policies, the rise of the far right, and larger global debates. Through the lens of social justice and using literature and film as the main frameworks for analysis, students will investigate the long-term social and cultural impacts of these developments and explore larger questions of identity, inclusion, exclusion, borders, migration, and citizenship.

This course presents a critical introduction to the discipline of Africana Studies as a discipline. We will review the emergence of Africana Studies as a discipline in its classical and contemporary contexts. In addition, we will discuss methodological questions and intellectual debates within the field. The course offers an introductory study of the key components of Africana Studies which include Black, African, Black Feminist, African American, Pan-African, Caribbean, Afro-American, Afro-Asian, Afro-European, Afro-Latino, and Afro-Native American Studies. Broadly speaking therefore this course offers a critical introduction to Continental and Diasporan African Studies.

This course is an introduction to the sociology of 'third world' development and provides and overview of the causes and consequences of economic growth and social development in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. After reviewing the historical creation of the 'global south' and the theoretical explanations of development and underdevelopment, the course focuses on emerging trends associated with the current era of globalization including the changing international division of labor, the dominance of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and associated neoliberal economic policies, economic integration in the Western hemisphere, international migration, and both grassroots and state development initiatives. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Prerequisite: Any 100-level SO course or consent of instructor. (May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement.) (Meets the Critical Learning: SHB requirement.) (Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement.) 1 unit - Popkin.

Explores major themes and texts in Asian American Literature and provides an overview of the foundations and the possible futures of the field. Introduces the role literature plays in creating and maintaining a pan-Asian political label. Presents the Vietnam War as a watershed moment to discuss the many shifts within the field, such as the emergence of Southeast Asian American writers and the rise of Gender Studies. (Meets the Equity and Power: EPUS requirement.) 1 unit - Lo.

This course will examine contemporary understandings of “Latin America” from a multidisciplinary perspective. Recognizing the constructed nature of the term, the course offers an overview of critical topics, such as: colonialism and its effects; linguistic and cultural diversity; environmental issues; class, gender, race and ethnicity; and US-Latin America relations. (Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement.) 1 unit - Marinescu.

This course examines the geographic, social, political, racial, ecological, cultural, and economic processes and spatial patterns that constitute the poetics and materialities of Black life in the USA through a critical Africana studies lens. Students will explore the tensions between non-black and black geographies of possession and dispossession, focusing on Denver's gentrified African American neighborhood of Five Points from a colonial racial capitalism perspective.

Explores the intersections of race and religion in the modern world, alongside a brief examination of possible racialization in the medieval period. As contemporary theorists of race and religion have demonstrated, religion serves as a means of racializing various human groupings, producing understandings of “peoplehood” with the goal of categorizing and marginalizing particular communities within the social body. This course exposes students to competing definitions of race and the ways in which race and religion co-constitute one another both historically and contemporarily. Diverse historical and cultural moments will be examined, including but not limited to, European colonial expansion, transatlantic slavery, nineteenth-century U.S. American understandings of race in relation to the Bible, and the racialization of Islam in contemporary U.S. culture and politics. Prerequisite: Race, Ethnicity, and Migration 185, Race, Ethnicity, and Migration 212, or relevant coursework in RE or RM, with consent of instructor. (Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement.) (Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement.) 1 unit - Hunt.

Cultural understandings of Asian Americans in the United States have always been constructed through food, food practices, and food systems. Food identifies, on the one hand, a site to trace anti-Asian exclusion. Since the nineteenth century, stereotypes abound around Asians eating dogs, rats, and MSG. These ideas proliferate today, as it is believed that Chinese consumption of bats caused the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, food reveals how culinary interest in diasporic Asian foodways in the food industry serve to exalt white chefs at the expense of Asians. Since the fusion craze of the 1990s, white chefs have appropriated diasporic Asian food practices to gain stardom. However, food also identifies a site of solidarity and resistance. During the mid-twentieth century, Filipino and Mexican farmworkers in California aligned to strike against capitalist exploitation. This course centers food as a critical entryway into exploring key concepts in Asian American food studies such as authenticity, fusion, food colonialism, culinary tourism, and taste, while traversing a range of institutional sites where food is cultivated and produced, like the farm, food truck, restaurant, home kitchen, professional kitchen, and street market. Along the way, we will read a range of texts, including cookbooks, cooking competition shows, film, literature, critical history, academic theory, and, of course, food itself. Overall, this class insists that food is more than just food—it is a material expression of long-standing histories of racialization, colonialism, inequality, resistance, and solidarity.

This course explores diverse issues pertinent to American athletes. We will study, discuss, present and contextualize issues, personalities, events, social forces, and historical moments that have and continue to shape Americans athletes. In this course chronology is circular rather than linear as we will discuss issues from a wide range of time periods. The primary focus of this course will be to examine the ways race, class, gender, politics and history concentrically impacted American athletes. Although this class requires no formal prerequisite, it is recommended that students either can grasp and/or have a theoretical and historical understanding of United States and African American History.

This course focuses on Turkish German cinema, its history and aesthetic conventions, and also introduces students to literature, music, and cultural production at large along the Turkish German axis. We will discuss questions of identity, migration, mobility, nation, and belonging, and explore how these topics have been treated cinematically and across other genres. Special emphasis will also be placed on the cities of Berlin and Istanbul. Through on-site visits and field trips, we will explore firsthand the connections between historical context, cultural expression, social practices, and urban form, and trace the lasting impact of Turkish German entanglements and transnational cultural flows on the makeup and identity of those cities today. Sample filmmakers and other artists might include: Fatih Akın, Kutluğ Ataman, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Sabahattin Ali, and Ipek Ipekcioglu.

Examines how the identities of marginalized communities in Berlin, such as Black Germans, Jewish Germans, Turkish Germans, migrants, refugees, victims of Neo-Nazi terrorism and police brutality, and LGBTQI communities, are predicated on racism, heterosexism, colonialism, imperialism, and other forms of oppression. Additionally, considers how these communities resist, reject, revise, and reproduce these narratives as they construct their own subjectivities. Prerequisite: consent of instructor & Taught in Germany. (May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement.) (Meets the Critical Learning: SHB requirement.) (Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement.) (Not offered 2024-25). 1 unit.