CCS Course Offerings

Course Description:
Introduction to theories of culture, race, and gender and the relations among them. Open to ACS, ETHN, POPC, and WS majors and minors or by permission of instructor.

Course Description:
Introduces students to modes of qualitative research commonly used in the fields of American culture studies, ethnic studies, popular culture, and women's studies. Focus on data gathering processes as well as data analysis. Open to ACS, ETHN, POPC, and WS majors and minors or by permission of instructor. Junior status required.

Course Description:
Regional, ethnic and economic aspects of American national experience as reflected in verbal, visual and material artifacts. Culture theory and models used to examine selected topics and problems. Required of all American culture studies majors.

Course Description:
Interdisciplinary exploration of race, ethnicity, class, gender and sexual orientation in the United States, emphasizing imaginative expressive forms, such as fiction, poetry, film and the visual arts.

Course Description:
The course gives an examination into four of rock music's most prominent subcultures including rap, reggae, punk and heavy metal music.  This course gives a historical breakdown of these four genres and examines their cultural impact on popular music, popular culture and humanity. A series of films, 
music/sound recordings, websites and other media related to the genres will be analyzed from a historical and cultural point of view.
Combined with POPC 3800/1001/72434

Coure Descripion:
This course is an introduction to the study of the comic books, graphic novels, and sequential art and storytelling in American popular culture.  It shall introduce students to some of the major topics, themes, creators, characters, and issues that have led to the creation of and continued success of the superhero genre.  We shall explore the role of heroism in our society and concepts dealing with race, ethnicity, gender, politics, and more as they are presented within the superhero context.  This class will rely on a mixture of lecture and discussion of the material we are reading.  Students are encouraged to actively participate in our discussion and analysis.  The emphasis of the course will be to get students to think critically about the issues that are raised in the readings and class discussions.  We shall consider why this genre, which was once viewed merely as juvenile, disposable “literature,” has had such a profound impact upon our popular culture.
Combined course with POPC 3700/1001/77246

Coure Description:
This course surveys the American experience with drugs and alcohol, from the colonial era to the present. Topics include: colonial drinking, origins or opiate and cocaine addiction, drug control and regulation, Prohibition, LSD and the 1960s, and the War on Drugs. Approved for distance education.
Combined with HIST 3365/1001/76931

Course Description:
This gateway course to the field of Ethnic Studies introduces students to interdisciplinary analyses of race and ethnicity in the U.S. It explores the social construction and ideologies of race in colonial conquest, slavery, and immigration, and the intersections of race with other hierarchies such as class, gender, and sexuality. Approved for Distance Education. Students cannot take ETHN 1010 and ETHN 1920 or 1930 on the topic "Introduction to Ethnic Studies."

Course Description:
Latina/o experience in the United States: cultures, life experiences, and the limited political, education, socio-economic opportunities of this minority. Students cannot take ETHN 1100 and ETHN 1920 or 1930 on the topic "Introduction to Latina/o Studies."

Course Description:
An introduction to the history of black studies, tracing it from its origins in the social, cultural, and political struggles for human and civil rights to the various intellectual currents which have defined the field as a discipline. It places special emphasis on the United States but also considers key authors, historical figures, and social movements from the black Diaspora. Students cannot take ETHN 1200 and ETHN 1920 or 1930 on the topic "Introduction to African American Studies."

Course Description:
Similarities and differences of the various components of the Asian American category with reference to their individual histories and collective situation from the 19th century to the present. Students cannot take ETHN 1300 and ETHN 1920 or 1930 on the topics "Introduction to Asian American Studies."

Course Description:
An interdisciplinary examination of the Native American Diaspora in the context of European discovery and conquest. A general overview and comparative analysis of the diverse native people and cultures of North America, effects of colonialism and U.S. policy on Native American communities, federal Indian law and policy, and cultural negotiation. Students cannot take ETHN 1600 and ETHN 1920 or 1930 on the topic "Introduction to Native American Studies."

Course Description:
Special ethnic topics of interest to students provided as a part of regular offering. May be repeated. Approved for distance education.

Course Description:
Sports has long played an important role in American identity, often serving as a metaphor for larger social, economic, and political issues. This class explores the relationship between race and sports, using sports to analyze changes in racial attitudes and actions over time. The main focus will be on American sports, but some topics will bring an international approach. Major themes will include the complex relationship between sports, race, and American identity; efforts to segregate/integrate sporting activities; the perceptions of specific racial and ethnic groups through sports; intersections of race, nationality, gender, and sexuality among athletes; and sports as a symbolic battleground for larger political issues of racism.

Course Description:
ETHN 3000 Beaches and Islands interrogates these images in the context of native/indigenous realities of conquest, predatory tourism, globalization, militarism, and deculturation. Focusing on Hawai’i and other Pacific Islands and the Caribbean, this course invites one to juxtapose one’s fantasies of island “paradises” with indigenous/native realities of their homelands.

Course Description:
This course offers a focused examination of racial, ethnic, and gendered representations as they have appeared within the context of popular culture and mainstream media in the United States. It critically investigates the history of a wide range of stereotypes within the context of theatre, film, music, television, and radio, analyzing the social and ideological processes and practices that have given them such widespread currency since the nation's founding.

Course Description:
This course explores how race, gender, class, sexuality, and religion intersect and converge in shaping the lives of women of color in the United States. It emphasizes the diversity of experience of women of color as they resist and contest the material and cultural constraints that limit them. The course also focuses on women of color as agents of social and political change, and provides perspectives on the ways in which women of color shape and define American institutions and society.
Combined course with WS3050/1001/71122 and WS 3050/1002/71965

Course Description:
Mexican American culture in the U.S. Topics include family structure and roles, religion, education, and immigration, among other topics.

Course Description:
An exploration of women's lives and experiences in global/local contexts. Emphasis on analytical and methodological frameworks to examine different histories, activism, borders, and ideologies shaping women's lives. Focus on Third World Critiques of Western feminism in relation to social, economic, and political structures of race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender and class. Prerequisite: Any ETHN 1000-level course, ETHN 2010, ETHN 3050 or any WS course. Credit allowed only for ETHN 3130 or WS 3130. Approved for Distance Education.
Combined course with WS3130/1001/77021

Course Description:
This is an introductory course on Africa from the earliest times through the colonial and modern eras. Themes include origins, myths and stereotypes, artistic expressions and cultural values, socio-political and economic development, colonial experience and contemporary conditions. Credit allowed only for one of HIST 3173, ETHN 3173.
Combined course with HIST 3173/1001/76929

Course Description:
The historical, structural, political, and everyday basis of ethnic difference and racial/ethnic conflict; focused case-study approach to comparing different systems of race and ethnic relations in the U.S., the Americas, or globally. Prerequisite: junior or senior status, or consent of instructor.

Course Description:
This course surveys the invention of the concept of "race" and its role in the development of America. It examines both the history of "scientific" and popular thinking about race and racial differences as well as how such beliefs influenced the history of the United States.

Course Description:
Basic theories and approaches to the scholarly study of popular culture, including various media, folklore, and everyday life.

Course Description:
Some of the ways in which mass media (TV, film, recording industry, print, radio) have affected modern American culture. Media relationships and interactions.

Course Description:
Basic theories of approaches to 20th century and 21st century African-American popular culture. Trace ways black popular culture has shaped and is shaped by national and global contexts. Examine relationship of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class. Provide an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the significance of black popular culture in contemporary U.S. and global societies. Approved for distance education.

Course Description:
Study and collecting of folklore; ballads, myths, tall tales, heroes, folk medicines, superstitions, proverbs and crafts.

Course Description:
Study of theme, era or issue in popular culture. Subject matter designated in class schedule. May be repeated once if topics differ. Approved for distance education.

Course Description:
Popular film as mass entertainment medium; Hollywood studios, popular film formulae, genres, relationships between popular films and movie-going audience; viewing of appropriate films. Extra fee.

Course Description:
Relationship between music world and listening-viewing audience; musical styles, trends in popular music, popular performers and entertainers and what they reveal about popular culture; appropriate music listening. Approved for Distance Education.

Course Description:
Relationship between popular television programming and American society; viewing of appropriate television.

Course Description:
Study and analysis of nonverbal folklife; theory and methods of analysis of such forms of expressive folk culture as arts, crafts, architecture, foodways, festivals, customs and folk rituals; emphasis on modes of description and analysis commonly used by folklorists to understand and explain such materials.

Course Description:
In-depth study of particular aspect of popular film. Topics may focus on a single genre, director, historical period, or studio. Appropriate films will be viewed. May be repeated three times if topics differ. Two-hour lecture, two-hour lab. Extra fee.

Course Description:
This course is an introduction to the study of the comic books, graphic novels, and sequential art and storytelling in American popular culture.  It shall introduce students to some of the major topics, themes, creators, characters, and issues that have led to the creation of and continued success of the superhero genre.  We shall explore the role of heroism in our society and concepts dealing with race, ethnicity, gender, politics, and more as they are presented within the superhero context.  This class will rely on a mixture of lecture and discussion of the material we are reading.  Students are encouraged to actively participate in our discussion and analysis.  The emphasis of the course will be to get students to think critically about the issues that are raised in the readings and class discussions.  We shall consider why this genre, which was once viewed merely as juvenile, disposable “literature,” has had such a profound impact upon our popular culture.
Combined with ACS 3000/1001/71824

Course Description:
The course gives an examination into four of rock music's most prominent subcultures including rap, reggae, punk and heavy metal music.  This course gives a historical breakdown of these four genres and examines their cultural impact on popular music, popular culture and humanity. A series of films, music/sound recordings, websites and other media related to the genres will be analyzed from a historical and cultural point of view.
Combined with ACS3000/1001/71824

Course Description:
This course will teach students about the most common ways that violence is represented in narratives of detection, and how these representations (as well as the realities of crime) are shaped by inequalities of race, class, gender, and sexuality.

Course Description:
Interdisciplinary survey of the new scholarship on women. Emphasis on the interconnectedness of gender, class and ethnicity in women's experiences and viewpoints. Approved for distance education.

Course Description:
Exploration of a range of topics and issues emerging in the interdisciplinary area of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender/Transexual) Studies.  Course engages in cultural and textual analysis as well as consideration of specific components of LGBT Studies, including (1) major concepts and theories, (2) political, economic, and social constructs which institutionalize homophobia and heterosexism, (3) diversity issues within LGBT communities, and (4) the impact of LGBT scholarship on specific academic disciplines.

Course Description:
Historical survey of feminist theorists who have challenged and advocated changes in traditional ways of thinking about women's diverse social, sexual, racial, theological, class-specific status in society. Prerequisite: WS 2000 or permission of instructor.  Approved for Distance Education.

Course Description:
Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies focuses on how gender interacts with other forms of difference, including race, ethnicity, dis/ability, class, age, and sexual orientation. This course is an interdisciplinary survey on masculinities that begins with the premise that masculinities are socially constructed and culturally situated, and asks, “What does it mean to be an American man?” In addition to scholarship on masculinities past and present, we will also analyze the presentation of American manhood(s) in popular culture, exploring how hegemonic masculinities reproduce hierarchies and considering how subordinate masculinities can contest the status quo.

Course Description:
This course explores how race, gender, class, sexuality, and religion intersect and converge in shaping the lives of women of color in the United States. It emphasizes the diversity of experience of women of color as they resist and contest the material and cultural constraints that limit them. The course also focuses on women of color as agents of social and political change, and provides perspectives on the ways in which women of color shape and define American institutions and society. Credit allowed only for one of ETHN 3050 or WS 3050.
Combined with ETHN 3050/1001/70735 and ETHN 3050/1002/71978

Course Description:
An exploration of women's lives and experiences in global/local contexts. Emphasis on analytical and methodological frameworks to examine different histories, activism, borders, and ideologies shaping women's lives. Focus on Third World critiques of Western feminisms in relation to social, economic, and political structures of race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and class. Prerequisite: Any WS course, any ETHN 1000-level course, ETHN 2010, or ETHN 3050. Credit allowed only for ETHN 3130 or WS 3130. Approved for distance education.
Combined course with ETHN 3130/1001/76983

Course Description:
An interdisciplinary examination of violence against women, including etiology and intervention, in the US and globally. Feminist and cultural perspectives will be used to interpret the research on interpersonal violence.

Course Description:
Theory and research on gender in contemporary U.S. society and beyond. Evaluation of social construction of masculinity, femininity, and gender identity as well as gender as a structure in major social institutions including families, peers and schools, work and occupations, politics, violence, health/illness, sexuality, and the media. Emphasis on how experiences of gender differ by social class, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and age. Prerequisite: SOC 1010 or WS 2000. Credit only allowed for one of SOC 4600 or WS 4600. Approved for distance education.
Combined course with SOC4600/1001/76898