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:

Coure 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 POPC 3700/1001/16210.

Coure Descripion:
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 3800/1001/12655.

Coure Description:
Three centuries of changing American attitudes and actions toward the natural environment, the rise of the conservation movement, and the development of an ecological perspective. Combined with HIST 3385/1001/13005.

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:
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:
History of Mexican Americans from the Texas Revolution, Mexican-American War to the present. Combined with HIST 2910/1001/16988.

Course Description:
This class offers a broad introduction to creative and critical writings by writers from Africa and the African Diaspora. The readings were either written in English or translated into English. Topics under study include the Harlem Renaissance, the Negritude and Pan-Africanist movements, cultural hybridization, elements of narrative in African and African Diaspora literature including history, culture, race, class, and gender. This course fulfills the BGP requirements for the Humanities and the Arts as well as the International Perspectives. Combined with ROCS 2200/101W/15885.

Course Description:
Examines salient issues of interest to contemporary Native American people and communities. Selected topics may include federal Indian law and policy, assimilation, identity politics, Indian activism, natural resources, Native spirituality, economic development, tribal governance, sovereignty, decolonization and global indigeneity.

Course Description:
What ideologies shape practices of segregation in the spread and control of disease? How do notions of “unhealthy” places determine the nature of colonial conquest and settlement? How are notions of cleanliness and hygiene embedded in racial thinking? How is modern medicine intrinsically embedded in the histories of colonialism and slavery? These questions will inform some of the issues we will engage in this course. Traveling around the globe from the sixteenth century to contemporary times, we will examine the ways in which historically medicine and racial thinking have been intertwined. Using case studies, we will examine the legacies of colonialism and slavery in health practices and in the ways in which diseases came to be associated with particular people of color. We will also attend to the ways in which colonized and racialized “bodies” were controlled and used as specimens in the quest for medical knowledge and the safeguarding of communities at large. Contemporary realities of disease and the anxieties around them will also be included in our class discussions.

Course Description:
Combined with WS 3000/1002/16949

Course Description:
Native American Folklore - Folk traditions reflect cultural identity, as well as mythic and historical experiences. This class explores Native American beliefs, oral stories, games, dances, celebrations, and traditional art forms, drawn from different tribes and regions to better understand Indigenous ideology, cultural practices, and ethnic diversity. Combined with POPC 3250/1001/16938

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 WS3000/1001/11469 and WS 3000/1002/16225.

Course Description:
The course examines the transborder culture of Mexico and U.S/Mexico Borderlands (La Frontera) in the 20th century, emphasizing community, identity, migration, politics, and other facets of the culture. The course will utilize interdisciplinary methodologies to contextualize the transborder culture of La Frontera.

Course Description:
This class will examine the evolution of the African American image in film over the last century. We will pay particular attention to the role of Black directors, writers, and performers in challenging popular white views of Blackness and using film to highlight larger issues around race. Across different genres and time periods, we will analyze the ways that film drew upon and shaped Black culture in the United States.

Course Description:
Through sociological, anthropological, fictional, and theoretical writings on and by African women, we examine some historical, cultural, national, and global forces and how they operate to impact women's contemporary experiences in various African countries/societies. We also study the ways African women have influenced and influence various forces in their societies and elsewhere. We conclude by looking at gender as an effective tool for analysis of socio-economic processes and matters in national and global contexts. Combined with WS3440/101W/15260

Course Description:
This course focuses on selected themes and case studies in contemporary African affairs from 1960 when most African countries gained their independence to the present. Themes to be examined include the nature of freedom which African countries regained from their European colonizers; ethnicity and the task of nation-building; and social, economic and political changes since independence. This course develops advanced research and writing skills by the creation of a project based on the critical analysis of primary and secondary sources. Credit allowed only for one of HIST 4037, ETHN 4037. Combined with HIST 4037/101W/16994

Course Description:
Through the lens of Latin@ gender and sexuality, we will address the role of NAFTA in relation to immigration, the rise of maquilas in border towns like Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, the rampant exploitation of and violence against female laborers, as well as strategic and creative manifestations of resistance. Through critical engagement with scholarly texts and film, we will explore “fronteras alternativas” or the idea of alternative borders, in relation to narco cultura, machism@, and queer Latin@ visibilities. Combined with WS 4550/1001/16230

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:
This course is an introduction to the topic of popular film. From cinema’s earliest days, movies delighted, entertained, dismayed, or sometimes shocked audiences – but always reflected something of the world in which they were made and the people who made them. Popular films are artifacts of their time and studying these films from a cultural and critical perspective offers students the opportunity to be part film critic, part cultural studies scholar, and part historian. The purpose of this course is to explore the development of film as a medium that incorporated current events, technological advances, social movements, cultural trends, and often critiques into reflections of society. This purpose will be fulfilled through lecture, discussion, the assigned materials, and film viewing. It should be noted that some of the material in this course may be adult in nature. This course is offered in both fall and spring semesters.

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:
Examination of the movement of popular culture around the world and the balance of global and local influences on cultural products and practices, the effects of the movement of people around the globe through travel and migration, and the ways that individuals and communities negotiate regional specificity and global assimilation.

Course Description:
Native American Folklore  - Folk traditions reflect cultural identity, as well as mythic and historical experiences. This class explores Native American beliefs, oral stories, games, dances, celebrations, and traditional art forms, drawn from different tribes and regions to better understand Indigenous ideology, cultural practices, and ethnic diversity. Combined with ETHN 3000/1003/16744.

Course Description:

Course Description:
In popular imagination and discourse, youth culture is both demonized and glamorized. While society makes teenagers the focus of concern, alarm, and scrutiny, it rarely takes their voices seriously. In this course, we will study the roles, images, representations, and experiences of youth in the context of contemporary America, taking historical and international perspectives into account as well.  How do media, institutions, and the general public perceive, constrain, and exploit teenagers? How do young people use, modify, and create cultural traditions—and how do they incorporate and reflect the popular media in their traditions? As youth have increasingly represented themselves through emerging technologies, how have the dynamics of power and communication changed? What ethnographic tools and strategies do researchers use to discover and better understand phenomena in youth culture?

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 ACS 3000/1003/16060.

Course Description:
This course will study the Black-cast situation comedy from 1950 to 2024 to analyze its unique history, contexts, aesthetics, and formulas. “Black-cast situation comedy” is a genre of comedic radio or television programming where the primary racial background of the cast of characters is African American (or of African descent). Overall, POPC 4600 Black-Cast Situation Comedy will use the situation comedy genre as a lens through which interpretations of family, class, race, gender, sexuality, age, nation, and religion in American society, African-American culture, and the lives of individuals, families, and communities will be made.

Course Description:
Using the figure of the female detective, we’ll look at crime in historical and recent U.S. television and film, 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:
Examines the intersections of race and gender within global and national contexts of indigenous societies. Women's lives in indigenous societies are examined in relation to their historical and contemporary realities. Combined with ETHN 3000/1002/16067.

Course Description:
Through sociological, anthropological, fictional, and theoretical writings on and by African women, we examine some historical, cultural, national, and global forces and how they operate to impact women's contemporary experiences in various African countries/societies. We also study the ways African women have influenced and influence various forces in their societies and elsewhere. We conclude by looking at gender as an effective tool for analysis of socio-economic processes and matters in national and global contexts. Combined with ETHN 3440/101W/15251.

Course Description:
Histories of Queer Activism will explore two key questions:  (1) What constitutes activism and queer activism in particular? (2) What results have different activist strategies had in changing political and cultural practices?   In considering these questions focus will be primarily on U.S. cultural practices.

Course Description:
 Combined with GERM 4030/1001/16781 and HIST 4803/1001

Course Description:
Combined with HIST 3403 and CLCV 3403

Course Description:
Combined with POLS 4420/1001/16957

Course Description:
Through the lens of Latin@ gender and sexuality, we will address the role of NAFTA in relation to immigration, the rise of maquilas in border towns like Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, the rampant exploitation of and violence against female laborers, as well as strategic and creative manifestations of resistance. Through critical engagement with scholarly texts and film, we will explore “fronteras alternativas” or the idea of alternative borders, in relation to narco cultura, machism@, and queer Latin@ visibilities. Combined with ETHN 4550/1001/16071.

Course Description:
Interdisciplinary exploration of the complex cultural, ethical, and political issues surrounding human reproduction in the U.S. and globally, emphasizing the intersectionality of gender, sexuality, race, and socioeconomic status. We will be learning and discussing the social dimensions of reproductive health, including menstruation, pregnancy, miscarriage, abortion, contraception, STI/STDs, sexual pleasure and problems, menopause.  Our course will be center the experiences of marginalized populations, including women of color, immigrants, LGBTQI people, and people with disabilities.