Minor in Race and Resistance Studies

The Race and Resistance Studies minor is an interdisciplinary program that provides undergraduate students with an approach to social justice to study race as a politically produced and contested process that begins with institutions, movements, and social problems to examine racialized communities.

Overview

The curriculum examines how race, gender, and class are co-constitutive factors of identity; how different groups are racialized in relation to one another; how social justice movements cohere and fall apart; and how groups have formed their own identities. The Race and Resistance Studies minor provides students with non-traditional, multi-ethnic, and comparative perspectives on national and transnational experiences of people of color within the U.S.

Program Learning Outcomes

  1. Identify the objectives of Ethnic Studies/Race and Resistance Studies.
  2. Learn how to interpret cultural production by people of color and how it expresses agency.
  3. Apply the concept of intersectionality to the experiences of people of color.
  4. Apply principles of community-engaged scholarship and community service learning.

Race and Resistance Studies, Minor — 19 units minimum

The minor consists of 19 units minimum of undergraduate study.

  • Only one third of the units or no more than approximately two courses can be taken credit/no credit for the minor.
  • Students must have maintained at least a 2.0 grade point average in minor courses.
  • At least half of all courses towards the minor degree must be upper-division at the 300 level or above.

Consistent with current University policy, courses for meeting the requirements of this minor may, as appropriate, be used simultaneously for meeting general education or credential requirements. Written declaration of the pursuit of the minor is not necessary prior to enrollment in any of its required or elective courses. Students should try to complete ETHS 100 or ETHS 110 before taking any further courses in the minor. These courses, however, may be taken concurrently. Additional courses may count towards the minor upon consultation with the Race and Resistance Studies undergraduate minor advisor.

All coursework used to satisfy the requirements of the minor must be completed with a minimum grade point average of 2.0.

Introductory Course (3 units)

Code Title Units
ETHS/RRS 100 Introduction to Ethnic Studies 3
ETHS/RRS 110 Critical Thinking and the Ethnic Studies Experience 3

Core Courses (9 units)

Select one course from three different sections A through D below:
Code Title
Section A: History and Politics  

     RRS 240

All Power to the People: Comparative Freedom Movements of the "Sixties"

     RRS 250

Race, Ethnicity and Power in America

     RRS 252

Beyond Bars and Borders: Race and the Carceral State

     RRS 270

Creativity, Decolonization, and Social Justice in Oceania

     RRS 276

Race, Activism and Climate Justice

     RRS 350

Race, Labor, and Class Struggle

     RRS 415

Reclaiming the Bay: Grassroots Struggle Against Racial Capitalism

     RRS 435

National Security and the Racialization of Arabs and Muslims in North America

     RRS 520

Race, Radicalism and Revolution

     RRS 600/HIST 466

History of People of Color in the U.S.
Section B: Popular Culture, Literature, and the Arts  

     RRS 275

Introduction to Pacific Islander Literature: How To Read An Ocean

     RRS 280

Disrupting Science Fiction: Race, Gender, and Alternative Futures

     RRS 282

Art and Cultural Practices of Oceania

     RRS 285

Race, Sports, and Society

     RRS 290

Sounds of Resistance: Race, Rhythm, Rhyme, and Revolution

     RRS 295

Race, Public Art, and Creative Resistance

     RRS 360

Our Stories: Literatures of Race and Resistance

     RRS 365

Race and Comedy in the United States

     RRS 430

Arab Media Images in America: Impact on Arab Americans

     RRS/AIS 433

Pacific Islanders in Film: Re-Presenting Oceania Through an Indigenous Lens

     RRS/ARAB 450

Contemporary Arabic and Arab American Literature

     RRS 480

Youth Culture, Race and Resistance
Section C: Gender and Sexuality  

     RRS 304

Decolonize Your Diet: Food Justice and Gendered Labor in Communities of Color

     RRS 375

Queer Arabs in the U.S.

     RRS/SXS 380

Queer and Trans Ethnic Studies

     RRS 460/COUN 450/SXS 460

HIV and AIDS Impacts and Resistance Among Communities of Color

     RRS 571

Women, Race, and Class

     RRS/SXS/WGS 640

Race and Sexual Migration
Section D: Diasporas and Transnationalism  

     RRS 370

Islamophobia: Roots, Development, and Contestation of Hatred

     RRS 420

Arab American Identity: Memory and Resistance

     RRS 630

Palestine: Ethnic Studies Perspective

     RRS 657/AA S 541

South Asian Diaspora

     WGS/RRS 566

Gender and Modernity in the Muslim and Arab Worlds

Community Service Learning (1 – 3 units)

Code Title Units
RRS/SOC 410 Grassroots Organizing for Change in Communities of Color 3
RRS 694 Community Engaged Learning: Praxis in Race and Resistance Studies 3

Elective Courses (6 units)

6 units of any RRS courses.