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 — 18 units minimum

The minor consists of 18 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 (3 units)

3 units of any RRS courses.