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AMERICAN STUDIES UNDERGRADUATE COURSE DESCRIPTIONS - SPRING 2013 182.001 - Intro to Environment, Science & Tech TR 12:30 – 1:45 DSH 227 Correia 182.002 - Intro to Environment, Science & Tech W 4:00 – 6:30 ORTG 121 Staff Arts & Sciences group: Social Science / Core Curriculum: Social Science This is an introduction to American attitudes toward nature, science, technology and the impacts of those attitudes on built and natural environments regionally, nationally and globally. This course covers the period from World War II to the present, focusing on the environmental effects of such diverse scientific and technological products as chemical pesticides, nuclear power, and television.
In this course we will look at current environmental issues, delving into contentious topics and passionate debates, while asking difficult questions. How does consumerism impact the environment, and how much stuff do we really need? Is wilderness a necessity or a luxury? Should an endangered fish have water rights? Are pesticides giving us cancer? We'll consider debates within the scientific community, explore conflicts between developers and environmentalists, and look at the promise and limitations of technological solutions.
183.002 - Introduction to Gender Studies TR 12:30 – 1:45 MITCH 121 Shaughnessy Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course focuses on the interdisciplinary study of the construction of gender as a category. Readings will span cross-cultural and historical materials, including literary, artistic, and popular representations of masculinity and femininity in America.
More specifically, this course will consider: What does it mean to be or become a woman or man? Is there a basic essence to femininity and masculinity, which remains unchanged throughout time and place? Or are our concepts of what constitutes femininity and masculinity historically and culturally specific and mutable? What are the processes and mechanisms by which our understandings of gender are produced, maintained, or changed? This course addresses these questions, offering students a stimulating, accessible introduction to the depth and breadth of work on gender from an interdisciplinary perspective. The field of gender studies is dynamic and diverse, full of debate, controversy, and inquiry over issues of representation, identity, meaning, interpretation, and politics. We will explore these issues through contemporary writings on gender that intersect with sex, race, sexuality, and class. As much as this course is an introduction to a body of work – both scholarly and popular, written and visual - that focuses on gender, it is also a course that interrogates the material. Thus students will be working on their critical reading/ writing skills.
184.001 - Intro to American Pop Culture TR 11:00 – 12:15 ORTG 153 Tiongson Arts & Sciences group: Humanities Popular culture can be defined as the beliefs and practices that characterize a particular culture, as well as the objects, narratives, and rituals through which they are organized and that are widely shared, enjoyed, and understood among a population. It is also generally understood as the culture of ordinary people, as opposed to highly educated or specialized elites.
This course examines many aspects of popular culture, including movies, action figures and other toys, cartoons/comics, advertising, television, and urban legends. The class involves learning how to read popular culture as a text and as an indicator of societal norms, diversions, and diversities.
185.003 - Intro to Race/Class/Ethnicity T 5:30 – 8:00 ORTG 115 Olorunsiwa 185.003 - Intro to Race/Class/Ethnicity TR 3:30 – 4:45 Matjaka Arts & Sciences group: Social Sciences/Core Curriculum: Social Sciences This is an interdisciplinary introduction to the issues, and social and cultural formation of race, class and ethnicity in American life and society. The course is designed to foster an appreciation of the heterogeneity of experience in American life. The course is focused on the study of cross-cultural group relations.
More specifically, this course will consider: Who are you? For most of us, self-description includes our race, class, and ethnicity, but what do these terms mean? Are these terms fixed and unchanging? This course introduces the terms, race, class and ethnicity and offers a critical discussion of their historical meaning and their meaning in modern society. We will pay attention to cross-cultural and interdisciplinary themes within these definitions.
186.001 - Intro to Southwest Studies MWF 1:00 – 1:50 CENT 1028 Barajas 186.005 - Intro to Southwest Studies TR 8:00 – 9:15 DSH 129 Cammack Arts & Sciences group: Humanities/ Core Curriculum: Humanities Provides both an introduction to the complex history and culture of the southwestern United States and a demonstration of the possibilities of the interdisciplinary study of regional American culture. It is multicultural in content and multidisciplinary in methodology. Examines cross-cultural relationships among the peoples of the Southwest within the framework of their expressions and experiences in art, culture, religion, and social and political economy.
More specifically, this course will consider: What is this place we call the Southwest? How is it defined- geographically, politically, and culturally? Who are the people that live there? How have their lives been transformed by social and historical forces into the cultures we see today? At the same time, how have these same groups retained their traditions, customs, and beliefs in response to change? This course will explore contemporary Southwestern cultures, their multiple voices and culture expressions, using an interdisciplinary approach that draws from geography, anthropology, history, literature, and the arts.
200.001 - Introduction to Chicana-o Literature MWF 10:00 – 10:50 MITCH 121 Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with ENGL 265.001, Introduction to Chicana-o Literature. This introductory course to Chicano/a literature will examine a variety of literary genres - poetry, short fiction, and novels - to explore the historical development of Chicano/a social and literary identity. We’ll cover several time periods, beginning with the nineteenth century and concluding with contemporary works, and we’ll focus on important issues such as race, class, gender, religion, family, education, language, and the act of writing itself. We’ll examine the way writers represent the complexities of being caught between Mexican and American cultures, and we’ll also consider key literary concepts that shape and define Chicana/o literary production. By the end of the class, we’ll have a comprehensive understanding of the literary and historical formation of Chicana/o identity and the complex, even contradictory, experiences that characterize Chicana/o culture.
201.001 - Introduction to Chicano, Hispano, Mexicano Studies TR 12:30 – 1:45 MITCH 119 Trujillo Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with CHMS 201, Introduction to Chicano, Hispano, Mexicano Studies. This course is an introduction to the field of Chicano/Hispano/Mexicano Studies. In this course, we will study the history of Chicanos/Hispanos/Mexicanos in the United States and in the México-U.S. borderlands in particular. Alongside this history, we will also study the creative work of this population. This creative work includes history, narrative, film and art (painting, photography, sculpture, etc.).
285.001 - American Life and Thought TR 9:30 – 10:45 MITCH 121 Denetdale Arts & Sciences group: Humanities American Life and Thought: (Note: this course is required for all American Studies majors and minors) This course focuses on modern American life as it is shaped by the technologies of mass industrialization. We consider how an American Studies framework defines nation, citizenship, and cultural values and how these concepts are shaped by modern technologies. Our studies cut across race, class, and gender to critique U.S. narratives of cultural diversity and multiculturalism.
303.001 - Law in the Political Community T 5:30 – 8:00 DSH 226 Ganjei Arts & Sciences group: Social Science Also offered as POLS 303, Law in the Political Community. The purpose of this course is twofold: to introduce students to the principal features of the American legal system as a part of the political system, and perhaps more importantly, to equip the students with a set of analytical tools that they can use to analyze how actors and institutions operate within this system and why they behave in certain ways. With a critical eye, we will explore how the law functions as a tool and an institution of government, the presidency, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, etc. Furthermore, we will examine the role played by the court system in the formation and implementation of public policy.
309.002 - Social Movements in America: Community Gardens and Social Change TR 2:00 – 3:15 DSH 318 Marcum *There will be a strong service-learning component to this class. This course examines the relationship between political activism and social change in the contemporary United States. We’ll examine movements for Civil Rights, Women’s Liberation, Economic Justice, Disability Rights, Environmental Sustainability and more. In addition to exploring the organizational methods, tactics, and political, cultural, and social efficacy of various social movements, this Research Service-Learning class affords students the chance to be a part of the movement for sustainable and equitable food through active participation in the on-going development of community gardens on the UNM campus. Students will be planting, building, landscaping, harvesting, and meeting, and organizing fellow students while exploring community gardens as sites for social and cultural change, community building, and organizing for positive reform around issues of social and environmental health. Texts include Protest Nation: A Century of American Radicalism. For More information, contact Andrew Marcum, Graduate Teaching Instructor amarcum@unm.edu
309.003 - Unpacking the Occupy Movement TR 6:00 – 7:45 MITCH 210 Chandrashekar This course uses intersectionality as a methodology to examine the race, gender, class, and nationalistic politics of the OWS movement. To achieve this goal, OWS will be historicized and read against movements such as the Poor People’s Campaign that coalesced around issues of economic and racial justice. Second, OWS will be placed in the global context by tracing its links to the Arab Springs and long-drawn movements in other parts of the world that have struggled with neocolonial exploitation and economic degradation. This course will draw attention to the risks that OWS may face if it refuses to engage an intersectional analysis of why inequality pervades today’s society.
310.001 - Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literature TR 2:00 – 3:15 MITCH 211 Jussawalla Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with ENGL 315.004, Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literature. The topic of this course is (Re)Writes of Children’s Literature. This course will focus on how Classics of Children’s Literature have been (re)written and (re) produced in our contemporary times. We will start with the actual Classics of Children’s Literature and examine through contemporary media and film Disney versions new productions of Alice in Wonderland and even such productions as the contemporary ABC series Once Upon a Time. Each student will be required to find new rewritten /reproduced version and try to analyze WHY that production re-examined the classic and what the message is behind that rewrite. That will constitute the research paper. This course is cross-listed with education majors and hopefully will help education majors teach the classics in new contexts.
310.002 - Vatos-Homegirls in Lit Film TR 9:30 – 10:45 DSH 234 Galvan Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with CHMS 393.001, Vatos-Homegirls in Lit Film This course will focus on the cultural and ethnic representation of El Pachuco/a, El Vato Loco and La Chola in Chicana/o literature and film to analyze how Chicanas/os and mainstream American construct and refigure these subjects. At issue will be the performance of gendered bodies and politicized mythos by which these social subjects are seen as an embodiment of revolutionary identity by some and as delinquent subjects by others. This course begins with the zoot suit subculture of the early 1940s; moves to Chicano movement narratives of El Pachuco; next the literature and film of the 1990s that offer many interpretive possibilities for how El Vato and La Chola are represented; and concludes with contemporary Chicana homegirl narratives that challenge and disrupt private and public norms.
310.003 - Law & Ethics of War and Peace W 5:30 – 8:00 SHC-8 Ferguson Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with PCST 340.001, Law and Ethics of War and Peace. This course relates to law, political science, history, philosophy, religion, anthropology, and the future of civilization. We often hear on the news some reference to the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or the Torture Convention, to name just a few international legal documents related to war and peace. Yet few people have read them or studied the historical contexts in which they arose. As a result, despite the obvious importance of war and peace issues – indeed the threat posed to the very survival of civilization – it is not possible for most people to state an informed opinion on how the norms of international law apply, or should apply, to world situations. Perhaps even less common is exploration of the ethical principles that underlie the legal concepts. This course is designed, first, to expose students to ethical writings from ancient times to the present concerning war and peace; second, to help students learn about the key legal documents relating to those issues today; and third, to encourage students to apply the ethical and legal principles they learn to contemporary armed conflict situations. Students will gain critical perspective on lethal conflict situations and will be in a stronger and clearer position to apply that understanding to real world situations, including in any path they may pursue to help bring about world peace.
310.006 - Folk Music in America TR 2:00 – 3:15 COMMJ 144 White Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course, American Studies 310; American Folk Music, will be taught as both a historical look at Appalachian music and a practical workshop on playing the folk music of the Appalachian mountains. It will focus on fiddle tune and songs from what is called the Old Time tradition of mountain music. Students will be given fiddles to play or they are highly encouraged to bring banjos, mandolins, basses, guitars and voices to class. We will watch videos, have many guest performers to help us learn tunes, we will watch youtube every class and I will teach the simple tunes I know. I have done this in the past and it works, especially if we have some musicians in the class. However, you do not have to be a trained musician to join the class. We start from the beginning and work our way through the culture and the music of Appalachia which has become very popular since the folk music revival of the 1960s. The class will be held on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon in my UNM violin shop, 144 Communication and Journalism. You will come away with the ability to continue a life-time of playing Old Time music. The class is limited to 30 students.
310.007 - Casino Marketing & Mgmt W 5:30 – 8:00 Bubb This course will examine the marketing and management techniques that commercial and tribal casinos use to make their businesses run more effectively and profitably. The casino industry is a multi-billion dollar industry annually and gambling has become one of the world’s most popular forms of entertainment; therefore, the industry is constantly changing to keep up with customers’ needs, shifts in popular culture, and changes in technology. Since most casinos often appear in geographical regions with other competing casinos, the knowledge of how to differentiate one casino from the rest is critical. Casinos spend billions of dollars annually to both train their employees and to market their products to consumers. The shift from casinos being gambling destinations to mega-resorts has impacted how casinos market their programs because now casinos must promote gambling in conjunction with their affiliated restaurants, hotels, and entertainment venues. Students will learn how casinos use and develop sales techniques, promotions and loyalty programs, targeted marketing, and merchandising. Students will also learn how casinos staff and manage all of their different revenue producing venues: casinos, restaurants, hotels, and entertainment venues.
310.010 - Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literature R 4:00 – 6:30 DSH 234 Hofer Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with ENGL 315.010, Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literature. The topic of the course is Myth and the American Mind. After World War I, and even more notably after World War II, Americans have drawn without anxiety on Old World history and cultures even as they remain comfortably distinct from both. Yet what may seem a conflict of international orientation and local character has helped to define the twentieth-century as the “American century,” a golden era, in cultural terms, of grand synthesis. During this time Americans perfected the arts of adapting, adopting, repurposing, and inventing myth like no other people in history. But what does this mean, and why does it matter, and which conditions have made it possible? This course will approach those questions via a series of discussions about heroes and antiheroes, sovereignty and self-fashioning, and the mythic quest. By considering influential examples of the transmission and renovation of enduring mythic tropes in modernity and post-modernity, our conversations aim to assess a tense yet productive status of myth (i.e., with regard to history, tradition, ritual, logos, etc.) in twentieth-century America. This will, in turn, underwrite an effort to comprehend the means by which such mythic thinking continues to inform the culture of our future. This literary, visual, and cultural critique is designed to take into account significant social, political, and economic realities, including the position of America as a young nation on a global stage, a beacon of democracy, a bastion of capitalism, a postcolonial superpower, and a so-called “melting pot.” How do these national characteristics help to determine a unique sense of what it is to be one of us, whether that means successful (or materialistic), independent (or self-regarding), pragmatic (or obstinate), and strong (or violent)? What facilitates the suppleness of American cultural practice? What sustains the status of American ideals as virtues? And to what extent is American-ness itself determined by the narratives that Americans tell about themselves as well as those that are told about them?
314.001 - Violin Making TR 8:00 – 11:00 COMMJ 144 White Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This is part of a multi-semester course in Violin Making: Construction, History, Culture and Performance. Through both lectures and field trips, students will learn the history of violin making, some aspects of performance, and be exposed to a variety of cultural and historical materials related to the religious, ritual and folk violin performances and dances practiced in New Mexico since the early 17th century. Enrollment in the course must be approved by the instructor, Dr. Peter White, who can be reached at plwhite@unm.edu.
320.001 - Politics of Sustainability TR 11:00 – 12:15 ORTG 109 Marcum *2nd 8 Weeks Arts & Sciences group: Social Science Sustainability has become hotly contested political terrain where a remarkable diversity of political actors—from the radical critique of anti-capitalist activists to the business-as-usual of Wal-Mart executives—define sustainability in competing and contradictory ways.
What then is sustainability? Is it a radically new way to define the ethical and moral obligations of humans in the myriad ways we use (and abuse) nature? Has it become the empty rhetoric—greenwashing— used by corporations to cloak existing unsustainable practices in a veneer of environmental care? Or is it less the term’s definition than the politics it engenders that is important to account for? In this class we examine the idea and politics of sustainability in all its formations and guises.
330.001 - Feminist Theories MW 4:00 – 5:15 HUM 428 Levitt Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with WMST 304, Feminist Theories: Identity, Knowledge, and Power. Exploration of the intersections, connections, and tensions between feminist theory and queer, critical race, and postcolonial theories. Theoretical focus on the discussion around previous and emerging analyses of identity, knowledge/power, and justice.
330.004 - Introduction to Chicana Studies TR 11:00 – 12:15 DSH 224 Vasquez Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with CHMS 332, Introduction to Chicana Studies. This general survey course introduces students to knowledge production on and academic approaches relevant to Chicana women’s diverse and changing social statuses from the times of Indigenous sovereignties preceding European interventions in Mexico to the late 20th century. The course traces economic and political transitions highlighting generalized mutations of racial/ethnic, gender, sexuality, social rank/class, and cultural expressions reflecting the conditions and the dominant attitudes of women’s subordination. Course materials will highlight Chicana/Mexican/Indigenous women’s attempts to challenge notions of inferiority and rationalizations for dominance through actions and power contestations and, in turn, contextualize these actions socially, economically and politically. In Mexico and the U.S., women served as agents of social and political change in the formation of the society and the state. The course frames gendered experiences within individual and group processes and identifies women as diverse individuals, groups and aggregates influencing cultural practices and beliefs.
330.007 - Chicana Feminisms T 7:00 – 9:30 WOOD 149 Samora Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with CHMS 393.003, Chicana Feminisms. This topic course explores the history and development of Chicana Feminisms with special attention to the how Chicana feminists voice their concerns and politics on a wide range of issues that includes race, class, gender, sexuality, and language. In class we will explore the different waves of feminism and feminist historiography to understand how Chicana Feminists differ from European and U.S. Feminist Movements. The class will explore how Chicana Feminism draws from a cultural and historical tradition of strong female figures. At the same time we will explore how Chicana feminists express a women of color politics in the US that has allowed for cross-cultural communication with Third World and Transnational feminist efforts across the globe. This class pays attention to the contributions of New Mexican women to Chicana Feminist efforts across time, many of who are here and have been at UNM.
340.002 - Science Fiction in American Culture T 4:00 – 6:30 DSH 234 McCormack Arts & Sciences group: Humanities Science fiction (SF) is a genre of ideas, expressing the sensibilities of its age as transparently as other productions of popular culture, some would argue even more so. SF film and literature has provided the popular imagination with some of the most compelling visions of the possibilities and perils of a future increasingly dominated by advanced technologies. Such films and literary texts have also provided serious and thoughtful explorations of contemporary social, cultural, and political issues, from xenophobia, racism, gender and sexuality, and class issues, to corporate capitalism, colonialism, environmental degradation, nuclear disaster, and the nature of humanity itself.
This course will explore the ways SF has embodied and reflected cultural attitudes and beliefs, mirroring some of the most profound hopes, fears, and anxieties to be found in American culture in the late twentieth/early twenty-first century.
341.001 - Social Transformation in Film M 6:30 – 10:00 DSH 126 Cutler Arts & Sciences group: Humanities Through documentaries, features, politically-oriented shorts, and activist films we will explore issues of war and peace, activism and resistance, and race, gender, religious, economic, national and sexual rights and abuses from a variety of academic perspectives using a number of differently leveraged theoretical lenses.
We will explore possibilities offered by mediation, conflict resolution, NGOs, individual and social activism, the effectiveness or not of revolution, of non-violent protest, of terrorism, and more. And we will explore the concepts of negative and positive peace, structural violence, conflict resolution, scapegoating, othering, and more.
Students taking this class for credit will be expected to read selections each week and respond in short written assignments, integrating ideas and concepts from the readings, the class discussions and the films. Two larger papers are due throughout the semester.
Community members are invited to attend the film screenings, contribute to class discussions afterward, and will be provided copies of the readings if they desire.
350.001 - Blacks in Latin America MW 11:00 – 12:15 MVH 4022 Howard Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with AFST 388, Blacks in Latin America I. A comprehensive analysis of the plight of Black people in Latin America as compared with their experiences in North America, from the 15th to 19th century. This course examines the resemblance and diversity among blacks in the United States,blacks in Latin America, and blacks in the Hispanophone Caribbean. Through literature, the class will explore what it means to be 'black' in the Americas (that is, a US/American, Caribbean or Latin American person of African descent). We will also examine the growing usage and acceptance of the term Afro Latinos/Afrolatinos as a racial, ethnic and/or national identity. By engaging novels such as Child of the Dark: the Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus (Brazil), Las Criadas de La Habana (Cuba), and Geographies of Home (United States), students will unearth varied histories and religions; cultural and racial identities; socio-political and power relations; and lived realities and ideologies that comprise the black experience(s) in the America. All novels are taught in English, with novels from Latin America comprising 50% of the course texts.
350.002 - Leadership & Mentoring in Urban Communities TR 3:30 – 4:45 SARAR 107 Bubb *There will be a strong service-learning component to this class. Arts & Sciences group: Social Science This course examines the ethnic, cultural, and class problems facing children and teenagers within the urban communities of Albuquerque. The course provides students with opportunities to work interactively with community-based organizations that focus on creating educational and recreational programming and providing social services for children and teenagers of different social classes, cultures, and ethnic backgrounds. Students have opportunities to gain professional experience within different community sites as they observe, interact, and participate with community members. Each community site that the class interacts with provides students with different insights as to how professional organizations operate, how structural development and management occurs, how educational, recreational, and social programming decision making processes are conceived and implemented, and how students can implement theoretical information into practical settings while collaboratively working with others to create activities, events, and programs. The course prepares students to interact with children and teenagers who face a varying array of social and economic problems in their everyday lives. Students gain practical experience that will help them to work in social and educational settings by addressing issues such as student developmental theory, supplemental instruction, group dynamics, learning styles, success skills, and the ability to effectively communicate, interact, and problem solve when working with individuals struggling with various social and economic problems.
350.003 - Chicano Civil Rights R 6:30 – 9:00 DSH 318 Baca Contemporary Chicano civil rights discourse revolves around one central issue: immigration. In fact, immigration arguably defines Mexican American liberal civil rights activism. This course will examine the development of Chicano civil rights from a historical perspective. We will begin in the 19th century, examining how Mexican American* populations were treated and perceived in the decades after the end of the Mexican American War and signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848). As immigration increased after the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), how the growing Mexican population was regarded also changed. With this change came the emergence of a Mexican American civil rights discourse, emphasizing patriotism and assimilation as a way to shield the growing Mexican American population from racism, political and economic disenfranchisement, and discrimination.
The patriotic/assimilationist perspective dominated Chicano Civil Rights discourse through the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. This changed, however, with the rise of the Chicano Movement, which rejected materialism, capitalism, and the notion of assimilation into broader American society, all tenets society that previous activism had embraced. With the decline of Chicano movement, its militant message drew critics from both outside and inside the movement. The rigidity of chicanismo inhibited its ability to adjust to changing realities of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. While many still use the term as a self-signifier, fewer do so exclusively and many have abandoned it for pan-ethnic Latina/o identities. And the growing Mexicano population that exploded with border development and the destruction of local markets resulting from economic globalization found little power in rhetoric developed for past generations
In this seminar, we will examine Chicano Civil Rights by exploring collective social action for immigration rights/reform, education rights/reform, labor rights, treaty rights, legal justice, environmental justice, veteran’s rights and political representation; and against racial discrimination, police brutality, foreign wars and displacement through urban reform. Though this course proceeds chronologically, it is organized around these core issues, meaning we will jump freely back and forth through the 20th century.
350.004 - Race & the Law TR 12:30 – 1:45 MITCH 220 Gipson-Rankin Arts & Sciences group: Social Science This course is offered with AFST 397, Race and the Law. Are we a post-racial society? Is English-only the way to go? Is there a model minority? Are Native American children better off with Native American parents? Should affirmative action be abolished? Did Brown help? This seminar will explore the historical and contemporary treatment of race in the United States by both the courts and the legislature. We will examine the connection between law and the construction of race as a concept and position of identity. To this end, students will examine the legal ordering of individuals as members of racial groups and their treatment under the law across various timeframes, specifically studying Black Americans, American Indians, Asian Pacific Americans, and Chicana/os. Through an integrated analysis of the groups legal histories, the class will foster a comprehensive understanding of race and racism as foundational elements of U.S. law. The seminar will also employ an interdisciplinary approach to examining the social and political for ces that have and continue to contribute to the development of legal doctrine in the areas of education, employment, health care, criminal justice, interracial sex and marriage, and contract law, among other things. Those electing to take this class should understand that this class continually examines how power has been distributed by the law and how power has been used to privilege some and marginalize and/or oppress others. We will look primarily to the text book for our understanding, but you also will be exposed to various source materials in an effort to assist you in producing a worthwhile scholarly paper. Plan to explore this topic of race and the law outside of the classroom as we visit local courthouses, talk with judges, and visit correctional facilities for a first hand view of the implementation of the law. The seminar will examine race from a multiracial, multiethnic perspective. Participation from a diverse group of students is encouraged.
350.005 - Race, Class, Feminism T 4:00 – 6:30 SARAR 101 Ramirez de Arellano Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with WMST 325.001, Race, Class, and Feminism. In this course we will use American literary texts as cultural artifacts, exploring how differences of region, culture, and class deeply influence factors of identity (such as race and gender, or sexual orientation) that we think of as existing prior to social influences. How do literary characterizations offer us ways of investigating the complexities of American relationships to subjectivity? What do these stories suggest about the distinctions we make between nature and culture, and their influences on identity? We will begin with 19th-Century writing about the enslavement of African-Americans. The anxious reliance on clear categories of race, class, and gender that characterizes this period is complicated by the emergence of alternative perspectives in the 20th Century. Feminist, critical race theory, and post-colonial approaches will enable us to begin developing frameworks for understanding the historical and contemporary contradictions inherent to membership in our national community.
350.006 - Sociology of Mexican Americans TR 3:30 – 4:45 DSH 333 Gonzales Arts & Sciences group: Social Science This course is offered with SOC 428.001, Sociology of Mexican Americans. The historical, comparative and contemporary study of the Mexican American in the U.S. Race and ethnic relations theories and the Chicano Movement.
353.001 - Race Relations in America MW 12:00 – 1:15 DSH 132 Samora This course is offered with CHMS 342.001, Race, Culture, Gender, Class in NM History. This is an interdisciplinary introduction to the issues and social and cultural formation of race, class, gender, and ethnicity in American life and society. The course is designed to show how ideas of race, culture, gender and class have structured conceptions of self, nation, and citizenship, particularly in New Mexico. In addition, the course shows how various groups have formed viable coalitions and/or resist these categories of identity.
356.001 - Contemporary Native America T 4:00 – 6:30 Denetdale Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course examines critical issues that contemporary tribal nations and their citizens face today. We take as our topics nation-building, sovereignty, and self-determination and examine tribal belonging, citizenship, and women and gender through the lens of settler colonialism, neo-liberalism, Indigenous feminisms, and queer Native theory.
356.002 - Adv Study of Native Lit & Rhet TR 12:30 – 1:45 BANDE 105 Tapahonso Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with English 464.001, Advanced Studies in Native American Literature. Please contact the English department for a full course description.
357.001 - The African World TR 11:00 – 12:15 DSH 318 Shunkuri Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with AFST 385, The African World. An interdisciplinary introduction to the study of Africa; its political and economic geographies; its traditional and new societies; and its politics in global perspectives.
357.002 - Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literature TR 9:30 – 10:45 DSH 223 Wallace Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with ENGL 315.009, Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literature. The topic of this course is Literature of the African Diaspora. Please contact the English Department for a full course description
360.001 - NM Villages & Culture W 4:00 – 6:30 SARAR 101 Romero Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with CHMS 393.004, NM Villages & Culture. Before the age of strip malls, big-box supercenters, store-bought produce, and cyberspace social networks, New Mexicans gathered in plazas, grew their own vegetable gardens, and engaged in platicas to share stories and exchange knowledge and information. Our class will examine various cultural settings and traditions such as plazas, resolanas, acequia culture, and read from a collection of narratives that celebrate community and explore New Mexico's cultural heritage from its not-so-easily-forgotten past through the present day. Literature, film, video, and other sources of documentation will inform our analysis. We will have guest presenters as well as attend local readings and events. Students will be required to write brief response papers to the course readings and subject matter. Other course requirements will be addressed in the syllabus.
360.002 - Regional Literature TR 12:30 – 1:45 MITCH 202 Vizcaíno-Aleman Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with ENGL 397.001, Regional American Literature. Regional literature has shaped and responded to American history and culture from the very beginning, and we will explore the topic by way of three major themes: the newcomer, modern change, and the folk. These three themes structure the class and its exploration of regional literature, from New England, New Orleans, the South, the Midwest, Far West, Plains West, and Southwest. We’ll come to understand the aesthetic diversity of regional writing as it encounters romanticism, realism, naturalism, local color writing, and modernism, and we’ll also examine how the emergence of regionalism occurs as a response to national and global pressures bearing down on a specific geographical locale. We’ll enjoy regional writing in its most comfortable genre – short fiction – and in the end come away with a critical definition of regionalism that encompasses writings from the diverse places that characterize the US.
360.004 - Sociology of New Mexico TR 11:00 – 12:15 CENT 1030 Ibarra Arts & Sciences group: Social Science New Mexico as a social system; the infrastructure of communities and ethnic groups, stratification, major social institutions, deviance and inter-group relations.
485.001 - Senior Seminar in US Culture M 2:00 – 4:30 HUM 424 Schreiber Arts & Sciences Group: Humanities This is the capstone course for the American Studies major. It is meant to give students an opportunity to synthesize what they have learned in American Studies and related classes. It is also a chance for students to do their own, original work on a topic. We will work together to develop and strengthen skills in research, analysis, and writing, but the major part of the seminar is the work students will do to produce a 20 page original senior thesis.
During the semester we will meet during our regular class hours each week to work in small groups helping each other with questions and problems in the writing process. Students will be asked to bring drafts of their written work to each of these meetings. At the end of the semester students will complete their thesis project and give a presentation on their work as part of an American Studies thesis symposium at the SUB.
486.001 - Senior Seminar in SW Studies R 4:00 – 6:30 Porsild Arts & Sciences group: Humanities The topic for this course will be Place and Identity in the Southwest. This course introduces students to the concepts of space and place as frameworks for examining identities, social and political processes, and human-environment connections. We will examine what it means both to have “a sense of place” and to experience “placelessness.” Students will explore how people shape places and how places shape people; how places can be in our minds as well as etched in the physical landscape. Included in this examination will be the role that place (and the naming or re-naming of place) plays in the construction of identities in the Southwest. The course format will be a combination of lectures, class discussions, and site visits.
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