What explains the stubborn persistence of racism in our institutions, and how should it be confronted? Through an examination of racism in public life – from the films we watch, the books we read, the laws we make, the views we share, and the places we gather together to live and work, this cluster investigates the insidious ability of racist systems to thwart efforts aimed at dismantling inequality. Although the issue of systemic racism looms large, this cluster helps students to understand their role in working toward change.
This cluster will be offered throughout 2022-24.
Instructor: Janelle Wong
If we believe that racism is bad, why do we still support racist policies? No matter how hard we work to end it, the challenge of racism seems here to stay. Though attitudes toward racial segregation in schools have changed, schools are more racially isolated than ever. There is a disconnect in American public life between support for the idea of equality and resistance to policies aimed at addressing racism, and a deep divide over how to eliminate inequality. This course focuses on public opinion and how these attitudes inform public policy. Can we address systemic inequality through public engagement and by changing the national narrative with the support of evidence? Does change come from shifting views or shifting policies? Students will explore these issues through a case study on racial equity in the Honors College. By developing skills in evidence-based op-ed writing and survey-based experiments, students will add their voices to these pressing public debates of our time.
GenEd: SCIS, DSHS
Offered In: Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
Required/Optional: Required
Instructor: Robert Graham
America’s schools are dynamic microcosms of society at large. They simultaneously reflect, reproduce, and shape what happens outside of the classroom, including the many ways that racism affects us all. The educational mechanisms that operate for the benefit of some and to the detriment of others can be hard to see, often because they are hidden in plain sight. For example, national tests are standardized. When racialized differences in test scores appear, they are called “achievement gaps” and the disparity is attributed to essential differences or cultural deficiency rather than inequitable access and opportunity. In this course students will learn methods to critically examine such commonplace notions as the achievement gap and to document their effects on society. They will also develop strategies for self-reflection that enable them to confront inequity in their own educational experience and work to create change.
GenEd: TBA
Offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
Required/Optional: Optional
Instructor: Alana Hackshaw
Racial segregation remains an enduring feature of American life today though many believe segregation is a relic of the past. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this course examines the history of segregation and its connection to present-day patterns of inequality in the United States. Using an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates history, sociology, political science, and public policy, this course highlights the complex ways in which legacies of segregation continue to shape life in the US. We will identify how federal, state, and local governments endorsed systemic racism through policies that defined the racial geography and resources of racial groups in the US. Students will engage with policy experts to consider the promise and limits of policies that promote integration within communities and the connection between race, spatial location, and current political divisions.
GenEd: TBA
Offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2023
Required/Optional: Optional
Instructor: Sydney Lewis
The previous decade has been considered a renaissance for Black Horror. From Get Out to Lovecraft Country, the genre has enjoyed unprecedented mainstream media buzz and accolades. This course looks at contemporary Black horror and speculative fiction as cultural texts which put into question our notions of human(e) and inhuman(e) through critiques of white supremacy and accompanying oppressions. Students will learn a host of critical skills through close reading and analysis of literature and film by Black creators such as Jordan Peele, Misha Green, Toni Morrison, Jewelle Gomez, and Octavia Butler. With the ability to interpret cultural texts using literary criticism, film analysis, history, cultural studies, ethnic studies, feminist theory, and the social sciences, students will connect these texts to continuing historical and contemporary issues of racial and cultural oppression such as medical discrimination, policing and criminalization, misogynoir, and racialized capitalism.
GenEd: DSHU
Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2024
Required/Optional: Optional
