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. 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)

Select one:

ETHS/RRS 100Introduction to Ethnic Studies3
ETHS/RRS 110Critical Thinking and the Ethnic Studies Experience3

Core Courses (9 units)

Select one course from three different sections A through D below:9
Section A: History and Politics
All Power to the People: Comparative Freedom Movements of the "Sixties"
Race, Ethnicity and Power in America
Beyond Bars and Borders: Race and the Carceral State
Creativity, Decolonization, and Social Justice in Oceania
Race, Activism and Climate Justice
Race, Labor, and Class Struggle
Reclaiming the Bay: Grassroots Struggle Against Racial Capitalism
National Security and the Racialization of Arabs and Muslims in North America
Race, Radicalism and Revolution
History of People of Color in the U.S.
Section B: Popular Culture, Literature, and the Arts
Introduction to Pacific Islander Literature: How To Read An Ocean
Disrupting Science Fiction: Race, Gender, and Alternative Futures
Art and Cultural Practices of Oceania
Race, Sports, and Society
Sounds of Resistance: Race, Rhythm, Rhyme, and Revolution
Race, Public Art, and Creative Resistance
Our Stories: Literatures of Race and Resistance
Race and Comedy in the United States
Arab Media Images in America: Impact on Arab Americans
Pacific Islanders in Film: Re-Presenting Oceania Through an Indigenous Lens
Contemporary Arabic and Arab American Literature
Youth Culture, Race and Resistance
Section C: Gender and Sexuality
Decolonize Your Diet: Food Justice and Gendered Labor in Communities of Color
Queer Arabs in the U.S.
Queer and Trans Ethnic Studies
HIV and AIDS Impacts and Resistance Among Communities of Color
Women, Race, and Class
Race and Sexual Migration
Section D: Diasporas and Transnationalism
Islamophobia: Roots, Development, and Contestation of Hatred
Arab American Identity: Memory and Resistance
Palestine: Ethnic Studies Perspective
South Asian Diaspora
Gender and Modernity in the Muslim and Arab Worlds

Community Service Learning (1-3 units)

Select One:

RRS/SOC 410Grassroots Organizing for Change in Communities of Color3
RRS 694Community Engaged Learning: Praxis in Race and Resistance Studies3

Elective Courses (6 units)

6 units of any RRS courses.