GE Cluster 20A,B,CW
Interracial Dynamics in American Society and Culture
| Lecture Schedule: | Tuesday, Thursday 12:30 p.m. –1:45 p.m. – DeNeve Auditorium |
| Faculty: | Jeff Decker, English Vilma Ortiz, Sociology Brenda Stevenson, History Min Zhou, Sociology |
Almost every day I go back to the dorms, and a racial topic will come up. I say, “This is so my Interracial Dynamics class,” and in turn, my hall mates end up saying, “This is so Interracial Dynamics.” I learned more applicable information from this class than any other class. So much about history, politics, social issues, and icons was covered in this course. –former Interracial Dynamics cluster student
How can a nation as racially diverse as the United States and a state as ethnically varied as California nurture its sense of unity and community? The Interracial Dynamics cluster strives to create a learning environment conducive to dialogue and debate on this question and others such as:
- How do we define diversity?
- How are racial stereotypes produced and sometimes challenged in American popular culture?
- What does it mean to be black in the United States and how is “blackness” measured?
- Will a so-called model minority group such as Asian Americans ever achieve the privileges of “whiteness” as American Jews did before them?
- Does the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II provide lessons for how to understand the treatment of Arab Americans in the wake of 9-11?
- Is affirmative action necessary?
- What role should bilingual education play in public schools with large non-English speaking immigrant student populations?
Course Format
In lectures and discussion sections during the fall and winter quarters, students examine race as a social and cultural category that shapes contemporary American life. Students also study race as a “lived” experience and a contested terrain through some of the following activities:
- Student debates on topics such as affirmative action, bilingual education, and illegal immigration;
- A race, place, and consciousness assignment where, instead of studying others, students study themselves by observing and participating in the activities of a place (sports event, club, store, mall, restaurant, etc.) where they are ethnically and/or racially conspicuous;
- A web-based “media literacy” project focusing on the 1965 and 1992 Los Angeles riots; and
- Dinners with cluster faculty coupled with movie screenings.
Spring Seminars – previous titles include:
- Ethnic Encounters in American Television, Film, and Literature
- Color of Violence: Racial Violence in American History
- HoopLA: Community Building and Basketball in Multi-ethnic Los Angeles
- The American Dream: Immigrant Fiction and Film
- American Popular Music from Minstrelsy to Hip-Hop
- The Difference Love Makes: Race, Gender, and Desire in American Popular Culture
Foundation Area General Education Credit
Upon completion of the yearlong cluster, students will satisfy 3 GE course requirements:
- 2 in Foundations of Society & Culture (1 in Historical Analysis; 1 in Social Analysis)
- 1 in Foundations of the Arts & Humanities (Literary and Cultural Analysis)
