SCA Minors
The Africana Studies Program encompasses a varied curriculum on black peoples in Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean, and Europe, promoting an interdisciplinary approach to the field. The program offers especially strong emphasis in the areas of Pan-African History and Thought and Black Urban Studies. It thus fosters study of such literary and political movements as the Harlem Renaissance, negritude, black consciousness, and black feminism, and of such intellectual figures as W. E. B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, C. L. R. James, Malcolm X, Angela Y. Davis, Léopold Senghor, and Kwame Nkrumah. It also explores patterns of black migration, black cultural production, and class and gender dynamics within urban black communities, in addition to analyzing black people’s relations to a wide range of social, cultural, and political institutions, including museums, public offices, music and sports industries, mass media, the police, and public schools.
The minor entails four courses in Africana studies, including either V18.0104 (formerly V11.0010) or V18.0105 (formerly V11.0020).
The American Studies Program promotes focused study of American culture and society, considered in relation to the various global phenomena that influence them and to which they significantly contribute. Because this subject matter is understood to be wide-ranging and complex, students are allowed ample flexibility in designing their courses of study. In particular, they should feel free to explore a broad variety of disciplinary approaches to issues of concern within the field.
The minor in American studies consists of five courses, comprising Approaches to American Studies, V18.0201 (formerlyV13.0001), plus four other courses listed by the program. At least two of these four courses must originate in American studies, and one of the four can be a MAP course taught by an American studies faculty member.
The Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program provides an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the history and contemporary experiences of Asian/Pacific Americans, comprising populations from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands living in the United States as well as in other parts of the Americas. The program uses field research as the central methodology for examining the relationship between theory and practice and between structure and agency in the formation and function of A/PA communities. Students develop important analytical skills that will help them negotiate today’s multiracial, multiethnic environment, and that will be useful to them in any field of endeavor they choose to enter.
The minor consists of five courses in A/P/A Studies, including V18.0301 (formerly V15.0010), Introduction to the Asian/Pacific American Experience; V18.0302 (formerly V15.0101), Introduction to A/P/A Community Studies; and three electives from the A/P/A Studies course offerings, at least one of which must be a seminar or “community projects” course.
The Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies offers a broad interdisciplinary investigation of gender and sexuality as keys to understanding human experience, fully integrating the study of gender and sexuality in its core curriculum, and insistently extending the view beyond U.S. borders. At its core, the undergraduate program encourages students to question the meanings of “male” and “female,” as well as of sexual norms, in both Western and non-Western societies. Courses seek to unravel the ways in which ideas about gender and sexuality shape social roles and identities, in addition to the ways in which race, class, and ethnicity function in the experience of gender and sexuality within a culture. Gender and Sexuality Studies challenges the privileging of some categories (i.e., male or heterosexual) over others, along with the social and political implications of such hierarchies. Our curriculum makes gender and sexuality central rather than peripheral terms of analysis and seeks to complicate what is often presented as “natural” or “normal” in traditional academic curricula.
The Gender and Sexuality Studies minor requires 16 points (4 courses) drawn from at least two different departments. All minors must complete V18.0401 (formerly V97.0010), Approaches to Gender and Sexuality Studies or an approved substitution course.
Latino Studies aims to produce knowledge about people of Latin American descent living in the United States, and to integrate this knowledge into the country’s understanding of itself. Latino is a concept grounded in the United States, and Latino Studies, in this respect, is clearly distinct from Latin American Studies. Among its research agendas, three particular stand out:
- Dynamics of race, class, nationality, generation, language, gender, and sexuality (among other variables) producing relations among different Latino subgroups; Pan-Latino/a visions
- Comparative interethnic dynamics, particularly relations among Latinos, African Americans, and Asian Americans
- Transnational linkages and communities, migratory circuits, and transcultural processes; interactions between U.S. groups and “home” populations
The Latino Studies minor consists of five courses, including V18.0001, Concepts in Social and Cultural Analysis; V18.0501, Approaches to Latino Studies (or the MAP course V55.0529, World Cultures: Contemporary Latino Cultures); and three additional courses in Latino Studies, at least one of which must be an upper division course and may be a senior seminar.
The Program in Metropolitan Studies is an interdisciplinary program for the study of cities, urban issues, and urban culture. Using New York City as their laboratory, students work to better understand the relationship between people and the constructed environment. In their course work, students develop a critical understanding of how metropolitan areas evolve while they examine those areas’ core problems. Internships, research, and fieldwork provide firsthand, in-depth experience for analyzing urban institutions and related policy initiatives. The Program draws upon faculty active in the city’s government, community, and nonprofit agencies.
The minor consists of four Metropolitan Studies courses. V18.0601 (formerly V99.0101) Introduction to Metropolitan Studies (or Societies and the Social Sciences: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Metropolitan Studies, V55.0631) is required.
