Course Catalog

This course is an introduction to the study of race and ethnicity in the lives of U.S. women, providing students with a conceptual vocabulary for investigating questions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class, and an analytical framework within which they can extend their critical thinking on these and related topics. We will explore the ways these intersecting factors of identity have been understood in U.S. culture, fostering both division and unity. We will examine how social institutions such as motherhood, family, the beauty industry, advertising, and education perceive women who identify themselves from various ethnic and racial groups, and how such women construct themselves through language and other means of “talking back” to the institutions in which they live and work. Ultimately, the course analyzes the ways that institutions can be the means of both oppression and empowerment for women, and imagines the opportunities for resisting oppression and organizing for social change. Course materials are interdisciplinary—drawing on sociological, historical, and literary readings, as well as films and music, to reflect a range of cultural experiences.