What are the ethics of ethnic studies and theoretical underpinnings of critical ethnic studies? We will examine some of the most significant critical debates in US literature: authenticity concerns, interracial relations, women of color feminism, queer of color critique, and new materialisms. Some important guiding frameworks are the cold war impact on civil rights and American studies; the establishment of cultural pluralism, multiculturalism, and ethnic studies in our political landscape and higher education; and finally, the theoretical and historical gender, sexual and racial formations of the “posts”-- post-civil rights, post-9/11, and post-racial eras. Throughout, we will map the demands of US empire in its turn-of the nineteenth-century, cold war, and contemporary eras and the ethical and theoretical projects developing within comparative race, critical ethnic, feminist, and queer studies.

This cross-listed course is one of two required courses for the Graduate Minor in Women's and Gender Studies, but students who are not minors are also welcome to enroll. Students are not required to have taken previous courses in feminist theory, women's studies and queer/trans+ studies. Please contact Professor Lynn Itagaki at itagakil@umsystem.edu with any questions or concerns.