Living in a Diverse World

Catalog description

This introductory survey course fulfills General Education Integrative Studies requirements in humanities and social sciences, and also meets the requirements for the United States Cultures Designation and Bachelor of Arts in Humanities and Social and Behavioral Sciences. This course uses literature, film and scholarly texts to inspire students to explore how conceptions of social difference, such as those linked to categories of gender, race, sexuality, class, ethnicity, and disability, shape society and everyday interactions historically and today. The course takes an intersectional perspective to explore how and why these categories vary over time and space, the effects of such variations for individuals and communities, and the connections between identity and the exercise of power. Geographically, the course emphasizes the relationship between social difference and power in the U.S. history and society, but takes a transnational perspective when possible by making comparisons to contexts beyond the United States. Furthermore, the class examines how individuals and communities most directly marginalized by these processes contest and re-imagine dominant categories and assumptions. Materials and discussions in the class trace broad social and historical trends as well as dive into the facets of everyday life. The class is designed to encourage reflection on the ethical challenges that arise when we become aware of how privilege, power and difference are intertwined in our world and daily lives. Students who successfully navigate this course will be able to: 1. Apply basic theories of identity, difference, social power and privilege to a wide range of textual and visual materials, and to their own interactions in the context of day-to-day life. 2. Critically engage at an introductory level histories of how race, gender, sexuality, class and disability have been constructed in the U.S. context. 3. Consider transnational dimensions of similar dynamics and contrast these with the U.S. context. 4. Identify and analyze the multiple ways individuals, communities and social movements have resisted and remade categories of identity and changed relations of power over time and space. 5. Recognize and explore the ethical dimensions of social, political and/or economic marginalization rooted in constructions of social identity.