All Courses
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FG309 Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack: Critical Whiteness Studies
This course teaches students how to conduct transdisciplinary studies of whiteness as a political racialized category with theoretical and material implications for identity and subjectivity formation, and micro and macro-level interactions between and among people and institutions. Students also examine the relationship between whiteness and gender, sexuality, class, nation, and other social, cultural, and political markers, especially considering the historical and contemporary origins and manifestations of, as well as resistance to, white supremacy and privilege, especially in the United States.
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FG312 Black Feminist Theory
Black feminist theory, developed within and outside the academy, addresses the ways race, gender, class, and other social, cultural, and political markers are interconnected, focusing especially on the ways Black communities throughout the African Diaspora are particularly oppressed systemically and systematically. While we can locate such intersectional theories and politics in dated intellectual work produced as early as the 18th century, the term itself was introduced when Kimberlé Crenshaw published “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics” in The University of Chicago Legal Forum in 1989. Here, Crenshaw examines “a problematic consequence of the tendency to treat race and gender as mutually exclusive categories of experience and analysis [which was and still is] dominant in antidiscrimination policy and that is also reflected in feminist theory and antiracist politics.” Relying primarily on this guiding principle, then, we will study Black feminist examinations of Black women’s relationships with Black men, motherhood, Black queer communities, work inside and outside of the home, religion and spirituality, and other concerns.
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FG206 Topics in Feminist and Gender Studies: Comedy and Culture
In April 2014, the now defunct @ColbertReport account (run by Comedy Central) tweeted, “I am willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever.” The tweet stemmed from a segment of The Colbert Report during which the host, comedian Stephen Colbert, critiqued Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder for refusing to change the name of his NFL team, despite outrage from indigenous communities, instead opting to develop The Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation “to address the challenges that plague the Native American community.” In response to the tweet, Asian American activist Suey Park devised #CancelColbert to “critique white liberals who use forms of racial humor to mock more blatant forms of racism.” In support of Park, Dr. Brittney Cooper claims, “We never get to tell the harmed group what the proper response to racial injury should be for them.” Conversely, the staff at the Indian Country Today Media Network argued that Park’s tweets “drowned out the Native voice.” This, however, is just one example of the debates that ensue regarding the implications of comedy, especially when it is entrenched in discourses about race, gender, sexuality, and other social, cultural, and political markers. This course, then, will provide a space for students to participate in conversations that are concerned with comedy, including stand-up, situation comedies, film, and other forms, as a contentious and contradictory space with resistive, generative, and problematic qualities.
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EC112 Business and Society
The history and government policy towards cannabis, or “marijuana”, is a complex and evolving narrative with Colorado at the epicenter of decriminalization and legalization efforts. Using our local community a case study, this course seeks to introduce students to the complex history of cannabis and to complicate common misconceptions about this “weed” / “medicine” / “menace.” The course will trace the history of the criminalization of marijuana, as well as the move towards marijuana legalization for both medicinal and adult-use in the state of Colorado and beyond. Students will engage in a variety of assignments and exercises to explore historical and contemporary issues regarding prohibition and legalization. Prerequisites: Because of the nature of the final course project requiring interactive engagement with licensed cannabis businesses, you must be at least 21 years of age by the first day of class in order to enroll. There are absolutely no exceptions to this policy. IDs will be checked on Day 1.
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FG200 Feminist Theory
Feminism aims to seek justice for people and communities that are systematically and systemically marginalized based on their gender, race, sexuality, class, and other social, cultural, and political markers. Along these lines, the many existing feminist theories—such as Black feminism, Transnational feminism, Xicanisma, Marxist feminism, Ecofeminism, and so on—attempt to theorize the impetuses for and implications of power and dominance particular to specific communities across time periods and geographical locations. Further, feminist theories are interdisciplinary in that they have been developed by intellectuals from a variety of academic disciplines including, but not limited to, sociology, psychology, history, literature, political science, anthropology, and economics. Additionally, feminist theorizing also depends on intellectual collaboration outside of the academy.