Comparative Race and Ethnicity Minor

Minor in Comparative Race and Ethnicity 

Advisor for 2020-21:  Peggy Levitt

The interdisciplinary Minor in Comparative Race and Ethnicity examines how power dynamics, operating across time, space, and scales of social experience, shape the categories of race and ethnicity. Approaching racial and ethnic categories as socially constructed, historically situated, and contextually dependent, this minor is designed to engage students in comparative study in two key ways: (1) students will be equipped to examine and analyze racial/ethnic dynamics  across and between national borders and to compare different racial and ethnic regimes, and (2) students will learn to understand race/ethnicity from different disciplinary perspectives, drawing from both the social sciences and the humanities. This minor offers a distinctly global approach to race and ethnicity that is intended to complement U.S.-based critical ethnic studies and other area studies approaches (e.g., American Studies, Africana Studies). It is fitting for any student interested in analyzing the comparative and transnational dimensions of race and ethnicity in combination with the study of race and ethnicity in the United States.

Goals for the Minor in Comparative Race and Ethnicity

The minor in comparative race and ethnicity seeks to educate students to:

Requirements for the Minor in Comparative Race and Ethnicity

The minor in comparative race and ethnicity consists of five units:

1. At least two of the following courses:  

AFR 213 Race Relations and Racial Inequality

ANTH 214 Race and Human Variation

ENG 291 What Is Racial Difference?

SOC 209 Social Inequality: Class, Race, and Gender

SOC 246 / AMST 246 Salsa and Ketchup: How Immigration is Changing the U.S.

SOC 251/AMST 251 Racial Regimes in the United States and Beyond

2. Three electives from the list of courses toward the minor. At least one elective must be at the 300-level.

3. At least one course taken for the minor must be in Sociology.

Students who wish to complete a Minor in Comparative Race and Ethnicity should contact the minor advisor(s). Courses for the minor will be selected in consultation with the minor advisor and should represent both social science and humanities perspectives. Students will be strongly encouraged to look comparatively rather than focusing on a specific region.  

 

The Minor is open to students in any major at the College. Sociology majors can complete the Comparative Race and Ethnicity minor so long as no single course counts toward both the major and the minor.

Degree Requirements

Courses for Credit Toward the Minor in Comparative Race and Ethnicity

The following courses may be counted as electives for the Minor in Comparative Race and Ethnicity. Note that some 200- and 300- level courses have prerequisites that do not count toward the Minor. Students wishing to count a non-Wellesley course or a Wellesley course not listed below may petition the minor advisors. For example, some departments offer advanced courses with rotating topics; such courses may be considered individually based on the topic offered in a given year.

AFR 213 Race Relations and Racial Inequality

1.0
AFR 226 Environmental Justice, "Race," and Sustainable Development

1.0
AFR 261 History of Black American Cinema

1.0
AFR 292 / ARTH 292 African Art and the Diaspora: From Ancient Concepts to Postmodern Identities

1.0
AFR 295 / ENG 295 The Harlem Renaissance

1.0
AFR 301 Seminar: South Africa

1.0
AFR 310 Seminar: Reading Du Bois

1.0
AFR 320 / AMST 320 Seminar: Blackness in the American Literary Imagination

1.0
AFR 341 Africans of the Diaspora

1.0
AMST 152 Race, Ethnicity, and Politics in America

1.0
AMST 222 / PSYC 222 Asian American Psychology

1.0
AMST 235 From Zumba to Taco Trucks: Consuming Latina/o Cultures

1.0
AMST 246 / SOC 246 Salsa and Ketchup: How Immigration is Changing the U.S. and Beyond

1.0
AMST 251 / SOC 251 Racial Regimes in the United States and Beyond

1.0
AMST 290 Afro-Latinas/os in the U.S.

1.0
AMST 296 / ENG 296 Diaspora and Immigration in 21st-Century American Literature

1.0
AMST 320 / AFR 320 Seminar: Blackness in the American Literary Imagination

1.0
AMST 325 Puerto Ricans at Home and Beyond: Popular Culture, Race, and Latino/a Identities in Puerto Rico and the U.S.

1.0
ANTH 214 Race and Human Variation

1.0
ANTH 243 The (In)Visible Native America: Past and Present

1.0
ANTH 341 Indigenous Resurgence

1.0
ARTH 258 The Global Americas, 1400 to Today

1.0
ARTH 292 / AFR 292 African Art and the Diaspora: From Ancient Concepts to Postmodern Identities

1.0
CAMS 229 Transnational Journeys in European Women’s Filmmaking

1.0
CAMS 240 / WGST 223 Gendering the Bronze Screen: Representations of Chicanas/Latinas in Film

1.0
CAMS 241 / WGST 249 Asian American Women in Film

1.0
EALC 345 Seminar: Language, Nationalism, and Identity in East Asia (In English)

1.0
ECON 243 The Political Economy of Gender, Race, and Class

1.0
ECON 327 The Economics of Law, Policy and Inequality

1.0
EDUC 212 Seminar: History of American Education

1.0
EDUC 215 Understanding and Improving Schools

1.0
EDUC 216 Education and Social Policy

1.0
EDUC 312 Seminar: History of Childhood and Child Policy

1.0
EDUC 334 Seminar: Understanding Education Through Immigrant Narratives

1.0
EDUC 335 Seminar: Urban Education: Power, Agency and Action

1.0
ENG 291 What Is Racial Difference?

1.0
ENG 295 / AFR 295 The Harlem Renaissance

1.0
ENG 296 / AMST 296 Diaspora and Immigration in 21st-Century American Literature

1.0
FREN 227 Black Paris: "Postcolonializing" the Seine (in English)

1.0
FREN 231 / AMST 231 Americans in Paris: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the City of Light (in English)

1.0
HIST 244 History of the American West: Manifest Destiny to Pacific Imperialism

1.0
HIST 252 The Twentieth-Century Black Freedom Struggle

1.0
HIST 253 First Peoples: An Introduction to Native American History

1.0
HIST 263 / PEAC 224 South Africa in Historical Perspective: Rereading the Past, Re-imagining the Future

1.0
HIST 267 Deep in the Heart: The American South in the Nineteenth Century

1.0
HIST 312 Seminar: Understanding Race in the United States, 1776-1918

1.0
HIST 340 Seminar: Seeing Black: African Americans and United States Visual Culture

1.0
HIST 395 International History Seminar: Legacies of Conquest: Empires in Chinese and World History

1.0
PHIL 317 Seminar: Philosophy and Race

1.0
POL1 337 Seminar: Race in American Politics

1.0
POL3 348 Seminar: The Politics of Global Inequality

1.0
POL4 340 Topics in American Political Thought

1.0
POL4 345 Seminar: Black Liberation from Haiti to Black Lives Matter

1.0
PSYC 222 / AMST 222 Asian American Psychology

1.0
PSYC 336 Seminar: Postcolonial Psychology

1.0
PSYC 337 Seminar: Prejudice and Discrimination

1.0
REL 245 The Holocaust and the Nazi State

1.0
REL 330 Seminar: Religion and Violence

1.0
SOC 202 Human Rights in the Modern World

1.0
SOC 209 Social Inequality: Race, Class and Gender

1.0
SOC 232 / SAS 232 South Asian Diasporas

1.0
SOC 246 / AMST 246 Salsa and Ketchup: How Immigration is Changing the US and Beyond

1.0
SOC 251 / AMST 251 Racial Regimes in the United States and Beyond

1.0
SOC 309 Nations in Global, Intersectional Perspective

1.0
SOC 315
Intersectionality at Work

1.0
SPAN 321 Migration, Heritage, Identity: Eastern Europe in Latin America

1.0
SPAN 325 Seminar: Candid Cuisine: Food in Latin American Literature and Culture

1.0
SPAN 327 Seminar: Latin American Women Writers: Identity, Marginality, and the Literary Canon

1.0
SPAN 335 Seminar: Asia in Latin America: Literary and Cultural Connections

1.0
SAS 232 / SOC 232 South Asian Diasporas

1.0
THST 210 Oral Interpretation

1.0
WGST 216 Women and Popular Culture: Latinas as Nannies, Spitfires, and Sexpots

1.0
WGST 220 American Health Care History in Gender, Race, and Class Perspective

1.0
WGST 223 / CAMS 240 Gendering the Bronze Screen: Representations of Chicanas/Latinas in Film

1.0
WGST 249 / CAMS 241 Asian American Women in Film

1.0
WGST 305 Seminar: Representations of Women, Natives, and Others

1.0