AFRO 1XX Afro/African American Studies Transfer Credit (0 Credits)

AFRO 2XX Afro/African American Studies Transfer Credit (0 Credits)

AFRO 101 The African Diaspora (3 Credits)

This course introduces students to the African Diaspora as both a conceptual frame and a set of lived experiences of Black people globally. In this course, we examine how “Diaspora” emerged as a way of understanding the historical, political, economic, and cultural forces that have shaped Black experiences and worldview.

AFRO 106 Black Cultural Studies (3 Credits)

This course of study offers a critical examination of the institutional, psychological and cultural and social forces which help to shape the identity and culture of people of African descent in Africa and in a New World.

AFRO 125 African American History: From Africa to Emancipation (3 Credits)

This course surveys major themes in African American history, including the study of Africa and events that shaped African Americans’ experiences through Emancipation. We will examine the slave trade’s impact on global politics, culture, and economics, centering it as a major cause of the dispersal of Africans throughout the Americas.

AFRO 140 African American History: From Emancipation to the Present (3 Credits)

This course examines the African American experience in the United States from 1865 to the present. Major themes include the end of the Civil War and the beginning of Reconstruction, African American migration patterns, discrimination and segregation, and the development of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement.

AFRO 164 Introduction to African Civilizations (3 Credits)

This course offers students a survey of the vast mosaic of African civilizations, such as Ghana, Mali, Zimbabwe, Egypt, and Sudan, with a focus on the precolonial period through 1884. Special emphasis is placed on aspects of African civilizations that have influenced modern Africa and the larger world.

AFRO 215 American Civil Rights Movement (3 Credits)

The American Civil Rights Movement has challenged a democratic government to be more responsive to the needs of all constituents, redefined resistance and activism for citizens excluded from the political process, and offered new conceptions of American citizenship. The course focuses on ideology, organizations, resources, leadership, gender and political culture.

AFRO 285 Modern Africa (3 Credits)

This course offers an examination of post-1945 Africa, focusing on the political, economic, and social experiences of African countries. This is a survey course that traces the emergence of “Modern Africa” from colonialism to political independence and analyzes the impact of these new states on international politics.

LATI 1XX Latin American Studies Transfer Credit (0 Credits)

LATI 2XX Latin American Studies Transfer Credit (0 Credits)

LATI 110 Survey of Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies (3 Credits)

This course provides a comprehensive overview of Latin America and the Caribbean, regions characterized by a long history and diverse population. Topics include prehistoric societies, historical development, geography and culture, ethnicity and race, gender and sexuality, religion, health, food, U.S. Latin America relationships, class and social development, human rights, migration patterns, globalization, and the role of Latin Americans and their descendants in the United States.

LATI 114 Studying Latin America (3 Credits)

This course examines the geography and some of the diverse peoples of Latin America. Topics may include prehistoric societies, ethnicity and race, gender and sexuality, U.S.-Latin America relationships, migration patterns, and globalization. Students will gain expertise in one particular country of Latin America through an extended research project.

LATI 122 Archaeology of Mesoamerican Cultures (3 Credits)

This course traces the cultural development of social complexity in pre-Columbian Mexico and Central America over the past 12,000 years from initial human colonization during the Late Pleistocene, through the rise of complex societies, to the Spanish conquest. Course examines the life ways and major societal transformations of the Olmec.

LATI 125 Sociological-Cultural Change In Latin America (3 Credits)

An examination of the economic, political, psychological and social aspects of the Latin American societies from the past to the present are explored in this course.

LATI 201 Peoples and Cultures of the Caribbean (3 Credits)

This course offers an examination of the Caribbean region as a cultural area with common historical patterns of conquest, colonization, peonage or slavery, and the development of multi-racial and multi-cultural societies. Topics of study include the European, African and Asian cultural roots of the region.

LATI 202 Ethnicity, Racialism, and Culture in Mexico and Central America (3 Credits)

This course offers an examination of the interplay of ethnicity and race, and its ongoing impact on the cultures of Mexico and Central America. Using an interdisciplinary approach combining history, anthropology, and cultural geography this course focuses on the demographic, socio-cultural, political, and economic changes that continue to affect ethnic and Afro Latino groups in these areas.

LATI 203 Peoples & Cultures of South America (3 Credits)

This course broadly examines three major cultural areas in South America: the Andean region (Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia; Venezuela, Colombia); the Southern Cone (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay); and Brazil. Present-day societies and their process of development and social change during the past several decades are explored within the larger historical context of conquest, colonization, slavery, migration and political intervention and upheaval. The struggles of marginalized Native American populations (e.g. in Brazil and Venezuela) and other racial, ethnic and special-interest groups are given attention.

LATI 204 Latin American Communities in U.S. (3 Credits)

This course examines the cultural and socio-economic backgrounds and present life-conditions of Latin American and Caribbean immigrants (and/or their descendants) residing in the U.S. Group migration histories are reviewed as well as the history of the U.S. annexation of Mexican territory and its impact on the lives of Mexican Americans. Theories of migration, acculturation and assimilation into North American society are critically analyzed, utilizing specific migrant groups as case studies.

LATI 205 Impacts of Modern Technology on Latin America and the Caribbean (3 Credits)

Course is designed to explore the environmental, economic, social, and political impact of modern technology on Latin American countries. Selected case histories are presented to provide the students with a comprehensive view of the phenomenon.

LATI 206 Cuba & Puerto Rico in History Perspective (3 Credits)

A thematic and chronological investigation of these two island nations from the pre-Columbian era to the present is untaken, with an emphasis on the 19th 20th centuries. Topics include the genesis of plantation societies, slavery, and socio-economic/political relationship with the United States.

LATI 207 Seminar Topics in U.S. Latino Studies (3 Credits)

In-depth analyses of selected issues in Latino communities throughout the United States, such as literary traditions, religion, health and politics are studied in this course.

LATI 208 Seminar:Topics in Latin American & Caribbean Studies (3 Credits)

In-depth analyses of selected issues within the region, such as literary traditions, religion, health, ecology and politics are studied in this course.

LATI 209 Sex and Gender in Latin America (3 Credits)

Using an anthropological cross-cultural approach, this course explores the social conflict between image and reality in Latin American practices of gender and sexuality. The course critically analyzes social situations, sex and gender links to class, ethnicity, and racialism, current representations and symbolism, and the changing effects of globalization and transnationalism.

LATI 210 Latin American Novels as History (3 Credits)

This course presents a critical analysis of the diverse historical development in Latin America and the Caribbean through literature. Issues examined include slavery, conquest, ethnicity, migration, dictatorship etc. Focus is on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

LATI 211 Music and Society in the Caribbean Region (3 Credits)

A study of selected Caribbean music and the societal pressures which underscore it, focusing on Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico, and also covering the musical profiles of other islands: Trinidad and Tobago, St. Lucia, Dominica, Guadeloupe and Martinique. Reading music notation is not required.

LATI 212 Drugs: History, Production, and Trade in Latin America (3 Credits)

Using an anthropological approach, students will explore specific issues related to drug production and trafficking such as the subsequent political corruption, the rise of narco-states, global and economic impact, and the US-led eradication and interdiction efforts known as the "War on Drugs" in these regions.

LATI 215 Migration and Transnationalism in Latin America (3 Credits)

This multidisciplinary course aims to examine Latin American and Caribbean migration to the United States. This course introduces key theoretical concepts and historical processes underlying immigration. Thereafter, focus is on the opportunities and barriers for immigrant's integration to U.S. society, the process of transnationalism, and the nature of inter-ethnic relations.

LATI 220 Issues in Latin America (3 Credits)

Using an interdisciplinary perspective, this course will critically examine the changing and multifaceted cultural realities and issues affecting Latin Americans throughout the continent. This course aims to familiarize students with issues affecting Latin America through using resources from anthropology, geography, literature, history, music, cinema, and art. Discussion will focus on the role of colonialism, foreign intervention, urbanization, gender, race, social movements, transition to democracy, market economies, local and international migration, transnational communities, drug trafficking, environmental degradation, and the impact of globalization in Latin America.

LATI 250 Portugal Brazil North America: Stories of Migration (3 Credits)

This course explores literary and other cultural production about migration from Portugal and Brazil to the United States and Canada. Students will explore the cultural and historical contexts of these migrations, as well as the forms of community developed by Lusophone immigrants and their children in North America.

LATI 303 Challenges of Development: Latin America (3 Credits)

This course deals with the critical problems of the two-thirds of humanity living in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The emphasis of the course is on population growth, problems of food, water, energy, cities, poverty, and the environment. It examines the roles of science and technology to solve these problems and bring development to these areas.

LATI 305 Seminar:Latin American Community Issue (3 Credits)

In-depth analysis of selected issues in Latino communities throughout the United States, such as literary traditions, religion, health, politics, etc.

LATI 350 Latinos and Language in the U.S. (3 Credits)

This seminar explores ways that people of Latin American heritage use language. Topics include dialects of Spanish and Portuguese in Latin America, how these dialects are reflected in specific U.S. Latino communities, the connections between language and identity, and effective approaches to working with Latino students in the education system.

Pre-Requisite(s): 8 Gen Ed Courses across Tier 1 and Tier 2.

WGST 1XX Women & Gender Studies Transfer Credit (0 Credits)

WGST 2XX Women & Gender Studies Transfer Credit (0 Credits)

WGST 101 Telling Women's Lives (3 Credits)

In this course, students will use feminist analysis to examine the cultural processes of telling and hearing women's stories and to consider how these narratives create knowledge within multiple disciplines. Students will hear, read and re-tell the life experiences of women using oral and written texts drawn from various genres.

WGST 103 Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies (3 Credits)

This course examines the disparity between traditional roles and the organization of an advanced industrial society; considers changing notions of roles and new patterns of relationships.

WGST 108 Race, Class and Gender Activism (3 Credits)

This course examines women’s movements and activism in the United States and around the world. Through primary source documents and monographs, we will look at a wide spectrum of feminist political interventions that focus on the intersection of race, ethnicity, class, and sexual identity both in the analysis they propose and the solutions they generate.

WGST 109 Gender, Sexuality and Culture (3 Credits)

This course explores key concepts in gender studies, including our understanding of the social construction of gender, by examining assumptions about gender roles and relations in contemporary society. Drawing primarily from literature, art, music, and sociology, the course focuses on questions regarding gendered experiences in political, social, and cultural contexts.

WGST 110 Diversity and Difference: Identities, Communities, and Cultures (3 Credits)

This course is designed to explore how culture shapes individual and community identities. It provides students with social, political, cultural, psychological, and historical frameworks for understanding differences and resolving conflicts. Students will build a repertoire of skills for identifying, researching, analyzing, navigating, and valuing diversity.

WGST 111 Introduction to Digital Humanities (3 Credits)

As the role of digital technology continues to reshape the lives of humans, we must have digital literacy as well as an understanding of the implications of technology. This course bridges the interrelated fields of ethnic studies, gender studies, and disability studies, alongside Digital Humanities to give students the technical skills and critical thinking skills to produce digital projects centered on power and justice. Students will analyze and evaluate the efficacy of digital projects that center the study of racialized and marginalized groups to show the utility and necessity of diverse voices in the creation and dissemination of knowledge. Students will also design projects that help to answer these questions in digestible, engaging, and interactive ways to support the flow of knowledge from the classroom to the world at large. This course fulfills Information and Technological Literacy General Education requirements.

WGST 130 Rebel Girls (3 Credits)

Young women and girls continue to make history in the United States and throughout the world. Students will explore the social, political, and cultural rebellions of young women and girls, make connections between rebellions in the past and those in the present, and compare girls' activism nationally, transnationally, and globally.

WGST 141 Masculinities (3 Credits)

What does it mean to be a man in any given context? Why are some forms of masculinity more valued than others? What do feminist masculinity look like? The course explores the social and cultural construction of masculinity by surveying interdisciplinary texts that analyze, question, and transform the ways in which masculinity is understood and performed in a variety of settings. The course pays special attention to the intersections between gender, race, class and sexual orientation in the formation of various forms of masculinity.

WGST 190 Introduction to Sexuality and Queer Studies (3 Credits)

This course offers an interdisciplinary introduction to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies. It explores the history of same sex desire in Western and non-Western cultures and examines the political, psychological and artistic cultures of contemporary lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.

WGST 203 Women and Aging (3 Credits)

This course examines significant events in the lives of mature and aging women by exploring shifting situations, self-images, aspirations, anxieties, and values.

WGST 204 Theorizing Bodies: Gendered Perspectives (3 Credits)

This course in an introduction to various theoretical accounts of the body. How are human bodies and bodily experience shaped by gender relations? How do bodies (and the way we perceive them) vary historically and across cultures? How different bodies are perceived, valued and treated? In this course, we will examine the body as the product of complex social arrangements and processes. We will study the body as a part of our identity, as the object of social control, and as the repository of shifting race, gender and sexual categories.

WGST 208 Sex: Power, Pleasure, Politics (3 Credits)

Beginning with some basic work on the history of sexuality, this course explores a variety of topics; heterosexuality as an historical institution; pornography; prostitution; date rape and sexual harassment; rape; race, sex, and miscegenation; sex and disease; and sex and pleasure. The course analyzes each of these topics by placing them in their political, economic, social, and ideological contexts.

WGST 210 Black Womanhood (3 Credits)

This course examines the impact of racism and sexism on Black women and explores various representations of Black womanhood and their implications for feminist thought. Perspectives from sociology, history and literary criticism are included.

WGST 215 Men of Color in Urban America (3 Credits)

This course helps students understand the cultural, social, political, economical, and historical trends/traditions of Black and Latino men in urban America. Students will deconstruct the cultural underpinnings of manhood, masculinity and identity politics. Additionally, students will explore sexism and violence; the role of the media; employment, drug culture and man as provider (i.e. father); politics, liberation, revolution and activism; leadership models; relationships with men and women; sex and sexuality.

WGST 220 Women and Leadership: Work and Community (3 Credits)

Students will explore the experiences, strategies, and gendered dynamics affecting women in leadership roles. Beginning with historical examples of political leaders, social activists, and business entrepreneurs, students will examine contemporary issues facing women leaders in workplace and community settings and create toolkits for exploring and enacting their own leadership potential.

WGST 225 Women, Hip Hop Spoken Word and Social Change (3 Credits)

This course will examine the socio-political and cultural role Hip Hop and spoken word plays in social activism in a global context. Students will examine the intersection of race, class, gender and sexuality within the genre of spoken word and Hip Hop in social transformation.

WGST 226 LGBTQ Social Change (3 Credits)

In this course, students learn about labels, identities, and histories associated with LGBTQ peoples. Then, students evaluate LGBTQ activist organizing strategies before working on projects that benefit a community agency in the Hudson County/Essex County area. The course requires group work outside the classroom with the community partner.

Prerequisite(s): WGST WGST 109 or 190 + or permission by the Instructor

WGST 300 Women & Health (3 Credits)

In this course students will examine the role of women as both consumers and providers of health care. The effect of race, class and gender on the health status of women will be analyzed. The biologic basis for sex differences will be discussed. Major health issues will be addressed including reproductive health, sexually transmitted disease, eating disorders, addiction, occupational and environmental health, menopause, and chronic disease. Students will evaluate women's health programs and compare models of health delivery for women.

WGST 310 Girls, Girl Culture, and Girlhood Studies (3 Credits)

This course explores girlhood in the United States and globally. Students will examine individual experiences, socially constructed definitions, and cultural representations of girlhood from interdisciplinary perspectives and will consider how education, media, politics, families, and friendships shape girls' identities.

Pre-Requisite(s): Must have taken one of the following: WGST 101, WGST 109, WGST 110, WGST 220, or WGST 225 and 8 Gen Ed Courses across Tier 1 and Tier 2.

WGST 320 Feminist Practices (3 Credits)

This course introduces students to the history and development of women's and gender studies as an academic field. Students will explore feminist theory and offer a critical examination of various research techniques used in women's and gender studies with a particular emphasis on interdisciplinary work.

Pre-Requisite(s): WGST 101 or WGST 109 or WGST 100 or WGST 103 and two additional courses toward the major.

WGST 322 Reproductive Justice (3 Credits)

This course explores historical and contemporary reproductive politics through a social justice lens that is attentive to the intersections of patriarchy, racism, poverty, and colonialism. Students learn how ethics, economic, social, and political power shapes our intimate and procreative lives.

Pre-Requisite(s): WGST 101 or WGST 109 or WGST 110 and WGST 108 or WGST 208 or WGST 220 or permission by the Instructor

WGST 330 Gender and Popular Culture (3 Credits)

This course focuses on constructions of femininity and masculinity in various popular cultural forms including: television, movies, music, advertising, fashion, and the Internet. Analyses center on the production and consumption of popular culture and its role in shaping perceptions and experiences of gender in individual, national, and global contexts.

Pre-Requisite(s): WGST 100 or WGST 103

WGST 370 Transgender, Gender Variant, and Gender Queer History, Identities, and Politics (3 Credits)

This course explores transgender and gender non-conforming lives in the U.S. and globally. Students examine historical and contemporary assumptions and definitions of gender identities using interdisciplinary frameworks. Disjunction's and overlaps of trans, intersex, or gender-variant identities, issues, and theories with feminist and queer theories are also interrogated.

Prerequisites: 8 Gen Ed Courses across Tier 1 and Tier 2 and one of the following: WGST 101, WGST 109, WGST 110, WGST 220, or WGST 225.

WGST 380 Internship in Women's and Gender Studies (3 Credits)

The WGST internship combines experiential learning in a pre-approved agency or organization with academic analysis of applicable feminist concepts and theories. Supervised by a WGST faculty member, students will reflect on their internship experiences through regular reading and writing assignments and in a final paper.

Pre-Requisite(s): WGST 101 or WGST 109

WGST 405 US Latina Feminisms (3 Credits)

This course examines the historical development, theoretical positions, and political, social, and artistic contributions of Latinas in the United States. Through the study of film, literature, and other cultural products and practices, students will explore how Latina scholars, writers, and artists engage constructions of gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, cultural nationalism, and colonialism to articulate a distinct feminist vision.

Pre-Requisite(s): WGST 100 or WGST 103 or Permission of the Instructor

WGST 410 Gender, Migration, and Citizenship (3 Credits)

This course will explore how population movements worldwide are intricately connected to existing gender, labor, sexual, and family relations. Analyses address the complex connections between mobility patterns, economic trends, gender relations, discursive formations (including citizenship and nationality laws), and new forms of subjectivity, communities, and political engagement.

Pre-Requisite(s): WGST 100 or WGST 103 or ETHN 221

WGST 490 Senior Seminar in Women's and Gender Studies (3 Credits)

Advanced course on selected topics in women's and gender studies. Topics may include Gender and Globalization; Women and Spirituality; Feminism, Policy and the poor; Gender and Human Rights, etc. Students will be expected to pursue an original research project making use of primary sources, scholarly journals, and other research materials.

Pre-Requisite(s): WGST 101 or WGST 109; WGST 320, and two additional courses toward the major.