Today’s students will live and work within an increasingly multicultural world. Intercultural Studies offers a challenging program that examines issues that characterize this world including: intercultural contact, systems of power and privilege, and inter-group dynamics. The program is designed to help students understand the shifting boundaries of culture, nation, race, ethnicity, and institutional structures that shape contemporary social life. Because this program encourages analysis and reflection upon the dynamics of intercultural interaction in many contexts, students will find that Intercultural Studies complements work within their major area of study and is relevant to their professional interests.
The goal of the program in Intercultural Studies is to foster an academic community in which challenging and important questions can be addressed. The program allows students to discuss their ideas and concerns with fellow students from different cultural backgrounds and academic disciplines who share an interest in learning about issues of race, cultural difference, and ethnic identity. The minor consists of an interdisciplinary series of courses that challenge a monocultural perspective from a position of privilege.
All ICS courses focus on the interaction and dynamics between individuals and/or societies from different identity groups and require students to examine, reassess, and/or better understand their identity in terms of culture and/or power and privilege. Only two courses in any academic discipline may be taken in each category, with the exception of ICS courses.
A student in a Theory of Culture course will acquire tools for understanding the role of culture in human life and seeing the cultural dimensions of her world, and she will learn how to carry out informed comparative analysis. While the concept of culture will be present in all ICS courses, those which can be used to satisfy this requirement will be characterized by a deeper theoretical focus on the process of cultural formation both individually and collectively.
Classes in this category will analyze the roots of particular forms of privilege and subordination, examine how they have evolved and changed over time, investigate how they operate, and give each student an opportunity to locate and examine her own position in systems of power and privilege. While these concepts will be present in most if not all ICS courses, those which can be used to satisfy this requirement will be characterized by a deeper theoretical focus on systems of power and privilege.
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Required | ||
| ICS 201 | Introduction to Intercultural Studies | 3 |
| Theory Courses | ||
| Select one course from each of the following categories: | 6 | |
| Theory of Culture: | ||
| Survey I: Culture and Language | ||
| Anthropology of Race and Racism | ||
| Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective | ||
| Special Topics (Cultural Anthropology (approved topics)) | ||
| Intercultural Communication | ||
| Immigrant Women’s Writing 1 | ||
| Contemporary Global Literature 1 | ||
| Comparative Politics | ||
| Stereotyping and Prejudice 1 | ||
| Leviticus and Numbers: Cultural Interpretations | ||
| Theory of Power and Privilege: | ||
| Water, Culture & Sustainability | ||
| Mass Media and Society (approved sections) | ||
| Postcolonial Women’s Writing 1 | ||
| Introduction to Gender and Women’s Studies | ||
| Transnational Feminisms | ||
| The Global Politics of International Development | ||
| The Politics of Race | ||
| Stereotyping and Prejudice 1 | ||
| Race, Ethnicity, and Identity in the United States | ||
| Social Inequalities in Education | ||
| Sociology of Poverty 1 | ||
| Social Stratification: Class, Gender, Race 1 | ||
| Electives | ||
| Select two more Theory courses or two of the following: | 6 | |
| People and Nature | ||
| Being Indigenous in the 21st Century: Contemporary Indigenous Studies | ||
| Art History Survey II | ||
| The Global Challenge of Infectious Diseases | ||
| Environments of Ecuador | ||
| Gender and Race Issues in Management 1 | ||
| International Management 1 | ||
| Foundations for Teaching in a Multicultural Society | ||
| Topics in Literature (approved topics) | ||
or ENLT 390 | Topics in Literature | |
| African-American Literature | ||
| Native American Literature | ||
| Caribbean Women’s Literature | ||
| Tourist or Traveler: Travel Writing in the New Millennium | ||
| Global Women’s Leadership (summer course) | ||
| History of Women in the United States | ||
| African-American History | ||
| Latin America | ||
| Asian Influence on Western Literature | ||
| Worlds of Islam | ||
| Border Immersion: Building a Culture of Encounter Program | ||
| Special Topics | ||
or ICS 390 | Special Topics | |
or ICS 490 | Special Topics | |
| Independent Study | ||
or ICS 497 | Independent Study | |
| Community Health Nursing 1 | ||
| Philosophy of World Cultures | ||
| Social Justice | ||
| Latin American Politics | ||
| Middle East Politics | ||
| Cultural Psychology | ||
| Clinical Psychology 1 | ||
| Reading the Hebrew Bible in Jewish & Christian Terms | ||
| African-American Theologies | ||
| Interfaith Studies | ||
| Islam: Beliefs, Practices, and Current Events | ||
| Intercultural Leadership Development | ||
| Total Credits | 15 | |
Courses may be taken only by students majoring in the discipline or by students who can demonstrate adequate knowledge to the course instructor.
Selected courses taken through study abroad programs may also apply to the minor.
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