Intercultural Studies, Minor - ICS

Program Description

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.

Minor Requirements (15 Hours)

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.

Theory of Culture

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.

Theory of Power and Privilege

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.

Required
ICS 201Introduction to Intercultural Studies3
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)
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
Special Topics
Special Topics
Independent Study
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 Credits15
1

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.