Approved Courses

In this course we explore the histories, politics, and imaginaries of black indigeneity in both the Americas and Africa. We examine colonialism, chattel slavery, and imperialism as forces that shape who counts as indigenous and why.
Days: MO WE  12:00-01:20 PM

The term ‘Globalization’ was rarely used until about 1990. By now, a quarter century later, the term is used widely in the social sciences as much as in studies of culture, literature, film, media, ecology the arts and so on. What was new in the world that accounts for this sudden popularization of this concept?

It is also true, though, that the United States has been the world’s most globalized country in its very formation, with settlers and slaves arriving in the earliest phase, followed by migrants and refugees from all corners of the world. ‘Globalization’ can then be seen not as not just a recent phenomenon but as something much older that begins with the beginning of Europe’s world-wide colonial expansion several centuries ago.

The course will be structured along these two emphases: (1) the historical processes that account for long-term but very unequal social, cultural and economic integration of the world across continents; and (2) the historical changes unfolding very rapidly over the past few decades. Globalization is thus seen not as a static contemporary condition but a dynamic process involving continuous change.
Days: TU TH  03:30-04:50 PM

This course will introduce you to two of the most significant and widely discussed modes of literary expression in the twentieth century: modernism and postmodernism. Focusing on novels, artistic manifestos, and political manifestos, we will trace the ways that modernist and postmodernist writers sought to make literature new in response to the rapidly changing conditions of modern life. How, we will ask, did these writers see themselves as radically breaking from the aesthetic and political norms of the past? And how did they justify the need for new, experimental literary forms as responses to the new and disorienting experiences of world warfare, gender inequality, racial oppression, state secrecy, and global capitalism? Taking these questions as our starting point, we will seek to understand modernism and postmodernism as key chapters in the history of how writers have imagined the link between radical aesthetics and radical politics. Authors will include Virginia Woolf, Nella Larsen, Thomas Pynchon, Ishmael Reed, and Joan Didion.
Days: TU TH  02:00-03:20 PM

Is the nation form adequate as a category or as a mode of explanation during times of volatile movement, globalization, migration, diasporic flows, and hybrid configurations of culture, labor, and capital?  A long time ago Virginia Woolf proclaimed that a woman knows no country. Race and ethnicity and sexuality too transcend the sovereignty of the nation state. The human condition clearly surpasses the boundedness of nationalism, and yet the dominant grammar of contemporary political organization continues to be nation-centric. Walls are being built to keep the dangerous foreigner out even as the meaning of what it means to be human is parsed within the straitjacket of citizenship. Has the nation then been transcended only in theory, but not in practice?  Is there a radical disjunction between political consciousness and cultural and literary and aesthetic awareness? 

The purpose of this course is to explore the contours of TRANSNATIONALISM by way of texts both theoretical and literary.  Race, gender, the diaspora, and sexuality have been powerful forces that have demonstrated the poverty as well as the hypocrisy of nationalism, anchored as it often is on principles of exclusion, discrimination, and racialization. But on the other hand, nationalism has operated as an instrument of decolonization in the so called Third World. Are there then good and bad nationalisms; and correspondingly, are there good and bad examples of TRANSNATIONALISM? Is TRANSNATIONALISM an uneven phenomenon that manifests itself differently in fields such as Economics, Politics, Culture, and Literature? I hope this course will help you all develop a critical perspective on the heterogeneous and contradictory flows and trajectories of what is called TRANSNATIONALISM.

Readings from Literature, theories of Gender and Sexuality, Marxist, African-American, Diasporic, Global, Critical Race and Postcolonial theories.

Lecture and discussion. I short essay 5 pages and 1 long essay 7 pages.
Days: TU TH  12:30-01:50 PM

This course is a survey of nonfiction writing about race in the United States of America, from the 19th century to the present. We will examine how writers have tackled issues of racial inequality and discrimination, and constructed narratives centered on the lives of people of color in various nonfiction genres, including: newspaper and magazine journalism, investigative reporting, essays, criticism, documentary film, and memoirs. Readings will include works by Ida B. Wells, W.E.B Du Bois, James Baldwin, Luis Alberto Urrea, Ta-Nehisi Coates and others. How do writers construct works that cut through the falsehoods of prejudice and ignorance? How do they work to defend the humanity of those who have been marginalized or oppressed by dominant cultures? How do they express the joy and fortitude unseen or unknown by outsiders? As a final requirement, students will produce their own work of cultural reportage or criticism. Students will work on this project in several stages throughout the quarter, producing a 2,000-word piece by finals’ week. In addition, students will produce four, 300-word “responses” to the readings.
Days: TU TH  03:30-04:50 PM

Who should decide which voices, perspectives, images, and narratives belong in the public sphere? Should other social goals – the protection of children, gender equality, racial justice, promotion of public health, the right to privacy – trump free speech protections? What is the proper role of the government, media companies, and the public in determining what should or should not be said, seen, or heard? This class will examine these questions by exploring contemporary debates about media and censorship. Topics we will discuss may include: hate speech and social media platforms; network neutrality; indecency, obscenity, and pornography; algorithms and online search engines; the right to privacy and the right to be forgotten; intellectual property law and its impact on free expression.
Days: MO WE  04:00-05:20 PM

This course examines ideologies of nationalism, patriotism, and citizenship, and their unique relations to gender, sexuality, class, and race. Assigned readings will include several classic texts on nationalism, as well as their feminist, queer and postcolonial critiques. Specific topics addressed may include: metaphors of homeland, family, and domesticity; borders and movements; the relationship of gender and sexuality to nationalist projects; love, terror, and the emotional life of nationalism; colonialism and imperialism. Reading a variety of case studies, as well as queer and feminist theories of nationalism, students will gain an understanding of the interrelation of race, gender, sexuality, class, and ethnicity in the making of national identities.
Days: TU TH  12:30-01:50 PM

This course will study sexual health as a terrain of contestation in modern America, beginning in the early years of the 20th century to the present, with ramifications for the policing of women’s bodies and those of the poor in the United States and for State and non-State development projects targeting populations in the global South. We will examine the involvement of religious actors, legislators and judges, physicians, social workers, teachers, and grassroots activists in making claims about what counts as sexual health and how it is to be achieved.  We will carry out this examination using tools of intersectional and transnational feminist analysis. Topics and key concepts will include: birth control technology, abstinence only education, abortion, eugenics, sexually transmitted diseases, assisted reproduction, harm reduction, medical apartheid, social determinants of health, feminist self-help politics, and transnational solidarity networks advocating feminist and queer sexual health.

If you have questions, contact Prof. Terry at jterry@uci.edu.
Days: MO WE  10:00-11:20 AM

The United States became a modern, urban-industrial society in the late 19th Century. This transformation changed the economic circumstances of many Americans and the broader social structure. It also inspired reformers, who hoped to transform the state to meet the challenges of a modern capitalist society. Crusading men and women sought better city services, protections for workers, environmental conservation, and government regulation of big business. However, their initiatives also reflected deep divisions in society with regard to income, race, ethnicity, and gender, and many seemed to reject modernization altogether. This course will examine America’s transformation between 1890 and 1920 with particular attention paid to the experiences of workers, women, children, and immigrants. History 100W fulfills the upper-division writing requirement for UCI and the historical writing requirement for the History Major with requirements that are set by the school and the department.  Our goal will be to analyze how historians approach a topic, examine evidence, and create arguments and students will demonstrate understanding through written work.
Days: WE  10:00-12:50 PM

The “American Dream” was first conceptualized by James Truslow Adams in 1931, who said that life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, regardless of social class or circumstances of birth. Many Americans have accepted this ethos as central to our democracy and believe that education is the basis for achieving it. This class will examine the relationship between public schooling and the promotion of democratic ideals in American society over the past two centuries. Students will explore the historiographical debates about the central goals and purposes of American public education and will consider whether those goals promote or contradict those of particular groups who seek to benefit from it.
Days: TU TH  09:30-10:50 AM

This class explores the history of urban and metropolitan development in the United States, particularly during the twentieth century. The course focuses carefully (though not exclusively) on the ways in which public policies have reshaped the built and lived landscapes of metropolitan America while probing the complex, often hostile relationships among residents of cities, suburbs, and rural areas. Over the past three-quarters of a century, the United States has experienced a major shift from cities and the countryside to suburbs—a mass migration of government resources, jobs, capital, housing, people, and political power as significant as any other in American history. Together, these shifts have transformed the United States into a predominantly suburban nation. Our primary task in this course is to understand the causes and consequences of these developments. Because the fates of cities and suburbs are deeply intertwined, this course addresses urban history, policies, and politics from a metropolitan spatial perspective. Moreover, it seeks to explain and contextualize the impact of suburbanization on both central cities and rural hinterlands. How have public policies at the federal, state, and local levels contributed to suburban migrations and the deindustrialization of central cities? How have race, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality evolved within and shaped the development of metropolitan regions? Given the growing diversity of American suburbs, is it useful to think of cities and suburbs as fundamentally different? How can ordinary people and policy makers create better tools to ameliorate sprawl, racial and class segregation, and the so-called urban crisis? These are only a few of the central questions that this course addresses
Days: TU TH  11:00-12:20 PM

This course explores the history of public health inequities in the United States with a special emphasis on the twentieth century.  Employing insights, theories, and methodological tools from a variety of different academic disciplines, the class traces the complex and constantly evolving historical relationships among disease, health, and social inequality.  Lectures, readings, and other course materials will focus carefully on the ways in which societal inequities relative to race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexual orientation have led to persistent public health disparities.  What are the human costs of social inequality, and how have those costs changed over time and across space?  To what extent did public policies and programs designed to improve living standards and increase human longevity ultimately undermine Americans’ health?  How did the growth of consumer capitalism and the spatial reorganization of metropolitan areas transform the politics of health and wellness?  In what ways does an emphasis on the body as a site of historical inquiry change the narrative of modern American history?  These are the central questions driving this class.
Days: TU TH  12:30-03:20 PM

This course aims to be a survey of nonfiction writing about race in the United States of America, from the 19th century to the present. We will examine how writers have tackled issues of racial inequality and discrimination, and constructed narratives centered on the lives of people of color in various nonfiction genres: journalism, investigative reporting, essays, criticism and memoirs. Readings will include works by W.E.B Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, Octavio Paz, Carey McWilliams, Luis Alberto Urrea, Ta-Nehisi Coates and others. As a final requirement, students will produce their own work of cultural criticism or reportage.
Days: TU TH  03:30-04:50 PM