Ethnic Studies

This course provides an introduction to Maori knowledges and metaphysics through a study of topics such as voyaging, art and aesthetics, warfare, conflict and peace. It also looks at how approaches to Maori knowledges and their impacts are critiqued.

In her first book, published in 1997, Saidiya Hartman unfolds a theory of the subject based on the effects of colonialism. She studies the relation between white supremacy and the oppression of Black people through modes of self-constitution and performance. Hartman’s work is one of the canonical readings within Black studies and Black feminism and methodologically situated between history, philosophy, and performance studies. The course engages in a semester of close reading in order to get familiar with some fundamental theoretical motives in Black Studies, such as the notion of antiblackness, slave agency, the aftermath of slavery and its counterparts: the possessive individuality of the bourgeois subject and the liberal notion of freedom.

This interdisciplinary course, which draws on social psychology, political and social theory, and sociology, explores what it is to live in a multicultural world where identities are in flux. The first part of the course introduces the main debates of one of the most dynamic areas of contemporary inquiry: multiculturalism, diversity, and gender. It explores how categories of difference (race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, and sexuality) are complex and interrelated. It considers the theoretical underpinnings of multiculturalism to explore the normative as well as pragmatic arguments for and against it. The concept of culture is explored in depth by drawing on sociological studies that try to help better understand cultural differences. The course then considers the question of intercultural dialogue and how it can be used as a resource to facilitate communication between different cultural groups. The second part of the course considers actual cross-cultural case studies to explore how states have developed diverse policies related to cultural pluralism. It also explores how gender and other categories of difference interact with modern institutions in contemporary society. Throughout, the course analyzes various ways of looking at power and political culture in modern societies with the objective of developing the ability to think critically about mechanisms for change. Students read relevant texts from a wide diversity of literature. Each session focuses on a particular theme and includes a student presentation that communicates and argues persuasively one's viewpoint on a topic.

This course offers a study of the history of migration in Argentina. It examines the various historical contexts in which immigrant communities arrived in Argentina and how they were integrated into, or marginalized by, a larger national community. This course discusses how migratory phenomena affect the position and relationship of Argentina with other countries in the region and on a global scale.

This course examines Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through time. It explores the historical, cultural institutional and political relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, in the past and how these continue in the present. Topics include Indigenous resistance and activism, constitutional recognition, kinship, racism in sport, Indigenous astronomy, sovereignty, First Nations literature, and criminology and incarceration. 

This course offers an introduction to the field of Critical Race Theory (CRT). Tracing the development of CRT out of a critique of Critical Legal Studies in the USA, students explore the philosophical underpinnings of CRT, its critiques of ahistoricism, meritocracy, and "colorblind" policy. Students examine how the field itself has internationalized and engaged with other fields of study such as education, women's studies, film studies, and literary criticism, and how it has been subjected to academic criticism from within and without the field, most notably by Marxist scholars and liberal multiculturalists.

This course offers an introduction to Māori analyses of topics that are often discussed and sometimes controversial, and that continue to shape contemporary life in New Zealand. Topics include aspects of world view, philosophy and social organization; the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Waitangi and European immigration; and contemporary issues including Treaty claims, ownership of the foreshore and seabed and constitutional issues.