Upcoming Courses

CRES 10

Intro to CRES

Examines the concept of race, followed by an investigation of colorblindness, multiculturalism, and post-racialism. Race and ethnicity are examined as historically formulated in relationship to the concepts of gender, sexuality, class, nationalism, indigeneity, citizenship, immigration, and inequality.

Marisol LeBron

GE: ER

CRES-EDUC 121

The Struggle for K-12 Ethnic Studies

Critical analysis of the movement for K-12 ethnic studies in historical and contemporary time periods with a particular focus on the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum.

Tricia Gallagher-Geurtsen

GE: ER

*new* CRES 122

Decolonial Intersectionality

This course applies the concept of intersectionality within feminist thinking to an exploration of the limits and possibilities of decolonization and the ways in which gender, race, and indigeneity inform both colonial domination and resistance.

Iokepa Casumbal-Salazar

GE: CC | Social Movements

*new* CRES 129

Black Marxism

Marxism has been a foundational framework for the Black radical tradition. This course offers a theoretical framework to key texts in Marxism, and an overview to the problems, insights, contexts, and interventions that Black intellectuals have deployed in conversation with it.

Nick Mitchell

GE: ER | Black Studies minor | Transnational

CRES 170

Intro to Arab American Communities

Situates Arab American studies and the study of Arab and Muslim diasporic communities originating from the region within a broader global racial order and through an intersectional approach.

Jennifer Mogannam

GE: ER | Transnational | Social Movements

CRES 185

Race, Gender, Science

In this course, we will think critically and creatively together about the ways in which science as a practice and a way of knowing gives rise to particular and perhaps peculiar ways of experiencing bodies as individual, raced, gendered, and even ‘specied’. We will explore a variety of issues in contemporary science and technology, with an emphasis on body and embodiment – that is, ways of knowing and experiencing the body within and beyond science, and within and beyond race and gender.

Kriti Sharma

*new* CRES 188X

Reggaeton (Special Topics)

From making songs in makeshift studios in public housing to the mainstage at Coachella, reggaeton has gone from a criminalized subculture to one of the most dominant musical genres in the world. Artists like Bad Bunny, Rauw Alejando, and Daddy Yankee are among the most listened to artists on the planet boasting billions of streams despite singing almost exclusively in Spanish. How did we get here? This course traces the history of reggaeton music and culture between Puerto Rico and the United States in order to explore questions of race, gender, sexuality, capitalism and empire.

Marisol LeBron

CRES-FMST 190V

Marxism and Feminism

Explores critically the intersections and crisis points between feminism and Marxism as bodies of thought, theoretical formations, and forms of historical inquiry.

Nick Mitchell

Prerequisite(s): CRES 10, CRES 100 and CRES 101; satisfaction of the Entry Level Writing and Composition requirements. Enrollment is restricted to senior CRES majors.

CRES 12

Intro to Science and Justice

Students learn to critically analyze the entanglements of technoscience with systemic injustice. Course asks: What is the relationship between science, technology, and social justice? What power structures and systems of inequality do science and technology produce and uphold?

Kriti Sharma

GE: SI | Science and Justice minor

CRES 45

Pilipinx Historical Dialogue

Examines the history, politics, and cultural expressions of the Pilipinx community, in the Philippines and the diaspora, with an emphasis on Pilipinx and Pilipinx-American activism.

Melisa Casumbal-Salazar

GE: ER | Transnational | Social Movements

CRES 70B

Black Radical University?

Course emerges from a collaboration with the Black Student Union around Black student organizing and Black liberationist pedagogies. Students explore and archive histories of Black student organizing on the UC Santa Cruz campus and beyond (locally, nationally, and globally), as well as Black liberationist pedagogy. P/NP only.

Jennifer Mogannam

GE: ER | Social Movements

CRES 70S

Intro to Sikhs

Introduces the Sikh community, including its origins, history, belief system and contemporary challenges. Other topics include Sikh music, art, literature, and aspects of Sikh society. Specific attention is paid to the Sikh diaspora community in the United States, and in California in particular, including comparative perspectives with respect to other minority communities.

Naindeep Chann

CRES 70U

Undocu Studies

Deconstructs the common perception of immigration as strictly a Latinx issue in order to develop solidarity among different groups of students and to explore a range of narratives surrounding undocumented status and migration with the aim of empowering us as agents of transformative social change. P/NP only.

micha cardenas

Transnational | Social Movements

CRES 100

Comparative Theories

This course introduces students to some of the keywords and conceptual frameworks as well as comparative theories in critical race and ethnic studies. We’ll examine scholarship theorizing race and ethnicity across borders, oceans, time periods, and oppressed groups through comparative, relational, and intersectional frameworks. 

Iokepa Casumbal-Salazar

GE: ER

CRES 113

Music and Performance

Considers issues of race, place, gender, power, and identities through the converging fields of Black studies and performance studies. Primarily creative in nature, the course allows students to practice creative processes and allows opportunities to produce music and generate performance art.

fahima ife

GE: PR-C | Transnational | Social Movements

CRES-EDUC 121

The Struggle for K-12 Ethnic Studies

Critical analysis of the movement for K-12 ethnic studies in historical and contemporary time periods with a particular focus on the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum.

Tricia Gallagher-Geurtsen

GE: ER

*new* CRES 128

Indigenous California and Oceania

TBD

Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu

Science and Justice

*new* CRES 141

Learning with the Land

A sustained inquiry into the place of land in the process of learning. Drawing from indigenous and diasporic ways of knowing, this course invites students to shift normative paradigms of study–so as to learn with the land and not only about it. With some instruction conducted outdoors, students will deepen their relation to their local surroundings–and think critically about how they have been formed by colonial histories.

M. Ty

Science and Justice

CRES 153

A Radical History of the Korean War

Against dominant framings of the Korean War as the freeing of the Korean people by the United States from the forces of global communism, this course reconsiders the war, which has never formally ended, from below and to the left, namely, through the lenses of multigenerational people’s struggles against fascism and imperialism.

Christine Hong

GE: CC | Transnational | Social Movements

CRES 173

Palestine: A History from Below

Offers a chronological trajectory of more than 100 years of Palestinian history from the diverse perspectives of Palestinians as knowledge producers in transnational community.

Jennifer Mogannam

GE: ER | Transnational | Social Movements

*new* CRES 190I

Talanoa—Talkin Story: Indigenous, Decolonial Research and Methodologies

This course is a senior seminar that will focus on to the epistemological and historical frameworks of Indigenous and Decolonial Research and Methodologies, emphasizing setter colonialisms, self-determination, and decolonization here in Turtle Island and transnationally with a focus on Native California.

Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu

*new* CRES 190W

Queer and Anti-Colonial Gardening

A collective study of dispersed forms of resistance to colonial models of agriculture, including the logics of the plantation economy. We will engage disparate traditions of gardening—from the imperially ambitious collections of Kew to the creole gardens of enslaved people in the Caribbean. We will ask how non-normative practices of gardening challenge the classificatory order of sexual, racial, and species difference that colonial horticulture maintains as a hard norm. And we will consider how gardens have acted as both an expression and site of queer and trans desire.

M. Ty

CRES 68

Approaches to Black Studies

Provides a diasporic approach to the field of Black Studies in the modern era, with a focus on histories of dispossession and resistance.

fahima ife

GE: ER | Black Studies minor | Transnational | Social Movements

CRES 101

Research Methods/Writing

Introduces students to tools, conceptual frameworks, keywords, and methods for research and writing in critical race and ethnic studies. Students practice the craft of writing about race, colonialism, state violence, and the manifold movements that imagine alternative, decolonized futures.

Josen Diaz

Prerequisite(s): CRES 10, CRES 100, and satisfaction of the Entry Level Writing and Composition requirements. Enrollment is restricted to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

*new* CRES 119

Gender, Race, and Militarism

TBD

Jenny Kelly

CRES-EDUC 121

The Struggle for K-12 Ethnic Studies

Critical analysis of the movement for K-12 ethnic studies in historical and contemporary time periods with a particular focus on the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. Students read, discuss, and analyze past and present K-12 ethnic studies research, policy, and practice to deepen their knowledge and strengthen their ability to critique issues in K-12 ethnic studies education while reflecting on how the concepts and questions that arise relate to their own educational experiences and lives.

Tricia Gallagher-Geurtsen

GE: ER

CRES-FMST 125

Race, Sex, and Tech

Explores theories and case studies tied to race, gender, and technology. Covers the history of feminist and critical race analyses of technology as well as contemporary debates.

Felicity Amaya Schaeffer

Science and Justice minor

CRES-FMST 127

Indigenous Environmentalisms

Examines Indigenous environmentalist struggles and contemporary movements to protect land and water in California and in Oceania. Course examines three Indigenous women-led movements to protect land and water: Run4Salmon, Sogorea Te Land Trust, and Protect Mauna Kea. Also examines their transnational collaborations with Aotearoa/New Zealand and West Papua. 

Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu

GE: PE-E | Science and Justice minor | Transnational | Social Movements

OAKS-CRES 133

Writing Resistance

Engages diasporic and people of color (POC) writers whose work inspires social justice. Through course materials and creative exercises, students examine and break down the roadblocks that create silence. Focuses on the craft of writing, and revision and performance to create socially relevant and powerful words through community engagement. 

Melisa Casumbal-Salazar

GE: PR-S | Transnational | Social Movements

*new* CRES 143

Trans Love

TBD

M. Ty

CRES 150

Race, Gender, and Algorithms

Algorithms shape race and gender today, yet algorithms are older than digital media and can be understood as recipes or rituals. Course engages with the emerging field of trans of color poetics by studying readings in women of color feminism, transgender studies, and decolonial theory. Digital media art grounds the discussion, including works from queer and trans artists of color working in digital games, anti-surveillance fashion and performance art. Students create digital media projects in response to the ideas of the course, in the medium or platform of their choice, the technical aspects of which will be covered in class.

micha cardenas

Science and Justice minor

*new* CRES 178

Authoritarianism and Facism

TBD

Josen Diaz

*new* CRES 183

A Black Lyric

In-depth study of literary, social, activist, and experimental Black Poetry of the Americas, the Caribbean, and the African Diaspora. Focuses on either a single era (i.e., specific time period), a social movement (i.e., Black Arts Movement), an aesthetic style (i.e., experimental poetry), or a combination of these areas from the 18th century through the present. 

fahima ife

GE: PR-C | Black Studies minor | Transnational | Social Movements

CRES-FMST 190U

Touring War and Empire

Senior seminar focusing on tourism, colonialism, and militarism. Considers case studies on tourism in colonial contexts and sites of U.S. empire across multiple geographies as students craft their projects, participate in writing workshops, and present research. 

Jenny Kelly

Prerequisite(s): CRES 10, CRES 100 and CRES 101; satisfaction of the Entry Level Writing and Composition requirements. Enrollment is restricted to senior CRES majors.