Space available for Spring:
 

AES 212A: Comparative American Ethnic Literature

SLN: 10160

TTh 1:30pm - 3:20pm

Instructor: Vince Schleitwiler

5 Credits  I&S / DIV / VLPA

Reviews selected texts by African American, American Indian, Asian American, Chicano/Latino, and Euro American writers. Includes a comparison of how texts envision and interpret a diverse American culture and social, political relations among peoples of the United States. Explores the power of cultural agency in the creation of America's literature.
 
 
 

AES 405 A: (Bio)politics of Race/Ethnicity

SLN: 10165

TTh 2:30pm - 4:20pm

Instructor: Oliver Rollins

5 Credits  I&S / DIV

How do new ideas about biology, technology, and science effect the way we govern individuals, think about life potentials, or restructure debates around race/ethnicity and human value? This seminar will focus on the role science, knowledge and technology plays in the production of democratic ideals, the making of citizens, and the politics of race. Recent developments in the biomedical sciences are challenging the existing ways we understand life, and as a result, forging new subjectivities and collectives that are actively transforming how we think about and act upon our identities, bodies, and selves. Thus, a different kind of citizenship has emerged, biological citizenship. What does it mean to know your ancestry in the light of genomics? Who can participate in these new configurations of belonging? Are there new interventions, values, or activism made possible through these technoscientific practices? We will start with an examination of citizenship through the exchanges of nation-hood, difference, and power, and continue toward an ethical and social analysis of the contemporary entanglements of democracy, science, and race in the making of biological citizens and governance of ‘life itself’.