Peace and Social Justice Studies Minor | Courses

This course examines the relationship between race/ethnicity and the criminal justice system. Theories of race/ethnicity and crime, the criminal justice system, and social systems including media, politics and economics are examined to form a comprehensive understanding of the social construction of race as it pertains to a racially disproportionate system.

The study of city systems, form, and development with emphasis on functional patterns, economic base, industrial location, service, and social area analysis.

Political geography concerns the interrelationship between political activities and spatial distributions. Topics include the concept of the state, international spheres of influence and confrontation, boundaries, contemporary world issues and problems, and geographic aspects of electoral politics.

A geographical analysis of ethnic groups in the United States with emphasis on their settlement patterns, spatial interactions, and current problems.

This course examines cultural and political ecology, which employs concepts of culture formation/change and biological ecology to understand processes of adaptation and the influences of social/political power. It provides a holistic means to interpret pre-modern, non-western, and agrarian cultures as well as modern cultures as relates to their biophysical environment.

This course will focus on the historical antecedents and events surrounding the Mexican, Guatemalan, Cuban, Chilean, and Nicaraguan revolutions. The purpose is to analyze these five revolutions and to come to an understanding of the current problems facing Latin America.

A survey of African-American history, 1619 to the present. Emphases include African and European backgrounds, hemispheric slavery, slavery in early America, the antislavery movement, the Civil War and Reconstruction, post-Reconstruction culture and society, and Civil Rights movement.

The examination of music as both a reflection of historical trends and a tool of social change will illuminate the relationship between music, culture, politics, and protest movements in 20th-century American history

This course will trace the participation of Black women in every stage of Black protest in America from slavery and Reconstruction to Civil Rights and the Black Panthers. Through autobiographies, memoirs, film, literature, and monographs we will explore particular forms of Black female resistance, the unique concerns of Black female organizations, and the contradictions and successes Black women face within African-American freedom struggles.

This course surveys the diversity of women's experiences in the United States from the colonial era to 1877. The social, economic, political, and intellectual realms of women's worlds, both public and private, are explored.

This course surveys the diversity of women's experiences in the United States from 1877 to the present. The social, economic, political, and intellectual realms of women's worlds, both public and private, are explored.

Examines topics in US working class history with emphasis on the experiences of organized and unorganized workers in the context of their social, cultural, political, and workplace environments and the role of the working class in shaping US society.

Course will address the history and the historiography of the desegregation of the South from 1944-1970.

This course provides an overview of the relationship (and tension) between democracy and education in the U.S. between 1865 and 1930, when emancipation, westward expansion, rural poverty, and growing immigrant and working-class populations motivated reassessment and reform of public education in an attempt to meet individual and societal needs.

This course will offer students the opportunity to explore Mahatma Gandhi's leadership of the movement against British colonialism in India and the legacy of Gandhi's strategies of non-violent non-cooperation in other political movements of the twentieth century.

This course explores the origins, development, and impact of peace and nonviolence movements globally. It will examine the roles that religion, class, gender, race, ethnicity, and nationalism have played in shaping social and political perceptions of injustice and public attitudes toward movement goals.

Option for Required Course

This course explores the origins, development, and impact of peace and nonviolence movements globally. It will examine the roles that religion, class, gender, race, ethnicity, and nationalism have played in shaping social and political perceptions of injustice and public attitudes toward movement goals.

Comparative history of the Americas with special attention to the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Explores different patterns of economic growth and their impact on societies and international relations.

Nonviolence is often understood as the lack of violence, but this course will explore nonviolence as the presence of a certain discipline of discernment and empowerment that can be investigated in relation to emerging calls for sustainable development. Nonviolence as articulated by Martin Luther King, Jr. may be understood as a systematic endeavor to break cycles of violence, poverty, and racism. Students will investigate the ongoing force of such cycles and formulate effective understandings for subverting and reversing such trends. Since the cycles of violence, poverty, and racism tend to be degrading and destructive to human living conditions, a considered reversal of these cycles would offer productive contributions toward more sustainable human development. Therefore, a presentation of nonviolence in the context of sustainability would foster dialogue between two important areas of concern.

Option for Required Course

This course in the history of American social and protest movements from the end of Reconstruction through Occupy focuses in particular on the movements of the 1960s - the Civil Rights Movement, the New Left, the Women's and Homosexual Liberation Movements, and the Counterculture - and their enduring legacies in contemporary society.

In this course students will study themes and concepts related to nonviolence, sustainability, and social change. Participants will critically examine the works of thinkers such as Thoreau, Addams, Tolstoy, Gandhi, King, and Chavez.

Option for Required Course

In this course, Hip-Hop culture is introduced within the context of human development over the life course with an emphasis on positive individual and community well-being. Cultural dynamics are viewed alongside art's role in the social and political history of the United States including issues of equity and justice.

This undergraduate course focuses on knowledge and skills necessary for effective, ethical, and just practice, exploring interpersonal and institutional dynamics of racism, sexism, heterosexism, homophobia, classism and other forms of oppression and their effects on providing social services to diverse populations.

This class will examine the impact that immigration and migration have on the growth of the Latino population as well as current debates surrounding immigration and its future in the U.S.

This course focuses upon sociological perspectives in understanding race, ethnicity, and the relations between minority and majority groups with special reference to the American scene.

This course covers the sociology of globalization and development. Students will learn about theories of globalization; the effects of globalization on cultural, economic and political life; and factors at different levels of analysis affecting socioeconomic development, security, human rights, and democracy around the world.

This course addresses issues emerging from the reciprocal relationship between society and its environment. The impacts of social and economic organization, social class, and government policies on the physical and social milieu will be examined in order to produce a better understanding of social and environmental interactions.

This course examines social movements, repeated display of collective action outside sanctioned political channels to bring about social change. Different theoretical approaches to social movements will be reviewed to determine how movements organize, attract members, utilize resources, ideologically frame their issues, and engage in nonconventional tactics to influence public policy.