Ethnic Studies
Faculty of the Committee on Ethnic Studies
Werner Sollors, Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature and Professor of African and African American Studies (Chair)
Ali S. Asani, Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures (on leave fall term)
Homi K. Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities
Jacqueline Bhabha, Lecturer on Social Studies
Lisa T. Brooks, Assistant Professor of History and Literature and of Folklore and Mythology
Vincent Brown, Dunwalke Associate Professor of American History
Glenda R. Carpio, Professor of English and of African and African American Studies
Lucien G. Castaing-Taylor, Assistant Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies and of Anthropology (on leave 2009-10)
Joyce E. Chaplin, James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History
Emma Dench, Professor of the Classics and of History
Caroline M. Elkins, Professor of History
William L. Fash, Bowditch Professor of Central American and Mexican Archaeology and Ethnology
Deborah D. Foster, Senior Lecturer on Folklore and Mythology
Jennifer L. Hochschild, Harvard College Professor, Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government and Professor of African and African American Studies (on leave fall term)
Walter Johnson, Winthrop Professor of History and Professor of African and African American Studies
Stephen M. Kosslyn, John Lindsley Professor of Psychology in Memory of William James, Dean of Social Science
Michèle Lamont, Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies
Matthew Joseph Liebmann, Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Ingrid Monson, Quincy Jones Professor of African-American Music, Supported by the Time Warner Endowment (on leave 2009-10)
Michael J. Puett, Professor of Chinese History
Fernando Miguel Reimers
Edward Schumacher
Marc Shell, Irving Babbitt Professor of Comparative Literature and Professor of English
Doris Sommer, Ira Jewell Williams, Jr. Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies (on leave 2009-10)
Rachel St. John, Associate Professor of History
Ajantha Subramanian, Morris Kahn Associate Professor of Anthropology and of Social Sciences
Kimberly Theidon, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Joanne van der Woude, Assistant Professor of English and of History and Literature
Faculty members from across the disciplines and schools whose work focuses on ethnicity, migration, indigeneity, and human rights cooperate in this interdisciplinary committee to provide course enrichment for Harvard College students, particularly in Asian American/Transpacific, Native American/Indigenous, and US Latino/American hemispheric topics, with an American focus as well as a transnational one. Ethnic Studies courses address race critique in the social sciences and in the humanities, consider the role of mobility, diasporas and migration as well as of indigeneity in the configuration of group identities and power formations. An overarching concern is the study of the historical, political and cultural forms through which individuals inhabit the political space of the nation and of the transnational sphere, frequently in the wake of colonialism and displacements that have created stateless people. Bringing to bear the discourse of human rights, Ethnic Studies courses consider the ethics of responsibility that the university must try to foster as it trains citizens and leaders to deal with the construction of political communities as well as the situation of those who are deprived of their legal status.
Ethnic studies are inherently comparative. Those who wish to understand the uniqueness of a particular people can do so most effectively by comparisons with other. Scholars and students seek to understand why the boundaries of particular ethnic groups change and why this process of ethnic group formation is so fluid. The study of ethnicity at Harvard is focused on the broad canvas of the human experience. While it includes the United States at its center, it is enriched by being situated in a broadly comparative and transnational context. Moreover, the focus of many courses is explicitly historical, making for a better understanding of the changing ways in which individuals choose to affiliate or have been coerced into categories by others.
General Education Courses in Ethnic Studies
Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding 17 (formerly Literature and Arts B-78). Soundscapes: Exploring Music in a Changing World
Culture and Belief 12. For the Love of God and His Prophet: Religion, Literature, and the Arts in Muslim Cultures
United States in the World 24 (formerly Sociology 19). Reinventing Boston: The Changing American City
Core Courses in Ethnic Studies
Ethical Reasoning 11. Human Rights: A Philosophical Introduction
Literature and Arts A-48. Moral Imagination in Modern Jewish Literature
[Social Analysis 54. American Society and Public Policy]
African and African American Studies
African and African American Studies 10. Introduction to African American Studies
African and African American Studies 11. Introduction to African Studies
African and African American Studies 16. Sociology of the Black Community - (New Course)
African and African American Studies 20. Introduction to African Languages and Cultures
African and African American Studies 118. African American History from the Slave Trade to 1900
African and African American Studies 121. Please, Wake Up! - Race, Gender, Class and Ethnicity in the Early Films of Spike Lee
African and African American Studies 131. African-American Literature to the 1920s
African and African American Studies 133. Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston - (New Course)
African and African American Studies 147. Racial Identity, Politics, and Public Policy
African and African American Studies 161. Religion, Diaspora, and Migration: Seminar - (New Course)
African and African American Studies 193. Religion and Social Change in Black America
African and African American Studies 197. Poverty, Race, and Health
Anthropology
Anthropology 1080. North American Archaeology: Lost Tribes and Ancient Capitals of North America
[Anthropology 1635. Human Rights and Social Justice]
Anthropology 1815. Empire, Nation, Diaspora: Asians in the U.S. - (New Course)
Anthropology 1972. Reconceptualizing the U.S.-Mexico Border: Comparative and Global Perspectives - (New Course)
Asian Studies
[Chinese Literature 132. Chinatowns]
English
*English 61. Diffusions: Not on Native Grounds - (New Course)
*English 62. Diffusions: Castaways and Renegades - (New Course)
*English 90zy. Literature After Race - (New Course)
*English 90zz. Mapping Identity - (New Course)
English 181. Asian American Literature - (New Course)
English 187. Native American Literary Traditions
English 191. Asia-Pacific Conversations - (New Course)
*English 269. Literatures of Immigration - (New Course)
*English 277xr. Multilingual Literatures of the United States: Graduate Seminar
*English 284. Theorizing the Transpacific - (New Course)
Government
*Government 90zg. Ethnic Politics and Conflict - (New Course)
*Government 98hn. Immigrants, Citizenship, and the State - (New Course)
*Government 98nf. Fire and Ice? Border Politics and Governance of Immigration in Canada and the US - (New Course)
Government 1118. Political Geography - (New Course)
Government 2576. Racial and Ethnic Politics in the United States
History
*History 74a (formerly *History 1612). African Diaspora in the Americas
*History 74e. North American Borderlands History
*History 74f. U.S. Environmental History
*History 74o. Colonial Lives - (New Course)
*History 74p. Afro-Asian Encounters - (New Course)
*History 76d. Asian and African Encounters with Empire - (New Course)
*History 84n. Visual Culture, Translation, and Indigeneity in the Great Lakes - (New Course)
*History 84p. Immigration and American Life - (New Course)
*History 87b (formerly *History 1917). Human Rights in Africa: An Historical Perspective
History 1437. Asian American History - (New Course)
History 1438. Comparative Race and Ethnicity in the U.S. - (New Course)
History 1441 (formerly History 1641). History of the US West
History 2464hf. Transnational America from Above and Below: Seminar - (New Course)
History and Literature
*History and Literature 90a. "The Golden State" as North, East, and West
Literature and Comparative Literature
Comparative Literature 248. American Multilingual Literature in a Transnational Context - (New Course)
Literature 153 (formerly Comparative Literature 153). Saul Bellow and the New York Intellectuals
Literature 163. Jewish Languages and Literature
The Study of Religion
Religion 16 (formerly Religion 1004). Religious Dimensions in Human Experience
Religion 1561. Religion and Society in America Today: Change and Continuity - (New Course)
*Religion 1820 (formerly *Religion 1585). Muslim Societies in South Asia: Religion, Culture, and Identity
Romance Languages and Literatures
Spanish 60. Spanish and the Community
Social Studies
*Social Studies 98jn. International Human Rights: The Challenge of Protecting Vulnerable Populations
*Social Studies 98jw. Citizenship Rights: Theory and Practice
*Social Studies 98la. Race, Space and Identity in the American City - (New Course)
*Social Studies 98lg. Islam in France, Germany, and the UK - (New Course)
*Social Studies 98li. Ethnic and Religious Conflict in East and South Asia - (New Course)
*Social Studies 98lk. International Migration: Critical Perspectives for the 21st Century - (New Course)
Sociology
*Sociology 98L. Race and Anti-Racism - (New Course)
Sociology 129. Education and Society
[Sociology 139. Religion and Society]
[Sociology 248. Race, Politics, and Social Inequality: Seminar]
Visual and Environmental Studies
*Visual and Environmental Studies 158r. Living Documentary: Studio Course