Debra Barker, UW-Eau Claire
Linda Carpenter, UW-Eau Claire
Kevin Concannon, UW-Platteville
Xia Lollar, UW-Whitewater
Diane Soles, UW-Whitewater
William Vélez, UW-Milwaukee
Guy Wolf, Matt Stewart, and Xong Xiong, UW-La Crosse
Debra Barker, Department of English, UW-Eau Claire - "A Gathering of Spirits: American Indian Women Writers."
This course is designed to provide students with the opportunity to read a selection of literary works by and about American Indian women. Each work will be considered within its unique cultural and historical framework and explore the ways that female authors have drawn upon their individual tribal histories and traditions to express their personal, tribally-inflected stories and visions. Themes that may be considered will be the construction of gender and gender roles and the role of women in maintaining tribal traditions and cultural values, spirituality, identity, colonial oppression, and political responses to that oppression. Students will read a range of texts from various genres: fiction, autobiography, creative non-fiction, essays, and poetry.
Linda Carpenter, Communication Sciences and Disorders, UW-Eau Claire - "Serving Racially, Ethnically, Culturally, and Linguistically Diverse Populations: A Proposal for a New Course in CSD."
This course is specifically for students majoring in Communication Sciences and Disorders. It addresses the need to prepare a largely Caucasian monolingual English-speaking workforce to serve increasingly diverse students/clients/patients. Course content will focus on issues of cultural competence and sensitivity applied to the professional arena and specific knowledge and skills needed to provide racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically appropriate assessment and intervention services.
Kevin Concannon, Department of Humanities, UW-Platteville - "Between Worlds: An Introduction to Contemporary Latina/o-U.S. Literature."
Whether understood geographically as a boundary line or in more figurative terms, as signifying racial, class, or even textual divisions, the border has been a dominant image in much U.S.-Latin American writing. In this course, students will examine the ways in which present-day Latin American authors living in the U.S. have represented this border experience. At a surface level, they will look at ways the dreams held of North America fail to match the reality experience, and, hence, they will examine how these texts may be seen as critiques of the racism and oppression found in the U.S. At a deeper level, the class's interest will be in how this border experience is itself represented in these texts through the unsettling of difference between such traditional oppositions as fact/fiction, male/female, poor/rich, and alien/citizen.
Xia Lollar, Department of Political Science, UW-Whitewater - "Asian Americans in U.S. Politics."
This course will explore political issues confronting Asian Americans in the U.S. It will cover such questions as: (i) Historically, what has been the position of Asians in the political life of the country?; (ii) How have Asian Americans emerged as an important political force?; (iii) What are some of the specific features of the growing political activity of Asian Americans?; (iv) What distinctive forms of behavior, activity, interests, or issues can be associated with Asian Americans?; and (v) What might the future hold for Asian Americans and politics? These issues will be approached from multiple disciplinary perspectives to try to understand their origins, evolution, and implications for Asian Americans.
Diane Soles, Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice, UW-Whitewater - "Racial and Ethnic Inequality: Beyond the Classroom."
This upper-level class will move beyond introductory courses in race and ethnicity that concentrate on providing empirical data about inequality to one that concentrates on theoretical explanations for race, racism, ethnicity, and cultural adaptation. Four field trips will be taken during which time students will hear from experts and practitioners, and engage in experiential learning about criminal justice, housing segregation, poverty, and linguistically isolated immigrants.
By the end of the semester, students should reach the following objectives: (i) depict graphically the nature of racial and ethnic inequality in at least one region of the U.S.; (ii) describe how patterns of racial and ethnic inequality in Wisconsin fit into larger national trends; (iii) evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of government policy addressing racial/ethnic inequality; (iv) articulate the major theories of racial inequality, racism, and cultural adaptation; and (v) reflect critically on their own personal experiences based on the class material and field trips.
William Vélez, Department of Sociology, UW-Milwaukee - "Latinos in the Midwest: Settlement and Incorporation."
This course aims to achieve an understanding of the processes and experiences currently facing the Latino population residing in the Midwest region of the U.S. After completing the course, students should be equipped to: (i) better understand the backgrounds and contributions of immigrant communities and historically marginalized groups, particularly Puerto Ricans and Chicanos; (ii) demonstrate knowledge of the immigration patterns in the U.S., the contexts of their reception, and their impact on social, economic, and racial stratification; (iii) analyze critically the historical and social construction of "race," "nation," "ethnicity," and "white privilege;" (iv) articulate the forms and processes in which educational inequality is reproduced in American society, and their relations to systematic inequalities between dominant and marginalized groups, now and in the past; and (v) better understand the backgrounds and contributions of immigrant communities and historically marginalized groups, particularly Puerto Ricans and Chicanos.
Guy Wolf, Office of Multicultural Student Services, and Matt Stewart and Xong Xiong, graduate students, UW-La Crosse - "Environmental Studies 303: Recovering Traditional Food to Heal the People and the Earth."
Growing food is the centerpiece of the indigenous relationship that ties birth to land for Hmong and Native American communities. This interdisciplinary course will examine the advent of industrial agriculture, biotechnology, and globalization and their impacts on human health and the environment. Students will learn how indigenous communities are restoring spiritual practices related to food and how growing food sustainably can strengthen community health, sovereignty, and self-determination. The class will engage in land stewardship and gardening, with special attention paid to the planting and harvesting of traditional open pollinated seeds and wild edible plants. The class will be co-taught with two graduate students, one Hmong and the other Ojibwe.
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