Social & Cultural Studies

Social and Cultural Studies explores the relationships among social relations, cultural practice, and economic, historical, and political contexts. Classes in this concentration emphasize interdisciplinary, multicultural, and multimedia approaches to learning about dynamic cultural and historical interactions. Students will complete this concentration with a better sense of how to read and interpret the meanings of historical documents, literary works, popular culture texts, and various forms of visual, aural, and material culture. Concentrators will become more historically aware and sensitive to ways that their own identities and cultural assumptions are shaped by constructed meanings of race, gender, sexuality, age, national identity, and ethnicity, and will develop strategies that will allow them to analyze and contextualize a wide range of world events, texts, and issues. In sum, this concentration draws on insights from an array of disciplines to examine constructed meanings and practices of everyday life.

Sponsored by: Arts & Humanities and History & Society

Faculty Contact: Sandra Graham

Required Courses

Students must take a total of 16 credits from the list below to complete this concentration. At least eight (8) credits must be from the Advanced level. No more than two (2) courses can be from the same discipline (i.e. have the same 3-letter designation).

Note: Any foreign language course numbered 2200 or above qualifies for the SCS. 

Intermediate Courses (choose up to 8 credits)

• ARB 2200 Introduction to Arabic
• CHN 2200 Chinese I
• CVA 2002 African American History and Foodways
• CVA 2004 India: World Religions
• CVA 2005 Anthropology of Religion
• CVA 2007 Introduction to Philosophy
• CVA 2008 Cultural Anthropology
• CVA 2009 East Asian Cultures
• CVA 2010 Gender Studies
• CVA 2026 Immigrants, Race, and the American Promise
• CVA 2030 African American Music in the US
• CVA 2032 Appreciating Classical Music
• CVA 2035 Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East
• CVA 2055 Peoples and Culture of the Americas
• CVA 2058 After the Dictator
• CVA 2090 Food and the African American Canon
• FRN 2200 French I
• HSS 2000 The Making of Modern America
• HSS 2003 Latin American History
• HSS 2006 South Asian History
• HSS 2018 Introduction to Sociology
• HSS 2020 Media Studies
• HSS 2025 Decolonization and Revolution in the Twentieth Century
• HSS 2039 Introduction to Contemporary Africa
• HSS 2058 Modern American City
• HSS 2060 African History and Foodways
• JPN 2200 Japanese I
• LVA 2005 Art as a Visual Language
• LVA 2006 Russia in Modernity: History, Politics, Culture
• LVA 2009 American Film History
• LVA 2032 Foundations of Western Art
• LVA 2073 Middle Eastern Literature
• LVA 2075 Design for Living
• SPN 2200 Spanish I

Advanced Courses (choose at least 8 credits)

• AMS 4672 Working in America: Labor in the United States since 1892
• ARB 4610 Arabic II: Language, Culture and Business
• ARB 4640 Arabic Cinema & Culture
• ARB 4650 Business Arabic
• ART 4610 Arts of the Renaissance
• ART 4615 Early 20th Century Art
• CHN 4610 Chinese II
• ECN 3662 Political Economy of Latin America
• ECN 3677 Regional Economies
• FRN 4610 French II
• FRN 4615 Social Justice in France
• FRN 4620 French III
• FRN 4640 French Cinema & Culture
• HIS 4606 Cultural History of American Business
• HIS 4610 Social Responsibility in Thailand and Malaysia
• HIS 4612 Drugs and Intoxicants in World History
• HIS 4616 Cambodia: Rebuilding Culture and Economics After Genocide
• HIS 4619 Crossroads Manhattan
• HIS 4640 Food and Civil Rights
• HUM 4611 Latin American Fiction and Film
• JPN 4610 Japanese II 
• LIT 4611 East and West: Writings of Trespass
• LIT 4676 Imagining Nature, Imagining Ourselves
• MDS 4620 Mediating the Wild
• MOB 3518 Arts and Entertainment Management
• MUS 4620 Global Pop
• POL 4630 Critical Race and Indigenous Studies
• SPN 4610 Spanish II
• SPN 4615 Advanced Spanish in the Community
• SPN 4620 Spanish III
• SPN 4640 Spanish Cinema & Culture

Students concentrating in Social and Cultural Studies should meet with the concentration Faculty Contact by the start of their final semester to review that the distributions needed for this concentration are met. The faculty will confirm with the Registrar’s Office following your meeting.