Social and Behavioral Sciences Committee

Social and Behavioral Sciences Committee

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: A Historical Perspective

No description available.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: African Diaspora in the Latin America and Caribbean

This class will examine African Diaspora communities in South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The focus of the class will be on understanding the historical, social and political dynamics of the globalization of the African American community over past centuries. The class will also focus on how various African American communities have adopted and constructed new social, political and cultural space within the American political, social, economic and cultural environment. The class will give special emphasis on how race, color, class, ethnicity and national origin have impacted the development of African Diaspora communities in Latin America and the Caribbean.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: African Diaspora in the U.S.

This course is designed to introduce students to the study of African Diaspora in North America through the humanities. A broad investigation rather than intensive one, the course examines the variety of cultural influences that comprise the African Diaspora, primarily in the United States. As with all studies of culture, intricacies and ambiguities abound and these are underscored by historical factors and select themes, art forms, music, religious ideas, and language.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Africans & Americans

This course focuses on the in-depth study and analysis of historical background, economic organization, cultural characteristics and natural attractions that make the countries and peoples of Africa of popular interest to Americans.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Asian Pacific Music, Art and Literature

This course is an introduction to the cultures (music, visual arts, and literature) of East Asians, South Asians, and Southeast Asians. Students will develop a deeper awareness of the distinct cultural patterns and of the interconnections between the cultures and respective countries/ regions. In order to help understand cultural identities, musical, artistic, and (written and oral) literary heritage of these cultures will be compared and analyzed. While the course does not purport to survey the continuous histories of the cultures and societies of the vast regions, the various cultural forms under examination will nevertheless be presented within the appropriate social, political, religious and anthropological context.

This course is strongly visually and aurally oriented, especially for understanding of art and music. Students will be provided with listening and viewing examples from various video collections, feature films, slides and so on.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Asian Pacific Population--Contemporary Issues in Asian American Communities

This course provides an overview of the history and contemporary reality of Asian America. It examines the differences and commonalities in the experiences of various Asian American populations, focusing on the interplay of race, ethnicity, class, gender and culture in shaping their lives. Diverse topics, such as identity, cultural tradition, adaptation, generation, ethnic economy, gender and politics, will be explored in sociostructural and historical contexts. Also, we will look into how transnational connections between the United States and Asian countries have influenced Asian American experiences.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Black/Brown Dynamics

No description available.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Cultural and Ethnic Development of the Khmer Civilization of Angkor

This class explores the cultural and ethnic development of the Khmer civilization of Angkor (9th-14th centuries) on mainland Southeast Asia.  Through lecture, readings, museum visits, cultural performances, and actual inspection of the ancient temples built during the period, we will look at the influence of Indian language, religion, political philosophy, and arts on the empire’s formation.  We will also investigate the empire’s interrelationships with other major culture groups in the region; the Cham and Tai speaking peoples, and concludes with an overview of cultural pluralism in modern Cambodia.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Cultural Pluralism in Modern Society

No description available.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Culture and Thought

The course analyzes cultural diversity in the processes and styles of human thinking. The course draws upon material from the disciplines of anthropology, philosophy, and psychology and addresses the issue of whether there are universal mental experiences (i.e., shared by all cultures). The course will review evidence about cultural differences in perception, memory, reasoning, problem-solving, language, communication, and cognitive development. In addition, the process of stereotype formation will be investigated. The course will also cover applied topics, such as implications for education and the effects of cultural sensitivity training.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Culture of Multinational Business

If you travel overseas or do business in Japan, Singapore, Mexico, Moscow, Sweden, Lagos, or Palau, you will need to know some cultural background, business ethics and customs, the political and economic structures of the relevant countries and how to interact with the locals. We will study all of the above and experiment with live cultural business interactions simulating Americas doing business in Japan, Singapore, Mexico, India, Lagos, and other countries and how to prepare for these intercultural settings.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Disability Studies

In this course, students will be introduced to theoretical and historical perspectives on issues pertaining to disability studies/research as well as a method for applying that perspective and knowledge to their own life/career experiences. Students will discuss and learn the distinctions among the terms ‘disability,’ ‘impairment,’ and ‘handicap.’ The course will move students’ understanding of disability from the traditional medical/individual model of disability to a social model of disability. The social model of disability seeks to understand the category of disability as a complex socio-cultural construction rather than simply a personal, individual adversity. Students will explore the ways in which the world cultures and societies construct the concepts of “normalcy” and “disability” and the ways in which these archetypes create and reinforce social and economic power differentials in given communities. Readings, films, lectures, discussions, and in-class exercises will emphasize the ethnographic contexts of disability in a number of different communities in the U.S. and around he world.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: East Asian Families and Gender Relations

This course will expose students to the issues related to basic values and societal outlooks unique to East Asian countries such as China, Japan, and Korea, emphasizing family values and gender relationships. Topics include value systems/ religion, family relations, education, and pop-cultures. This course will also evaluate communication modes, human development, and gender relations for cross-cultural understandings.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Education, Society & Language

This course will critically question what education is, how it functions, and how its ethical dimensions relate to the lived experiences of everyday people. We will examine the relationships between education and nation-oriented rhetoric while engaging the various ways that ‘societies’ are socially constructed (we will also explore what role media plays in its articulation). We will look at how various social classes influence societies, and help produce ideas about what a society should be. We will also analyze the role of representation, language and acts of resistance in how communities conceptualize phenomena, reality, and community. This class will mostly engage communities of African descent, but its core questions and theoretical frameworks can extend to communities across the globe.M

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Ethnic & Global Societies

The course will compare the lived experiences of the three Ethnic and global societies in the United States, i.e. Latinos, Asian-Pacific and Africana communities. Each of these societies is composed of peoples of different nationalities who may share a common racial, linguistic, religious, cultural or/and historical background. The course will examine these communities from the perspective of their relationship to the dominant Euro-American society, to each other and to the world. Issues such as class, identities, equality, civil rights, self-determination and human rights are critical to this course. The focus of inquiry will be on examining the history, worldview, and socio-political and economic and cultural dynamics of Ethnic and Global societies in the United States as well as their relationship to their place of origin. The course will utilize both integrative and comparative approaches.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Ethnicity and Health

This course presents a cross-cultural study of various ethnically-defined medical systems. It emphasizes the historical and cultural factors that have influenced the development and practice of medicine in traditional medical systems.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Global Impact of the Technological Revolution

This course provides an overview of the impact that technology has had on our lives and the lives of people around the world. By technology, I mean anything that is technological in nature, including, of course, computers, but also including anything that is operated by a computer chip. This means that we will talk about home appliances (telephones, microwave ovens, digital clocks), home entertainment devices (VCRs, stereos, televisions), business aids (PCs, fax machines, copy machines), etc.

This course will emphasize on both the psychological impact of technology as well as the sociological, historical and political impact. That is, how does the technology impact the individual, the small group and the larger culture? Further, how might the history of our interactions with technology help explain reactions we are having from technophilia to technostress. We will also explore the evolution of how the political climate and structure influences public attitudes toward new, evolving technologies. Finally, we will explore the impact of technology from a global perspective, using research on how different cultures around the world have eagerly accepted, adapted to, or become resistant to technology.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Hip-Hop as a Social Movement

The roots of Hip-Hop music can be traced to West African Bantu and Mende cultures prior to the enslavement of African people. However, Hip Hop was originally created by poor African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and West Indians from the Bronx, in New York’s toughest neighborhoods. Over the decades, Rap music has blossomed into a corporate owned, media produced, multi-billion dollar enterprise that exploits and normalizes the most negative representations of stereotypical “blackness” and patriarchy, while justifying its own hyper-masculinity and sexual exploitation of women. Despite this, underground Hip Hop culture has become an international form of cultural expression and resistance rooted in a long history of African Diaspora aesthetic production and political struggle. Thus, Hip Hop is both a form of cultural and political resistance and an exploitive capitalistic venture. This course will examine the ways in which Hip-Hop can be both a positive force for change and a negative exploitive force, while paying tribute to the spaces it provides for the youth to communicate new ideas and new ways of defining reality. We will explore break dancing, beat-boxing, graffiti art, entrepreneurship, lyrical rap styles and subject matter, production styles, political resistance and significant movements within mainstream and underground Hip Hop culture.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Human Environment: Methods of Knowledge

This course examines Science as a way of thinking about, studying and knowing the world in which we live. Students will be trained in the practice of social science, shown how this differs from that of the natural (or hard) sciences, and examine the kinds of knowledge (facts, truths, information) that science produces. Students will also then look at other ways of knowing including among others faith, tradition, authority and intuition and they will compare and contrast the kinds of knowledge these produce with those of science. At the empirical center of our exploration is the intersection of social life and the natural environment that societies inhabit. Students will compare and contrast a wide range of cultural knowledge’s about the natural world including among others those produced Western science, those consistent with the logic of a capitalist economy, Aboriginal Australian representations of landscapes and of the relationship of people to the desert, Melanesian maps of the southern Pacific and its islands. Finally, students will explore the process of globalization in terms of cultural interaction and exchange among different social groups and how globalization is affecting the production of knowledge at varying scales-from knowledge of self and local environments to knowledge of the world as a whole.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Intercultural Communication

Intercultural Communication, the study of communication between people of different cultures, is a behavioral science course designed for undergraduate students with an interest or specialization in interdisciplinary studies. It will involve a critical exploration of widely-differing approaches to culture and intercultural communication. The students will be exposed to various concepts, theories, analyses and worldviews pertaining to culture, ethnicity, gender and nationalities. The focus of this course will include the way in which different people are socialized and how that has affected their views of other cultures.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Japanese America-Fellow Americans and Foreigners

This course will cover tradition and transformation in Japan, including a survey history of Japan, its place in Asia, and relations with the U.S. in areas such as commerce, immigration, and war. The evolving role of Nikkei (literally, “Japanese Americans”) in a multicultural American society.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Mesoamerica and the Andes

This course examines the development and paradoxes of complex, pluralistic societies in Latin America, focusing on two regions: Mesoamerica (Mexico and Guatemala) and the Andes (Peru). Drawing broadly on the social sciences of history, anthropology, and political science, the course exams how societies in these regions have changed over the last five centuries.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Mesoamerica Past and Present

This course explores the historical and contemporary trends among the diverse cultures of Mexico and Central America. We trace cultural patterns that have their roots in the prehispanic and colonial periods and we then explore contemporary cultures and the challenges that face the peoples of this region in the 21st century. A major emphasis is on the indigenous populations of Mesoamerica, but throughout the course we also consider relationships between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, as well. The class begins with a historical overview of the region that includes an introduction to prehispanic Middle America, a review of the colonial and post-independence periods, and specific cultural features. We then focus on two case studies, the highland Maya of Guatemala and the Zapotecs of Oaxaca, Mexico. Throughout the course we explore inter-related elements of culture: social, political, and economic organization, religion and ritual life, arts and literature, culture change and ethnic identity.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Mexican Identities In the U.S.

This course will broaden your cultural and political scope in relation to Chicana/os in the U.S. This course will examine the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st century social, economic, cultural, and political patterns in Chicana/o history. Particular focus will be placed on cause and effect cyclical historical events. In addition, films and guest speakers will compliment the various themes discussed in class.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Psychohistory of the Holocaust

This course will explore the idea of the Other, ways in which the Other is perceived, and ways in which the Other is encountered. We will conduct this exploration primarily through reading works of fiction and non-fiction, the latter including memoirs and historical description and analysis; we will also view some films in and outside of class. After some initial discussion and some historical perspective on this topic, we will focus specifically on three kinds of encounters; between Europeans/Anglos, Native Americans and Latinos; between Europeans/Anglos and Africans; and between Europeans/Anglos and Asians.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Race, Class & Gender

This course will introduce both male and female students to major concepts and issues in women’s studies, such as sexuality, family, violence and identity. We will investigate the social, political, and economic forces and institutions which affect women’s lives through a critical examination of race, class, and gender.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Slavery, Race and Nation in Latin America and the Caribbean

This course will examine African Diaspora communities in South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The focus of the class will be on understanding the historical, social and political dynamics of the globalization of the African American community over past centuries. The class will also focus on how various African American communities have adopted and constructed new social, political and cultural space within the American political, social, economic and cultural environment. The class will give special emphasis on how race, color, class, ethnicity and national origin have impacted the development of African Diaspora communities in Latin America and the Caribbean.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Sociocultural History of Southeast Asians in America

This course offers a general introduction to the peoples and cultures of mainland Southeast Asia and their immigrant experience in the United States. Our particular focus will be on Cambodia and the Cambodian Diaspora.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: The History of Latinos in the United States

The course examines the diverse social, economic, political, and cultural histories of those who are now commonly identified as Latinos in the U.S. Particular emphasis will be placed on the formative historical experiences of Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans, although some consideration will also be given to the histories of other Latino groups (i.e. Cubans, Dominicans, and Central Americans). Topics include cultural and geographical origins and ties; imperialism and colonization; the economics of migration and employment, legal status, work, women, and the family; racism and other forms of discrimination, the politics of national identity, language and popular culture; and the place of Latinos in U.S. society.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: The Jewish Experience in America

This course addresses the Jewish experience in the United States. However, it is, in part, also a course about ethnic groups in America, particularly those which come from immigrant backgrounds as well as those who are religiously different. The Basic theme of this course is the tension between the forces of assimilation and those of differentiation. What is necessary to change in order to adjust to life in America and what is necessary to keep in order to maintain a distinct Jewish culture? What are the prices for change and for the lack of change? This, too, is a basic theme facing all minority cultures in the United States.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Urban Youth: Gangs in Los Angeles

This course will provide an interdisciplinary introduction to the origins and contemporary traditions of youth gangs among several ethnic groups with a particular focus on Chicana/os and Latina/os in California. The course will also include some references to the various ethnic gangs: Blacks, Pacific Islanders, Whites, Armenians, and Asians. Topics to be discussed include the nature and definition of gangs; history and types of gangs; diversity of membership practices; law enforcement responses; and public policy issues. In addition, films and guest speakers will compliment the various themes discussed in class.

SBS 318 Cultural Pluralism: Values and Communication of Asian Pacific Cultures

This course examines basic values and societal outlooks unique to various Asian Pacific groups. Through comparative analyses of verbal and nonverbal communication modes, we will build better cross-cultural understanding. Case studies will focus on human development and family and gender relations.

SBS Faculty and Staff
Fall 2008