Department of American Ethnic Studies
Willamette University
900 State Street
Salem, Oregon 97301
503-370-6197 voice
Special Major
As students begin considering creating a "Special Major" in AES, the program committee offers the following guidance for constructing a major within our program:
Core Courses (3):
AES 150 Introduction to American Ethnic Studies
AES 330 Theory & Methods in American Ethnic Studies
AES 491 (W) Independent Study in AES (Senior Experience)
Elective Courses (8-10)
Design a curriculum using the elective course that contribute to AES. Some students have designed their major based around group-specific, taking two courses focusing deeply on each major racial/ethnic group, with the core courses being comparative. Others have designed a program that focuses upon interdisciplinarity.
The following requirements should be taken into consideration during design:
- No more than 3 courses can be drawn from the same department;
- No more than 3 courses can be from the 100 or 200-level;
- Courses should reflect an in-depth study of more than one major racial/ethnic group;
- The complete major should adequately address each of the four criteria for American Ethnic Studies (see below).
Course Contributing to the AES Curriculum:
To be counted for the AES curriculum, at least TWO of the following criteria must be considered a central part of the course:
1) History: Critically analyze the historical construction of race and ethnicity in shaping the contemporary U.S. landscape (rationale: using history as a tool to understand present);
2) Power: Understand the political, economic and social dimensions of race and ethnicity, and the ways in which power gets embedded in these relationships;
3) Culture: Examine the role of symbolic and aesthetic expressions of traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic communities in the U.S., particularly as the construction of culture becomes a tool to maintain, resist and/or transform privilege and oppression;
4) Voice: The emergence of voice, resistance, and protest in the context of historical experiences of racial and ethnic marginalization in U.S. society; effectively engage and communicate about difference.