Instructors: Jennifer Alpert and Hannah Waits
Meeting time: Thursday, 12:00-2:30pm
Canvas site
How do inequalities come about and what are the structures that sustain them? How do oppressed groups enact resistance? In this course, we will focus on certain inequalities in the Americas, like land sovereignty, racial justice, labor rights, migration, education, and community formation, to explore how they took shape and have persisted and how marginalized groups have developed and deployed strategies to resist those inequalities. We will pay particular attention to cultural, geographical, and historical context to ascertain how inequality develops in different populations, areas, and eras, from the 19th century to the present. Through analysis of sources that include films, cartoons, maps, music, government documents, and art, we will develop methodologies to engage primary and secondary sources in the creation of arguments and the deployment of evidence to support them. By putting scholarly texts in conversation with cultural and historical objects and larger academic discourses, we will develop interdisciplinary approaches to the study of inequalities and resistance.