American Cultural Studies

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Introduction

American Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary field of critical inquiry that investigates power dynamics, inequality, and agency, at the intersection of race, gender, status, religion, class, and ability.

Our courses place particular emphasis on minoritizing and other exclusionary practices shaping limits to national belonging, and how those experiences are lived. We pay attention to the roles of institutions, policies, discourse, and other socio-cultural processes. We educate students in historical and social inquiry, textual analysis and interpretation, and critical theory and practice. We expose students to theoretical foundations in Settler Colonialism, Queer and other Feminisms, Critical Race Theory, Borders, and Transnationalism.

Students majoring in American Cultural Studies will develop a critical understanding of the ideas, norms, and institutions that produce and reproduce structures of power in relation to national belonging. The program prepares students for graduate work in American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Gender Studies, Education, and the Social Sciences. It also prepares our students to pursue careers with non-profits, the public sector, journalism, education, and the law.

Faculty

DOLORES CALDERON, J.D., Ph.D., Fairhaven College. Associate Professor for Education and Social Justice and Law, Diversity, & Justice minors. Affiliate, American Cultural Studies program and College of the Environment. Critical Ethnic Studies; Critical Indigenous Studies; Law and Race; Borders and Colonialisms.
JOANNE DEMARK, Student Life. Leadership; social justice; queer studies.
RAINE DOZIER (2008) Assistant Professor. BA, State University of New York; MA, PhD, University of Washington.
LARRY J. ESTRADA, Fairhaven College. Race and ethnicity in America; Chicana-Hispano studies; urban multicultural education; U.S.-Mexican relations/Caribbean Studies.
JOHN FEODOROV, Fairhaven College. New genre art, Native American Art, Art and Society.
MARIA TIMMONS FLORES (2008) Assistant Professor. MED, Western Washington University; PhD, University of Colorado Boulder.
KRISTEN FRENCH, Woodring College of Education. Educational pluralism.
CHRIS FRIDAY, History. Asian American and Native American studies; immigration, labor, Pacific Northwest and U.S. West studies.
CAROL GUESS, English. Fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry writing, queer studies.
MARY JANELL METZGER, English. Critical Theory; women’s literature; Shakespeare and his contemporaries and English studies methodologies.
KATE MILLER, Women Studies. Women studies, comparative racial and ethnic studies, multiracial identity, GLBT studies.
DAVE OREIRO, Northwest Indian College. American Indian experience; contemporary American Indian issues; American Indian higher education.
LOURDES GUTIÉRREZ NÁJERA, Fairhaven College. American Cultural Studies. Critical Latinx Indigeneities; Transnational Migration; Border Studies; Race, Ethnicity, and Gender; Undocumented Youth Studies; Globalization; Oral History; Ethnography and Ethnographic Methods.
TARA PERRY, Communication. Communication cultural/critical studies; students with disabilities in higher education; service learning; issues of diversity in teaching and learning.
JOHN PURDY, English. Native American literature; ethnic perspectives on literary theory.
MARSHA RIDDLE-BULY, Woodring College of Education. Literacy and historically marginalized students; English as a Second Language; bilingual education.
LYSA RIVERA, English. Chicano and Chicana Literatures and African American Literatures.
RAE LYNN SCHWARTZ-DUPRE, Communication. Communication cultural/ critical studies; rhetorical theory and criticism; visual rhetoric; feminist postcolonial theory and criticism.
TAMARA SPIRA (2014) Assistant Professor. Queer Studies.
MART STEWART, History. African American history; cultural history of science and the environment.
MIDORI TAKAGI, Fairhaven College. United States History; African American History; Asian American History; comparative racial and ethnic studies.
VERÓNICA N. VÉLEZ, Ph.D., Woodring College. Associate Professor, Secondary Education. Founding Director, Education and Social Justice. Critical Race Theory (CRT) & Latinx Critical Theory (LatCrit) in Education, Radical & Tactical Cartography, Popular Education, Urban Educational Policy, and Chicana Feminist Epistemologies.
NING YU, English. Asian American literature; Asian mythology; 19th century American literature and science.

Programs

• American Cultural Studies, BA

• African American Studies Minor
• American Cultural Studies Minor
• American Indian Studies Minor
• Arab American Studies Minor
• Asian American Studies Minor
• Education and Social Justice Minor (see Secondary Education Department)
• Latinx Studies Minor
• Queer Studies Minor

Courses

Courses numbered X37; X97; 300, 400 are described in the University Academic Policies  section of this catalog.

• AMST 202 - Introduction to American Indian Studies
• AMST 203 - Introduction to Latinx Studies
• AMST 204 - Introduction to African American Studies
• AMST 205 - Introduction to Asian American Studies
• AMST 206 - The Jewish-American Experience
• AMST 242 - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Experience
• AMST 252 - Introduction to Arab American Studies
• AMST 300 - Directed Independent Study
• AMST 301 - Comparative Cultural Studies
• AMST 310 - Critical Filipinx Histories
• AMST 314 - Latinx Migrants in the U.S.
• AMST 315 - Contemporary American Indian Issues
• AMST 316 - Contemporary African American Issues
• AMST 317 - Contemporary Queer Issues
• AMST 318 - Contemporary Issues in Arab American Studies
• AMST 344 - Asian-American Psychology
• AMST 362 - Asian-American History
• AMST 400 - Directed Independent Study
• AMST 410 - Advanced Seminar in Critical Race Feminist and Queer Studies
• AMST 412 - Seminar in Educational Equity
• AMST 413 - Bridging Barriers with Migrant Youth
• AMST 451 - The ‘Primitive’ in Modern Art
• AMST 464 - Multicultural Education for Teachers
• AMST 499 - Research and Writing

Return to: University Interdisciplinary Programs