Course Level: Undergraduate

Community Activism and Regional Studies (3)

The Latino Community in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area

This interdisciplinary course explores the growing Latino community of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and its challenges and contributions in a historical context. In addition to classroom experiences, the course uses local community-based organizations as a key resource. Students learn about issues such as immigration and legal rights, affordable housing and gentrification, education, youth gangs, health, employment and day laborers, and other concerns at the forefront of local and national Latino life.

Course Level: Undergraduate

Community Activism and Regional Studies (3)

Mapping Washington D.C. Geographies

In this course students reconsider how Washington, D.C., as a city inhabited and traversed by various types of communities and persons, can be visualized and understood in radically different ways. Specifically, the course attends to issues of human geography and mapping through issues of space and place, belonging, gentrification, race, class, gender, and sexuality. The class explores these elements through discussions and films, guest speakers, off-campus explorations of D.C., and primary data collection through interviews and personal map production.

Course Level: Undergraduate

Community Activism and Regional Studies (3)

Environmental Politics in American History and Culture

This course explores the evolution of environmental politics in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. It examines environmental ethics, conservation, law and policy making, the role of science, environmental racism, and movements such as environmental justice, ecofeminism, animal rights, deep ecology, and sustainability. The course studies changing attitudes and ideas of different groups toward the natural environment, and how those have influenced the politics of the environment, whether through governmental policies or private activism. Students obtain a clear understanding of the legal, political, organizational, scientific, and economic factors shaping past and current environmental debates. Meets with HIST-396 004.