Critical Race & Ethnic Studies
Racial justice is a collective struggle that involves every member of society and calls us to be people for and with others.
The Department of Critical Race & Ethnic Studies welcomes any and every student, no matter their background. We provide a space for students to discuss, reflect upon, and analyze how different populations have been racialized, how structural racism operates and why race continues to be a relevant yet controversial topic of study.
Why Study Critical Race & Ethnic Studies?
CRES aspires to prepare students for careers and lives intervening in structural racism by focusing on how agents for racial equality have navigated these systemic challenges in the past and in our contemporary times. In doing so, we combine the structural focus of Critical Race Theory, the agentive and communal perspective of Ethnic Studies and the resistance against subjugation (including subjugated knowledge) of Decolonial Studies, in order to expand beyond these three disciplines as we face the challenges posed by the 21st century. Given that the legacies and realities of racism threaten all arenas of public and private life, the vision of CRES is to extend the work of these fields to all fields by bringing together experts from the humanities, the social sciences, the natural sciences, mathematics and the arts.
Course of Study
Critical Race & Ethnic Studies: Major, Minor
Both majors and minors will be able to customize their own curricular plan by choosing a track of courses focused on race and ethnicity from a wide variety of disciplines, including literature, history, sociology, anthropology, classics, religious studies, the arts and other departments at the college.
Meet Your Department Chair
