Courses in this cluster will examine how historical events, geographic location, and cultural bias impact identity development, how the identities we carry impact the way we experience the world, and the importance/development of community.

Associated Course Pairings:

Course Descriptions

CC101: Black and Brown Muslims in White America

Instructor: Peter Wright
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Analysis & Interpretation of Meaning
Block: 1

In this CC100 course, we investigate the often-neglected histories of Black and Brown Muslims as they have negotiated a place for themselves as Muslims in the context of a hegemonic White (Euro-American) Protestant milieu. In the process, we discover how Islam has served minority communities as a site of religious creativity and adaptation, as well as an emblem of a distinctive, if often contested, religious identity—both before and after 9/11.

CC120: Writing for Justice: Environmental Activism and Ecology in Global Cultural Productions

Instructor: Ammar Naji
Block: 3

This course examines how the environment has a direct impact on the production, circulation and perception of knowledge in the world today. We will engage with the craft of writing to investigate: 1. What is the role of “reading” & “writing” in the struggle for environmental justice? 2. How can we perceive and (re) write about the world and its ecological systems in a new way? 3. And in what ways can our daily practices, beliefs and presumptions about the environment make a positive change? In addressing the above-mentioned questions, we will study environmental activist writing from around the world in terms of its local and regional importance, but also with an eye towards a more global perspective. Reading materials include the work of eco-activists, literary authors, documentary/film makers, journalists, ecologists from South Africa, the multicultural U.S., India, Nigeria, the Maldives and the Caribbean.

CC104: Power, Place, and the Southwest Borderlands

Instructor: Karen Roybal
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Historical Perspectives
Block: 1

The course explores the complex place we call the Greater Southwest, including Greater Mexico, and the varied peoples who have lived, fought, traveled, written, raised families, farmed, ranched, and survived here. Using interdisciplinary epistemologies and methodologies from Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Geography, Environmental Studies, Chicanx/Latinx, Critical Indigenous, and Literary Studies, we investigate strands of culture (indigenous and imported) that have intertwined in this region over the last thousand years. We begin by examining (pre)historical, geographic, and anthropological records and debates over whose voices get to define the region, proceed to a series of primary and secondary texts to examine physical geographic, historical, and literary traditions of the region, and assess the enduring impacts of conquests. We explore how people have constructed and articulated sense of place over time, and discuss implications of these decisions for relationships people develop between themselves, the environment, and others. The course considers relationships between Indigenous nations, Hispano/Latinx/Chicanx, Black and Asian populations, and Euro-American groups in the natural setting of the Southwest to better understand the conflict, cooperation, and cultural blending among these groups; the ways they understand and affect the biophysical landscape; and how land/nature has forged relationships within and between these groups.

We will engage in day-long field trips and possible overnight trips depending on the availability of community partners.

CC120: Writing in the Southwest Borderlands

Instructor: Santiago Guerra
Block: 2

In this course, we will explore place-based writing about, from, and between cultures and landscapes of the Greater Southwest (including Mexico). Using interdisciplinary perspectives on texts, writing, orality, testimony, and genre, we will investigate how the multiple cultures of the region write about experience, place, power, equity, and difference. Building on CC100 Power, Place, and the Southwest Borderlands, we will explore how primary and secondary sources converge in multiple forms of narrative, story, and genre in defining the peoples and places of the region.

The course will require a few day field trips, and the occasional afternoon/evening lecture.

CC106: Learning Community, Teaching Change

Instructor: Page Regan
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Societies and Human Behavior
Block: 1

This course encourages students to consider teaching and learning as processes for shaping community in and outside of the classroom. Some of the key questions anchoring this course include, what does it mean to be a part of a community? How do we learn and teach community? Is community based on our shared histories? Social and embodied identity lines such as race, class, nationality, gender, or sexuality? Does being a member of a student body constitute belonging to a campus community? Who decides? Students will reflect upon the necessity for both coalitions and affinity spaces while generating pathways for teaching change…to ourselves and within the classrooms we inhabit at Colorado College and in our everyday lives.

CC120: Studying Education Through the Social Sciences

Instructor: Nickie Coomer
Block: 2

This introductory course provides a general overview of how to engage with interdisciplinary research pertaining to education, and is applicable to both education and non-education majors; analyzing personal, historical, legislative, and societal perspectives on education within the U.S. This course is designed to help students develop a critical awareness of the complexity of schooling as a cultural space.