American Cultures 30th Anniversary

Background image: American Cultures 30th Anniversary

About 

What could be so important that faculty on campus would agree on creating a new campus-wide requirement? So asked Professor Bill Simmons, first director for the Center for the Study of American Cultures (from 1988-1994). His answer - the teaching and learning of race, racism, and anti-racism in our institutions, communities, local and transnational lives - bringing into life the nation’s first ‘diversity’ curriculum, the American Cultures (AC) requirement at UC Berkeley. 

Thirty years after the first AC courses were offered on campus, this response reverberates powerfully, continuing to invite the UC Berkeley community of staff, students, and faculty into conversations and analyses critical to our complex, diverse worlds. Evermore necessary in the wake of renewed attention to systemic racism and the long-fought battles for racial justice, the curriculum bubbles with the energy of student, faculty, and community ideas and expectations for their AC classrooms. On November 16th, 2021, we celebrated the longevity and vigor of the curriculum, by hosting a 30th anniversary, and launching The Doe library exhibit in its honor, ‘Tumbling the Ivory Tower: creating the race requirement at UC Berkeley’. We were honored that Chancellor Christ opened the celebration and we were joined by several friends vital to the AC program at UC Berkeley. If you have any questions about the celebration or the exhibit, please email americancultures@berkeley.edu.

Jump to Section

Part I: Celebrating the 30th Anniversary
Part II: Recipients of the AC Teaching Award and Student Prize
Part III: AC 30th Libary Exhibit
Part IV: Interactive Timeline
Part V: Berkeley Pedagogy Podcast

Topics

PART I: CELEBRATING THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY 4:10 - 5:00 PM

American Cultures Requirement 30th Anniversary

OPENING REMARKS:

CHANCELLOR CAROL CHRIST

Head shot of Troy Duster, warm-lighting with a bookshelf in the background

REFLECTIONS ON 30 YEARS OF THE AC CURRICULUM: TROY DUSTER

Troy Duster is the Chancellor’s Professor of Sociology, and Founder of the Institute for the Study of Social Change (ISSC). Troy served as the Director of The American Cultures Center from 2000 to 2002.

Photo of Elijah Chhum, smiling, wearing glasses and a sweater over a bright collared shirt in front of the facade of a building

POETRY/SPOKEN WORD PERFORMANCE: ELIJAH CHUMM

Elijah Chhum (he,they) identifies as a queer cisgender male, second generation Khmer American and child of genocide survivors. Born and raised in rural Minnesota, Elijah navigated through a poverty stricken and violent neighborhood within an oppressive culture: Heteronormative, Caucasian and Christian. Elijah strives to provide direct service to the community with an approach that is strength-based, client-centered, and trauma-informed, and through a lens of racial and queer justice. 

Headshot of Jeff Chang in studio

KEYNOTE: JEFF CHANG

Jeff Chang has written extensively on culture, politics, the arts, and music. He is the author of numerous publications ‘Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation,’ ‘Who We Be: The Colorization of America.’ As an undergraduate student, Jeff served as a Senator on ‘Cal-Serve’ at UC Berkeley. Currently, he serves as the Vice President of Narrative,Arts,andCulture at Race Forward.

Read Jeff's keynote speech: Tumbling the Ivory Tower: Reflections on the Student Movement to Build the AC Requirement

PART II: AC PRIZES PRESENTATIONS 5:00 - 5:30 PM

Headshot of Abigail De Kosnik outdoors with trees in background

ABIGAIL DE KOSNIK, NEW MEDIA 151AC, “TRANSFORMING TECH: ISSUES AND INTERVENTIONS IN STEM AND SILICON VALLEY”

Bringing to the fore massive surveillance networks, playful apps, police checkpoints, and social media campaigns, Transforming Tech takes a critical lens to a collection of high-profile issues within an industry of daunting influence, exposing the underpinnings of the power dynamics at play across issues including border enforcement, algorithmic bias, tech worker activism, misinformation, and more. It culminates in a call to action through creative digital assignments that raise the question of what possible interventions could be introduced to address these issues  ... Read More

JAKE KOSEK, GEOGRAPHY 10AC, “WORLDINGS: REGIONS, PEOPLES, AND STATES”

"Heck, my major is math, and I've barely taken any humanities classes in my life, but this sure was worth it." So states one student reflecting on their time in 10AC. Drawing students from across the disciplinary spectrum, and for many their first experience of a Geography classroom, the unifying theme of the class is the contested relations, practices, and processes in the making of central geographic concepts (empire, space, nature, and dispossession), concepts that often go unexamined and yet are deeply woven into the fabric of our lives. Geography's central concepts  ... Read More

Headshot of SanSan Kwan outdoors with trees in background

SANSAN KWAN, THEATER, DANCE AND PERFORMANCE STUDIES (TDPS) 52AC, “DANCE IN AMERICAN CULTURES”

In the midst of frozen lives, students in TDPS 52AC danced, studied dance, and created dance, connecting the meaning-making of dance to the everyday. Chiefly concerned with embodiment and how identity is seen and felt through the body, the dance pedagogies of 52AC have taken on even greater relevance in the past year, from understanding the choreography of street protest to analyses of how the AAPI body has recently been the object of harassment and violence - connections that students felt respected their experiences and interests ... Read More

Inaugural American Cultures Departmental Excellence in Teaching Award

Charles Briggs, Christopher Lowman, Kent Lightfoot, and Rosemary Joyce

Department of Anthropology

In the 30th Anniversary year of the first AC courses offered on campus, it is particularly appropriate that the AC Prizes Selection Committee awards for the first time the American Cultures Departmental Excellence in Teaching Award. In recognition of the sustained and excellent contributions of the Department of Anthropology, and in particular the 2020-2021 collective contributions of Professor Charles Briggs, 160AC; Dr. Christopher Lowman, 2AC; Professor Kent Lightfoot, Anthropology C12AC (with co-instructor Professor Scott Stephens) and Professor Rosemary Joyce, L&S 180AC. Read More
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2021 AC Student Prize Individual Recipient: Morgan Su, "The Dreamers"

AC Course: ESPM 50AC, “Introduction to Culture and Natural Resource Management”
Instructor: Dr. Kenneth Worthy

"It was only after twenty full years of my life that I was first taught about a fully-fleshed, Asian-American story rather than an over-simplified SparkNotes equivalent: I was taught about false promises, adamant hope, mortifying discrimination, and fervent perseverance. Read More | Final Artwork | Original Artwork 

2021 AC Student Prize Group Recipient: Nina Narahari, Salomé Ragot & Sydney Pon, "Responding to COVID-19: Immigrants Face Major Barriers to Accessing Essential Services in the SF Bay Area"

AC Course: Sociology 146AC, Contemporary Immigration in Global Perspective
Instructor: Professor Irene Bloemraad

"Where can immigrants turn to for help during the pandemic? What barriers do they face in accessing necessary services?" This brief summarizes key issues around immigrant service provision in the San Francisco Bay Area in the context of COVID-19, from economic aid to food assistance. It shines a light on the structural inequities that immigrants face, especially those who are low-income. Read More | Read Report

PART III: AC 30TH EXHIBIT - TUMBLING THE IVORY TOWER: CREATING THE RACE REQUIREMENT

In honor of the 30th Anniversary, Doe Library hosted the exhibit, ‘Tumbling the Ivory Tower: creating the race requirement at UC Berkeley,’ until December 9. Although the exhibit is no longer at Doe, you can still explore it on the Library’s website and soon as a virtual reality experience sometime in spring 2023 (information forthcoming). Learn More

PART IV: INTERACTIVE TIMELINE

We invite you to explore the longevity and vigor of the curriculum on our new interactive AC Timeline. Timeline chapters:

Chapter 1

Political Uprisings & Demographic Transformations: In the 1960s, institutions of higher education see a rapid increase in students of color at what were traditionally white colleges and universities in the U.S. Before 1965, the majority of Black students in the country were enrolled at Traditionally Black College and Universities. The increase in enrollment is primarily due to several landmark legislations, including the 1965 Higher Education Act (HEA) and the 1965 Immigration Nationality Act (INA). The HEA greatly expands financial aid to college students, allowing more students of color to attend more colleges and universities... Read More

Chapter 2

 The "Opening of the American Mind" - Curricular Insurgencies: “As the more diverse student body demanded a more diverse education, the nearly all-white faculties at US universities fiercely guarded the notion that a proper education emerged from studying the whitewashed canon of Great Books and viewed anything that might question the objectivity of that premise as an unwarranted political intrusion. The faculty attitude around the country was, ‘We let you in here. Come in, sit down, and enjoy the show.'” Professor Troy Duster, Changing the Culture of the Academy, 2007 As the number of enrolled undergraduate students of color increased at UC Berkeley, so did a demand for ... Read More

Chapter 3

Partnered Struggles - Global Uprisings against South African Apartheid and Desegregating the UC Berkeley curriculum: In 1976, halfway across the world in Soweto, South Africa, Black school children bring years of unrest and civil disobedience to the apartheid state, and the vibrations are felt in California and in the ports of San Francisco and Oakland, an anti-apartheid boycott, inspired by the Soweto schoolchildren grows. In 1986, UC Berkeley students join the SF and Oakland longshore and Warehouse workers to organize against South African goods being disembarked and divestment of the UC Regent pension investments from South African apartheid businesses... Read More

Chapter 4

Building the AC Requirement: Passed by the UC Berkeley Senate in 1989, the AC requirement was the first and only campus-wide graduation requirement for all UC Berkeley undergraduate students. When the requirement was first created, there was not one course on campus that could meet the comparative parameters of the requirement.  A massive feat, the curriculum had to be built within two years to ensure that incoming students in 1991 had the necessary courses to prepare for graduation, catalyzing the most dramatic ideological effort in the university’s history... Read More

Chapter 5

The War on Diversity, and the Growth of Colorblindness: As multiculturalism becomes the byword for the state of California and the UC system becomes ‘minority-majority’, just a few years into the creation of the AC curriculum, the state of California is the bellwether of ‘the culture wars’. By the mid-1990s, the political ideology of colorblindness, explaining racial matters as the outcomes of nonracial dynamics shapes the national discourse, and the political slingshot against demographic diversity and race-centered public policies curdled by Prop 187, Prop  209 and ... Read More

East Bay Express, September 2014 Issue

Chapter 6

On Beyond 30: Everything is the same and nothing is the same. Entering its third decade, the AC curriculum is the site of new energy and rebuilding, responding to the global conversation on state-violence and anti-Black racism. Creating pedagogical spaces for faculty to exchange ideas in this most intellectually demanding, often emotionally exhausting and politically busy space, AC programs have been created at the apex of research, teaching, learning, and racial justice. Recently, Teaching in Troubled Times, Data Justice, and the Creative Discovery Fellows (CDF) programs, have been formed to create new framings and build new ideas to meet the historical juncture of the complex political times... Read More

PART V: UC BERKELEY PEDAGOGY PODCAST

A discussion of equity, inclusion and justice in the classroom at UC Berkeley. Hosted by the American Cultures Center and Center for Teaching and Learning at UC Berkeley.

Episode One: “DANCE IN AMERICAN CULTURES”

In the midst of frozen lives, students in SanSan Kwan's TDPS 52AC course danced, studied dance, and created dance, connecting the meaning-making of dance to the everyday. Chiefly concerned with embodiment and how identity is seen and felt through the body, the dance pedagogies of 52AC have taken on even greater relevance in the past year, from understanding the choreography of street protest to analyses of how the AAPI body has recently been the object of harassment and violence - connections that students felt respected their experiences and interests inside and outside of the classroom - or in one student's words, "To be in the company of someone, right now in this difficult time which is so knowledgeable, passionate, respectful. Just plain awesome."

Episode Two: “WORLDINGS: REGIONS, PEOPLES, AND STATES”

"Heck, my major is math, and I've barely taken any humanities classes in my life, but this sure was worth it." So states one student reflecting on their time in Jake Kosek's American Cultures course, Geography 10AC. Drawing students from across the disciplinary spectrum, and for many their first experience of a Geography classroom, the unifying theme of the class is the contested relations, practices, and processes in the making of central geographic concepts (empire, space, nature, and dispossession), concepts that often go unexamined and yet are deeply woven into the fabric of our lives.

Episode Three: “TRANSFORMING TECH: ISSUES AND INTERVENTIONS IN STEM AND SILICON VALLEY”

Bringing to the fore massive surveillance networks, playful apps, police checkpoints, and social media campaigns, Abigail De Kosnik's New Media 151AC course, 'Transforming Tech,' takes a critical lens to a collection of high-profile issues within an industry of daunting influence, exposing the underpinnings of the power dynamics at play across issues including border enforcement, algorithmic bias, tech worker activism, misinformation, and more.

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Related Links:

AC 25th Anniversary Page

AC 20th Anniversary Page