Case Studies Archive

Every year, a cohort of faculty fellows are drawn from multiple disciplines who design and implement an assignment in their course with support from the program. This page is an archive of a number of case studies of courses that have been a part of the fellowship.

This page is an archive. It is kept only for reference purposes, so it is no longer being updated and may not meet accessibility standards. If you need this content in a different format, please email americancultures@berkeley.edu

Spring 2020

Fall 2019

Spring 2019

Asian American Studies	Chicanx & Latinx Studies	Engineering
College Writing	Comparative Literature	English
Environmental Sciences, Policy & Management	Ethnic Studies	Geography
History	Public Policy	Sociology
Theater, Dance & Performance Studies

ASAMST 121, "History of the Chinese in the U.S."

Asian American Studies and Asian Diaspora Studies by Professor Harvey Dong: "covers the entire history of the Chinese in the U.S., from the Gold Rush period in the mid-19th century to the present. Since Chinese immigration and exclusion are two continuous processes throughout this history, both will be the focus of the course. The two processes and their interaction with each other also generated considerable political, economic, and cultural dynamism in the settlement and development of the Chinese American community throughout the U.S."

ASAMST W20AC, "Asian American Communities and Race Relations"

This course will be a survey of contemporary issues affecting the Asian American community. We will look at the different theories that explain the current status of Asian Americans and the interrelationship between the Asian American community, nation, and world. The course will focus on the issue of race relations, the commonalities and differences between Asian Americans and other race and ethnic groups.

Ethnic Studies 176, "Against the Grain: Ethnic American Art and Artists"

Ethnic Studies 176 by Professor Gregory Choy: introduces students to thematic and socio-historical issues related to art and cultural production. One of the many aims of this course is for students to not only learning how to ask questions of what they read/view, but to formulate the questions what a work is asking of one as a reader/viewer. Students write about and discuss the works, artists, and artistic production covered in this course critically, analytically, and passionately.

History 131C, “In the Shadow of War: A Social History of the U.S. Military”

History 131C by Ronit Y. Stahl: “Alongside race, ethnicity, and national origin, this course considers how personnel policies and exigent circumstances of war rendered gender, sexuality, class, religion, and disability visible and invisible, acceptable and problematic, honorable and shameful."

Public Policy 160AC, "Work, Justice and the Labor Movement"

Public Policy 160AC by Anibel Ferus-Comelo: This course introduces students to the labor movement within the context of racial capitalism. It sheds light on the power dynamics inherent in paid work while considering why and how workers form unions in response.

ESPM 50AC: "Introduction to Culture and Natural Resource Management”

Kenneth Worthy

“Introduction to Culture and Natural Resource Management” explores how the health of the environments we depend on is connected to natural resource management, which in turn arises out of historically and culturally specific relationships between humans and nature. Learn more.

Geography X50AC: “California”

Seth Lunine

California is a broad, introductory course that explores the material places and social spaces that create both astonishing wealth and intractable inequality in California. All students worked with several community partners who address issues of homelessness and housing insecurity, particularly among UC Berkeley students, on collaborative research projects with community partners and learned Adobe applications, including Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, and Premier. Learn More

Sociology 130AC: "Social Inequalities - American Cultures"

Joanna Reed

"Social Inequalities - American Cultures" explores the causes and consequences of inequality in the United States through considering theories posed by scholars to understand inequality, as well as through examining particular institutions, such as education and the incarceration system, that sustain, reproduce, and/or mitigate social inequality. Learn more.

Theater 25AC: "Performance in América"

Angela Marino

"Performance in América" explores performance and its power to reflect and reproduce social systems of race in América, where the "accent mark" suggests multiple possibilities, histories, and changing views of what it is to imagine and locate oneself within this country and region of the world. Learn more.

Chicano Studies 159AC: “Mexican and Central American Migration”

Pablo Gonzalez

“Mexican and Central American Migration” attempts to answer the following questions: why does Mexican and Central American immigration continue to be the target of anti-immigrant hysteria and unjust immigration policy? And how do Mexican and Central American immigrant communities navigate, contest, and challenge these policies in their everyday lives?Learn more.

Chicano Studies 174AC: “Chicanos, the Law, and the Criminal Justice System”

Pablo Gonzalez

“Chicanos, the Law, and the Criminal Justice System” (link) situates itself within an abolitionist paradigm to understand the connections between Chicano, Latino, and migrant urbanization, race, poverty, state violence, and the criminal justice system. Learn more.

College Writing R4B: “Images of History”

Patricia Steenland

With the Creativity Discovery Grant from the Art + Design Program at UC Berkeley, the class endeavored to create a project that brings awareness and visibility to the Japanese American internment, an event that is often brushed over in history classes or lost in the context of World War II. Particularly, they sought to make it clear that there were over 500 UC Berkeley students who were forcibly removed from campus and interned, preventing them from finishing their degrees completely altering their lives. Learn more.

Comp Lit 60AC: “(Re)making American History”

Karina Palau

“(Re)making American History” explores Post-Civil Rights (re)makings of American History, studying works by writers and artists who participate in the urgent project of producing alternative and corrective visions of the United States’ past. The creative project in this course asked students to experiment actively with (re)making history themselves by selecting a course material that would serve as a starting point to explore and lift a subaltern history through a creative project that ranges from anything like a comic book to a podcast.

IAS/Engineering 157AC: “Engineering, Environment, and Society”

“Engineering, Environment, and Society” forefronts the political and social concerns that are of decentered in favor of the technical aspects of environmental engineering. Developed as part of the American Cultures Engaged Scholarship (ACES) program, the project in IAS/E 157AC allowed students to explore alternative ways of centering community knowledge. Learn more.

English 135AC: “Race, Class, & Disability: An American Foundling Museum”

“Race, Class, & Disability: An American Foundling Museum” engages in critical discourse central to analyzing race, ethnicity, and disability in American cultures and explores family separation in relation to these concepts. The project for the course asked students to curate an artifact for an “American Foundling Museum” with an opportunity to create the artifact in a variety of different mediums. Learn more.

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