Fall 2020 SSSJ Final Projects

Fire Management, Indigenous Rights, and Social Justice in California is a final project by Alex Tan, Jean Cheng, and Sarah Pickett based on the course-listed course, Anthropology C12AC and Environmental Science, Policy, and Management 22AC, “Fire: Past, Present, and Future Interactions with the People and Ecosystems of California,” taught by Kent Lightfoot and Scott Stephens. 

The course explores Californian's fear today of catastrophic wildland fires that each year scorch millions of acres of land, cost hundreds of millions of dollars to fight, and destroy human lives and property. In this course, students will explore how our interactions with wildfires in California changed dramatically over the centuries and what can be learned from Native American fire management strategies—some of which may apply to our contemporaneous world.

"Through this course, we learned how the devastating fires we experience in California today are not just a product of climate change but also pervasive policies of suppression deeply connected to settler colonialism, white supremacy, and dispossession of Native peoples from their ancestral lands. We also learned from guest speakers about ongoing efforts by several tribal groups to preserve, sustain, revitalize, and share their cultural practices and scientific knowledge."

Learn more about the course and their final documentary and spark presentation here. 

“Re-learning: New Narratives of Women in American History” is a final project from the course, History 136AC, “Defiant Women: Gender, Power, and Violence in U.S. History,” taught by Stephanie Jones-Rogers. The course covers how gender and sexuality have shaped our lives from the 19th century until today, in both our intimate experiences and our public histories. Stephanie’s award-winning and groundbreaking book, They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South was just published (Yale University Press, 2019) and is a regional study that draws upon formerly enslaved people’s testimony to dramatically reshape current understandings of white women’s economic relationships to slavery and how these women’s economic choices impacted the lives of the enslaved people they owned.

Explore “Re-learning: New Narratives of Women in American History” by Alexandra Calvert, Jess Bauer, and Michele Rabkin, the final project and key takeaways from this course.

“Election 2020: Staff Perspectives” by Krista Meyer, Setareh Sarrafan, Judy Stern, Susan Hagstrom, Brianne Tabios is an Adobe Spark presentation based on the cross-listed course African American Studies C20AC / Public Policy C20AC, “The 2020 Election,” taught by Michael Cohen and Saru Jayaraman.

The course discusses current events related to the 2020 election, designed with a dual purpose of providing students with a critical history of the present crisis while serving as a laboratory for students to generate new knowledge by empowering them to engage directly with electoral politics and social movement building. 

At the center is the question of race, just as race stands at the center of American politics and policy conflicts, and just as racism will be a primary issue in the forthcoming election.

Learn more about the concepts of racial capitalism, resistance to change, and ways change in "Election 2020: Staff Perspectives".

Based on Ethnic Studies 11AC, “Introduction to Ethnic Studies,” taught by Juana Maria Rodriguez and Keith Feldman, Georgette (Gigi) Estilo, Paris Cotz, and Indu Tandon discuss their key takeaways from the course on systemic societal structures and inequality.

Introduction to Ethnic Studies is a course that serves as a foundation to understanding some of the most important scholar-activists and foundational texts that form our thinking today on race and the nation, from W.E.B Dubois and Gloria Anzaldua to our very own UC Berkeley scholar of Ethnic Studies, Michael Omi. Understanding the ongoing construction and contestation of race in America is central to this class and how we approach the world.

Learn more about their final project here.

Based on New Media 151AC, “Transforming Tech: Issues and Interventions in STEM and Silicon Valley,” taught by Abigail De Kosnik, Afro and Indigenous Futurism: Temporality and Identity in the Digital Age by Sara Assadi-Nik and Betsy Greer studies major tech industry controversies and heavily criticized tech products, policies, and effects, including technologies used at the U.S. - Mexico border, social media platforms’ spread of disinformation and fake news, racial bias in algorithms, and internet trolling and harassment. The course also explores different “interventions” by advocates and employees.

Learn more through this project about a paradigm that re-envisions the strict structures of temporality and identity, opening a new framework and a newly codified future in which black and indigenous communities not only exist but thrive and innovate in the digital future.