Chicana/Latina Studies Requirements
General Education Requirements
UNIV 101
Introduction to General Education
English Composition
Complete one of the following groups:
- ENGL 101 and ENGL 102
- ENGL 107 and ENGL 108
- ENGL 109H
Foundations Math
Complete one of the following, or higher math classes:
- PHIL 110
- LING 123
- MATH 107
- MATH 108
- MATH 112
Second Language
Students must complete fourth-semester proficiency in a second language.
Exploring Perspectives
Complete 4 courses - 12 units
- Artist
- Humanist
- Social Scientist
- Natural Scientist
Building Connections
Complete three courses - 9 units
UNIV 301
General Education Portfolio - 1 unit
Major Requirements
Core Courses
This interdisciplinary course provides an introduction to concepts of gender as understood in U.S. society, economy, politics, and culture. The course examines gender through complex relations of power such as race, class, sexuality and considers historical and transnational contexts. Engaging multiple fields, texts, and approaches, students gather a conceptual tool box with which to explore gender and make connections to the world around them.
Explores feminist theories from various disciplines, analytical frameworks, and subject areas. Examines the construction, differentiation, and representation of the genders in different cultural settings, and the ways that race, class, sexuality, and geopolitics inform gender.
Core Electives
Complete three courses:
This course examines how ideas about women, gender, and sexuality have been created through the arts, literature, laws, and science. The course explores these ideas as both concepts and lived experiences from multiple perspectives and considers how they inform power, knowledge, and identity.
Explores theories and critiques of sexuality, gender, race and nation, as they have been organized under the concept of `queer theory.' Topics include: historical emergence of queer theory in relation to histories of feminism, lesbian & gay studies, and social activism; queer of color critique; transgender activism and studies; theories of sexuality; the critique of identity; sexual cultures; and similarities and differences within lesbian, gay, trans, and queer theories.
Focusing on contemporary migration across international borders, we explore how migration contributes to the production, contestation, and remaking of gender and sexual norms as these intersect with hierarchies of race, class, and geopolitics. We particularly examine how the selection, incorporation, and governance of migrants provide occasions for challenging, renegotiating, or affirming dominant gender and sexual norms; how migrants contest multiple exclusions and refashion identities, communities, and politics through gender and sexuality; and how transnational social fields, grounded in histories of empire and global capitalism, shape and are reshaped by these processes.
This course examines the gendered constitution of race in the U.S., from 18th century naturalism and 19th century scientific racism, to 20th and 21st century eugenics, multiculturalism, neoliberalism, and "color blindness".
This interdisciplinary course examines key works by those women of color whose political and cultural investments in a collaborative, cross-cultural critique of U.S. imperialism and heteronormativity has been called "U.S. Third World Feminisms."
This course will examine the varied and evolving concerns of Chicanas as they forge new visions of feminism through the Chicano Movement of the 1960s; organizing among Chicana lesbian communities; Chicanas' entrance into academic, literary and artistic arenas; diverse community and national activist efforts in the 1980s; and current transnational initiatives.
Chicana/Latina Studies Courses
Complete three courses:
This course on Chicana women introduces students to basic concepts, categories and issues organized around the concept of gender. We examine gender and power relations within various institutions: the home, the school system, university, the church, the environment, and various human work spheres.
This course examines the gendered constitution of race in the U.S., from 18th century naturalism and 19th century scientific racism, to 20th and 21st century eugenics, multiculturalism, neoliberalism, and "color blindness".
This interdisciplinary course examines key works by those women of color whose political and cultural investments in a collaborative, cross-cultural critique of U.S. imperialism and heteronormativity has been called "U.S. Third World Feminisms."
This course will examine the varied and evolving concerns of Chicanas as they forge new visions of feminism through the Chicano Movement of the 1960s; organizing among Chicana lesbian communities; Chicanas' entrance into academic, literary and artistic arenas; diverse community and national activist efforts in the 1980s; and current transnational initiatives.
Using a comparative and interdisciplinary focus this course critically examines major issues affecting today's Latinx populations. Major topics include immigration, class, race, gender, sexuality, culture and identity, and the role of discrimination, laws, public policies and policing in structuring inequality.
The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were a formative period in Chicana/o literary and cultural history, especially for women. This course tracks the gendered, racial, linguistic, and national shifts marked by the literary and historical records left by cultural producers as they now receive critical attention as "recovered" texts.
This a co-convened course that will include advanced 4th-year undergraduate students who along with graduate students (enrolled in MAS 570) will examine migration as a worldwide phenomenon in part due to the greater participation of women. In the Americas, in particular, there has been a steady increase in migration to the U.S. from Mexico and Latin America since the 1960s, much of which can be traced to the negative impact of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) resulting in the impoverishment of agricultural sectors and lack of employment opportunities, a combination known to produce the feminization of migration. In this class, we will explore this phenomenon and the various challenges borne by women and youths. We will consider relevant theories, such as neoliberal economics and structural violence, as well as a wide range of perspectives, combining demography, history, ethnography and public policy analysis to better understand issues of borders, transnational identities, human rights, labor rights, and responsibilities of host and sending states.
Historical survey and sociological analysis of past and present experiences of Mexicanas and Chicanas in the United States.
Additional GWS Electives
Complete 12 units of any GWS or cross-listed courses.
*Note: Minimum of 27 upper-division units are required in the GWS major.
GWS Senior Capstone
Note: GWS 496A is only offered in the spring semester.
A culminating experience for majors involving a substantive project that demonstrates a synthesis of learning accumulated in the major, including comprehensive knowledge of the GWS field and its methodologies. Students will reflect on what is means to do feminism as they move on from life in the university.
Minor Requirements
Complete 18-21 units for a minor, or complete at least 31 units for a second major.
Other Requirements
- Mid-career writing assessment
- Complete minimum of 120 units total
- Upper-division units: 42 units
- Overall GPA: minimum 2.0
- Major GPA: minimum 2.0
- Minor GPA: minimum 2.0
- Residency: minimum 30 units
- Units completed through four-year institution: minimum 56 units