;

Critical Race and Ethnic Studies B.A.

Information and Policies

Introduction

The B.A. program in critical race and ethnic studies (CRES) offers an interdisciplinary curriculum that enables majors to study the history of race and racialization both in the United States and across the globe and to learn how structures of race and racism have changed over time. By approaching race as a major ideological framework through which practices of power and domination as well as struggles for liberation and self-determination have been articulated and enacted throughout modern history and in the contemporary moment, our majors develop a deep understanding of how race and other modalities of power have informed the imagination and trajectory of social transformation and justice in the past and the present. The study of race in CRES yields critical insights into the social, political, cultural, and economic processes that have defined and shaped the modern era—colonialism, slavery, conquest, displacement, genocide, warfare, migration, creolization, criminalization, imprisonment, disenfranchisement, globalization, racial profiling, and post-9/11 security state policies. CRES engages with queer and feminist critique, decolonial thought, and analysis of labor in challenging asymmetrical and exploitative power relations, not only illuminating how race, racism, and racialization are socially reproduced in societies structured by dominance, but also fostering emergent and contestatory forms of knowledge and praxis. A commitment to structural transformation is grounded in intersectional approaches to difference (race, class, gender, sexuality, and caste) and defines the work we do.

 The CRES major allows students flexibility at the upper-division level to design an interdisciplinary course of study that enables a general overview of areas of interest, while selecting electives from multiple areas of specific research and career interests. Alternatively, they can engage deeply with a key area of focus, taking a number of courses in a particular area in order to develop expertise in it. For example, they may wish to focus on a social group (e.g., members of the African diaspora), on a discipline (e.g., history), on a social phenomenon (e.g., social movements), or on a methodological or theoretical orientation (e.g., theories of race, gender, and sexuality).

Through immersion in a program of study that is multidisciplinary, comparative, and transnational in scope, CRES majors develop a critical perspective on race, racial relations, and racial justice in the United States and beyond. CRES also helps students develop skills in critical thinking, comparative analysis, the application of social theory, research, communication, and writing so that they can act effectively in an ever-changing, complex, and culturally diverse world. A student with a bachelor’s degree in CRES will be well prepared for employment and continuing educational opportunities in the humanities, social sciences, law, medicine/public health, education, and international affairs and strongly positioned to pursue careers in the private, public, and non-profit sectors. 

Program Learning Outcomes

Students who complete the CRES major should emerge with the following skills, competencies, and knowledge:

Critical Frameworks

  • Demonstrate deep knowledge of historical, contemporary, and intersectional perspectives on race and ethnicity.
  • Demonstrate familiarity with different disciplinary methods applied to race and ethnicity.
  • Demonstrate a critical perspective on institutional power and knowledge.

Communication

  • Demonstrate ability to account for other people’s arguments, to formulate one’s own arguments, and to locate both arguments in the larger context of the field.
  • Demonstrate ability to formulate an argument in alternative media, such as speech, audiovisual, digital, and other forms of non-written communication.
  • Demonstrate writing effectively in the interdisciplinary field.

Research

  • Demonstrate ability to design and implement a collaborative research project.
  • Demonstrate ability to design and implement an independent research project.

Community Collaboration, Engagement, and Activism

  • Demonstrate an understanding of the issues, ethics, and methods surrounding activist, collaborative, and community-based research projects.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of collaborative knowledge that effectively integrates theoretical and experiential thinking about social justice.

Academic Advising for the Program

Email: cres@ucsc.edu
Phone: (831) 459-4246

CRES advising is held in Humanities 1, room 403 or via Zoom. Drop-in hours are posted on the CRES website. Students can make an appointment by using the Slug Success application found under Resources in their student portal (MyUCSC). 

Transfer students should consult the Transfer Student Information and Policy section for specific requirements.

Getting Started in the Major: Frosh

This major is not highly sequential or course intensive. Students interested in CRES may declare at any time, including in their junior and even senior year. Students are encouraged to begin taking courses toward the major in their first year. While specific courses are not required in order to declare, it's highly suggested, students will be enrolled in or have completed CRES 10 with a C, or it can be taken P/NP with a passing grade or better. (Please see the section "How to Declare a Major" for details.) All requirements of the major can be completed within two years. Although it is advisable to begin taking courses toward the major in the first year, it is not required.

Transfer Information and Policy

Transfer Admission Screening Policy

No major preparation courses are required prior to transfer; however, prospective students are strongly encouraged to complete the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC) or to complete all University of California, Santa Cruz, general education requirements before matriculation. Students who did not list CRES on their application are welcome to pursue the major.

Getting Started in the Major: Transfer Students

Transfer students are encouraged to declare the major and enroll in CRES 10 as soon as possible to be assured entrance into the required core courses. Transfer students are encouraged to take advantage of the Summer Session offering of CRES 10 to jump-start their academic career. Transfer students and students in exceptional circumstances may substitute an equivalent course with the department chair or undergraduate director’s approval. Students are recommended to make an advising appointment as soon as possible to plan their academic career.

Although rigorous, CRES major requirements are not numerous, and with guidance from a CRES advisor, they can easily be met during two years of study. The university also permits limited double-counting of upper-division electives, thus making possible for transfer students the pursuit of a double major in CRES and another field of study.

If you have completed prior college-level coursework in ethnic studies, American studies, or a similar field of study, please contact CRES advising as soon as possible and provide a copy of your unofficial transcript and course syllabi so the coursework can be reviewed for potential fulfillment of CRES major requirements. The CRES Department will consider, upon petition, which UC-transferable courses from other institutions are acceptable.

Major Qualification Policy and Declaration Process

Major Qualification

Students may declare the CRES major at any time. Transfer students should consult the Transfer and Information Policy section above.

Appeal Process

A student may file an appeal with the CRES advisor within 15 days of the denial of major declaration. The CRES Department will notify the student and the college of the decision within 15 days of the receipt of the appeal.

How to Declare a Major

Students may declare the major by submitting a proposed Petition for Major/Minor Declaration to the department advisor. The major declaration should include a plan to complete CRES 10, CRES 100, and CRES 101 at the next possible opportunity. Students must complete all requirements for the major with a grade of P, C (2.0), or better.

Per campus policy, students must submit their major declaration no later than the third quarter of their sophomore year or, in the case of transfer students, no later than the second quarter of their junior year. CRES welcomes students who are pursuing more than one major or who are transferring from another major to declare after this time frame.

Letter Grade Policy

Students must complete all requirements for the major with a grade of P, C (2.0), or better,  Overall, no more than 25 percent of the UCSC credits applied toward graduation may be graded on a Pass/No Pass basis.

Course Substitution Policy

CRES is an interdisciplinary major that includes courses taught by faculty in other departments (see the Electives section below for a list of approved courses). Students who wish to substitute a course not on the electives list should complete the Petition for Course Credit form available on the CRES website and submit the completed form to CRES advising.   

Double Majors and Major/Minor Combinations Policy

The CRES major works very well as a double major with numerous fields of study such as anthropology; community studies; creative writing; feminist studies; film and digital media; education; environmental studies; history; history of art and visual culture; legal studies; linguistics; languages; literature; music; performance, play, and design; politics; sociology; and more.

Honors

CRES awards honors and highest honors in the major. Students are considered for honors and highest honors based on their cumulative GPA, calculated from grades earned in coursework and the senior exit requirement undertaken for completion of the major. For honors, students must earn a minimum GPA of 3.70 in the relevant courses, while for highest honors, the GPA must be 3.90 or higher. Writing a thesis is not a requirement for receiving honors or highest honors.

Requirements and Planners

Course Requirements

To graduate with a major in CRES, a student is required to complete 10 courses with the approval of the department.

Lower-Division Core

One lower-division foundation course:

CRES 10Critical Race and Ethnic Studies: An Introduction

5

Upper-Division Core

One upper-division core course is required for the major:

CRES 100Comparative Theories of Race and Ethnicity

5

Disciplinary Communication (DC) Requirement

Students of every major must satisfy that major’s upper-division disciplinary communication (DC) requirement. The DC requirement in CRES is satisfied by completing CRES 101, Research Methods and Writing in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies. Students must complete their DC requirement prior to the Senior Seminar.

CRES 101Research Methods and Writing in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

5

Electives

Students must complete at least six electives offered in critical race and ethnic studies (with the CRES designation) or from the lists below. Each course much be 5 credits. At least five must be upper-division, and up to one lower-division course is allowed. For current offerings, please visit the CRES course page.

  • At least two electives must be from the list of designated courses focusing on phenomena outside of the U.S. or on transnational or hemispheric subjects.
  • At least one elective must be from the list of designated courses focusing on social movements.
  • At least two academic divisions must be represented in the elective coursework.

Students are encouraged to supplement their upper-division coursework with language study, internships, and individual or group independent studies. Students may petition to have up to 10 credits of such activities substituted for upper-division elective requirements, so long as these activities serve, or do not interfere with, the breadth requirements.

Division of Arts
ARTG 139
/CRES 139
Queer and Trans Art and Games

5

ARTG 142
/CRES 142
Black Aesthetics: Interventions in Digital Media

5

FILM 165BRace on Screen

5

FILM 165DAsian Americans and Media

5

FILM 165EChicana/o Cinema, Video

5

HAVC 140AAmerica in Art

5

HAVC 140CRace and American Visual Arts

5

HAVC 141FThe Camera and the Body

5

HAVC 141KActivist Art Since 1960: Art, Technology, Activism

5

HAVC 190JVisual Cultures of the Vietnam-American War

5

MUSC 81MChicano/Latino Music in the United States

5

THEA 151AStudies in Performance: African American Theater Arts Troupe

5

Division of Humanities
CRES 14Center for Racial Justice Service Learning

5

CRES 15Resource Centers Service Learning Course

5

CRES 60EBlackness and Indigeneity in Europe

5

CRES 68Approaches to Black Studies

5

CRES 70BBlack Radical University?

5

CRES 111The Sounds of Struggle

5

CRES 113Music and Performance

5

CRES 114Race and Disability in American Drama

5

CRES 118Abolitionist Futures

5

CRES 121
/EDUC 121
The Struggle for K-12 Ethnic Studies

5

CRES 131Black Freedom Movements

5

CRES 132Black Speculations

5

CRES 150Race, Gender and Algorithms

5

CRES 181The Lynch Doctrine: From Rough Justice to Stand Your Ground

5

CRES 185ARace, Gender, and Science

5

CRES 188BTopics in Black Studies

5

CRES 188STopics in Settler Colonial Critique

5

CRES 188TTopics in Race, Science and Technology

5

CRES 188XTopics in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

5

FMST 117Post Zora Interventions: Art, Activism and Anthropology

5

FMST 124Technology, Science, and Race Across the Americas

5

FMST 125Race, Sex, and Technology

5

FMST 136
/CRES 136/ENVS 136
Organizing for Water Justice in California

5

FMST 145Racial and Gender Formations in the U.S

5

HIS 104CCelluloid Natives: American Indian History on Film

5

HIS 104DMuseums and the Representation of Native American History, Memory, and Culture

5

HIS 106BAsian and Asian American History, 1941-Present

5

HIS 109ARace, Gender, and Power in the Antebellum South

5

HIS 110HGreater Reconstruction: Race, Empire, and Citizenship in the Post-Civil War United States

5

HIS 120W.E.B. Du Bois

5

HIS 121BAfrican American History: 1877 to the Present

5

HIS 122AJazz and United States Cultural History, 1900-1945

5

HIS 122BJazz and United States Cultural History, 1945 to the Present

5

HIS 123Immigrants and Immigration in U.S. History

5

HIS 128Chicana/Chicano History

5

HIS 151AMedicine and the Body in the Colonial World

5

LING 135
/CRES 135
Language and Racialization

5

LIT 80HThe Politics of Fashion

5

LIT 121LGreen Ache: Ecopoetics, Race, and Material

5

LIT 121NRAGE: Race and Performance

5

LIT 133HHaunted by the Forgotten War: Literature and Film of the Korean War

5

LIT 134ACaribbean Literature

5

LIT 135FEmpire and After in the Anglophone Novel

5

LIT 135GPostcolonial Writing

5

LIT 145AColonial American Literatures

5

LIT 149EModern Fiction and Poetry

5

LIT 154CHip Hop Hi Art

5

LIT 160ETheorizing Race and Comics

5

LIT 160KRace, Labor, and Migration

5

LIT 161AAfrican American Literature

5

LIT 161BAfrican American Women Writers

5

LIT 162AAsian American Literature

5

LIT 163AAmerican Indian Literature

5

LIT 165BLatino Fictions of the Americas

5

LIT 169AWhite Flow(n): Race, Gender, and Material

5

LIT 189FLiteraturas Latinas en los Estados Unidos: en inglés, español y Spanglish

5

LIT 189VAndean Indigenismo

5

Division of Social Sciences
ANTH 110Q
/CRES 110Q/FMST 110Q
Queer Sexuality in Black Popular Culture

5

ANTH 130ONative Feminisms, Gender, and Settler Colonialism

5

ANTH 140
/CRES 140
The Body in Rain: Environmental and Medical Intersections

5

ANTH 158Feminist Ethnographies

5

ANTH 187Cultural Heritage in Colonial Contexts

5

ANTH 196JImagining America

5

CMMU 163Health Care Inequalities

5

ECON 128
/LGST 128
Poverty and Public Policy

5

EDUC 125Multicultural Children's Literature for Elementary Classrooms

5

EDUC 128Immigrants and Education

5

EDUC 135Gender and Education

5

EDUC 140Language, Diversity, and Learning

5

EDUC 141Bilingualism and Schooling

5

EDUC 160Issues in Educational Reform

5

EDUC 164Urban Education

5

EDUC 173Seminar in Critical Pedagogy

5

EDUC 174Ethnographic Research in Schools and Communities

5

EDUC 177Teaching Linguistically Diverse Students

5

EDUC 181Race, Class, and Culture in Education

5

LALS 112Immigration and Assimilation

5

LALS 128
/OAKS 128
Latino Media in the U.S

5

LALS 131Latino Literatures: Assimilation and Assimilability

5

LALS 143Race and Ethnicity

5

LALS 144Mexicana/Chicana Histories

5

LGST 111B
/POLI 111B
Civil Liberties

5

PSYC 153The Psychology of Poverty and Social Class

5

PSYC 159HCommunity-Based Interventions

5

PSYC 159IPsychology of Immigration

5

SOCY 120Gender, Race/Ethnicity, Sexuality and Cultural Politics

5

SOCY 127PSociology of Drugs, Botanicals and Pharmaceuticals

5

SOCY 128C
/LGST 128C
Social History of Democracy, Anarchism, and Indigenism

5

SOCY 128I
/LGST 128I
Race and Law

5

SOCY 139TCommunity-Engaged Research Practicum

5

SOCY 143Black Botanical Medicine in the Americas

5

SOCY 148Educational Inequality

5

SOCY 152Body and Society

5

SOCY 156U.S. Latinx Identities: Centers and Margins

5

SOCY 170PThe Political Economy of Race

5

SOCY 172Sociology of Social Movements

5

SOCY 173XWater and Sanitation Justice

5

The Colleges
JRLC 135Apprenticeship in Community Engaged Research

5

JRLC 136Methodologies of Critical Praxis

5

Transnational Requirement

Students must select at least two electives focusing on phenomena outside of the U.S. or on transnational or hemispheric subjects.

Division of the Arts
HAVC 124BHistory of Photography in Southeast Asia

5

HAVC 170Art of the Body in Oceania

5

HAVC 179Topics in Oceanic Visual Culture

5

THEA 167Africanist Aesthetics: Live Dialogues in the Americas and Africa

5

Division of the Humanities
CRES 45Pilipinx Historical Dialogue

5

CRES 70U(Un)docu Studies

5

CRES 112AsianAm Enviro Justice

5

CRES 113Music and Performance

5

CRES 116Race and the Pacific: U.S. and Japanese Empires in Comparative Perspective

5

CRES 188ATopics in Transnational Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies

5

FMST 112
/POLI 112
Women and the Law

5

FMST 115Gender, Sexuality, and Transnational Migration Across the Americas

5

HISC 117
/CRES 117
Making the Refugee Century: Non-Citizens and Modernity

5

HIS 106AVietnam War Memories

5

HIS 131Women in Colonial Latin America

5

HIS 137AAfrica to 1800

5

HIS 137BAfrica from 1800 to the Present

5

HIS 140DRecent Chinese History

5

HIS 150EHistory and Memory in the Okinawan Islands

5

HIS 154Post-Colonial North Africa

5

HIS 156Interrogating Politics in the Post-Colonial Middle East

5

HIS 158C
/ANTH 179
Slavery in the Atlantic World: Historical and Archaeological Perspectives

5

HIS 166Northern Ireland: Communities in Conflict

5

HIS 170CMediterranean France: The History and Politics of Immigration

5

HIS 181BAfrica and Britain in an Imperial World

5

HIS 184BRacism and Antiracism in Europe: From 1870 to the Present

5

HIS 190ASlavery and Race in Latin America

5

HIS 194TWorlds of Labor in Asia

5

HIS 194UThe Cold War and East Asia

5

LIT 131CWorldings

5

LIT 133GThe Nuclear Pacific

5

LIT 135ATopics in African Literature

5

LIT 138ACulture and Nation

5

LIT 155ECinema and Social Change in Latin America

5

LIT 160IRace, Militarism, and Empire in Asia and the Pacific

5

LIT 160JExile, Diaspora, Migration

5

LIT 162BLiterature of the Asian Diaspora

5

LIT 164GLiterature and the Holocaust

5

LIT 165AChicanx/Mexican American Literature

5

LIT 165CMesoamerican Indigenous/Indigenista Literature

5

LIT 189PLas mujeres en la literatura latinoamericana

5

LIT 189SLa cultura popular en la narrativa latinoamericana

5

LIT 190OStudies in Slavery, Race, and Nation in the Americas

5

Division of the Social Sciences
ANTH 110O
/HIS 181A
Postcolonial Britain and France

5

ANTH 129Beyond Borders: Other Globalizations and Histories of Interconnection

5

ANTH 130AAnthropology of Africa.

5

ANTH 130CPolitics and Culture in China

5

ANTH 130F
/CRES 130
Blackness In Motion: Anthology of the African Diasporas

5

ANTH 130LEthnographies of Latin America

5

ANTH 130TReligion and Politics in the Muslim World

5

ANTH 159Race and Anthropology

5

CMMU 145Global Capitalism: a History of the Present

5

LALS 100Concepts and Theories in Latin American and Latina/o Studies

5

LALS 115Mexico-United States Migration

5

LALS 150Afro-Latinos/as: Social, Cultural, and Political Dimensions

5

LALS 152Consumer Cultures Between the Americas

5

LALS 170Indigenous Struggles in the Americas

5

LALS 171Brazil in Black and White

5

LALS 172Visualizing Human Rights

5

LALS 175Migration, Gender, and Health

5

LALS 178Gender, Transnationalism, and Globalization

5

LALS 180Borders: Real and Imagined

5

LALS 194HCentral America and the United States

5

POLI 187Decolonial Global Health: A View from the Middle East and Africa

5

SOCY 128
/LGST 126
Law and Politics in Contemporary Japan and East Asian Societies

5

SOCY 128M
/LGST 128M
International Law and Global Justice

5

SOCY 143Black Botanical Medicine in the Americas

5

Social Movements Requirement

Students must select at least one course which focuses on social movements.

Division of Arts
HAVC 141KActivist Art Since 1960: Art, Technology, Activism

5

Division of Humanities
CRES 70BBlack Radical University?

5

CRES 131Black Freedom Movements

5

CRES 132Black Speculations

5

FMST 20Feminism and Social Justice

5

HIS 121BAfrican American History: 1877 to the Present

5

HIS 154Post-Colonial North Africa

5

HIS 156Interrogating Politics in the Post-Colonial Middle East

5

HIS 184BRacism and Antiracism in Europe: From 1870 to the Present

5

Division of Social Sciences
ANTH 130F
/CRES 130
Blackness In Motion: Anthology of the African Diasporas

5

LALS 170Indigenous Struggles in the Americas

5

LALS 178Gender, Transnationalism, and Globalization

5

SOCY 172Sociology of Social Movements

5

Comprehensive Requirement

The comprehensive requirement is fulfilled by completing a senior seminar from the CRES 190 series, or one of the other senior seminars listed below. CRES 190 series courses in the current General Catalog are also listed below; any CRES 190 series course that is listed in a subsequent General Catalog will also satisfy the comprehensive requirement.

Prerequisites for the CRES 190 series include CRES 10 and CRES 100 and satisfaction of the Entry Level Writing and Composition requirements. Senior seminars outside of CRES may have additional enrollment restrictions or prerequisites.

CRES 190A
/FMST 194S
Critical Race Feminisms

5

CRES 190BCritical Migration Studies

5

CRES 190CThe Black Transnational

5

CRES 190DBlack Geographies and the Imperative of Abolition

5

CRES 190PTrans of Color Performance and Media

5

CRES 190SFrom Slavery to Precarity: Race, Logistics and Globalization

5

CRES 190TThe War on Terror: Imperialism Past and Present

5

CRES 190XRacial Capitalism

5

FMST 194K
/CRES 190K
Black Diaspora

5

FMST 194L
/CRES 190L
Comparative Settler Colonial Studies

5

FMST 194M
/CRES 190M
Empire and Sexuality

5

FMST 194O
/CRES 190O
The Politics of Gender and Human Rights

5

FMST 194Q
/CRES 190Q
Queer Diasporas

5

FMST 194R
/CRES 190R
HIstories of the Carceral State

5

FMST 194U
/CRES 190U
Touring War and Empire

5

FMST 194V
/CRES 190V
Marxism and Feminism

5

ANTH 196G
/CRES 190G
Queer Worlds: Sexuality, Intimacy and Power in Contemporary Ethnography

5

Planners

The tables below are for informational purposes and do not reflect all university, general education, and credit requirements. See Undergraduate Graduation Requirements for more information.

Four-Year Sample Academic Plan For CRES Major (Frosh)

Students must have satisfied the English language and writing requirement (ELWR) and have completed the C1 requirement in order to enroll in CRES 10. Students who place into C2 in their first fall quarter may enroll in CRES 10 in their first fall quarter.

  Fall Winter Spring Summer
Entering       College 1A
      Summer Edge (optional)
       
1st (frosh) College 1  WRIT 1/WRIT 1E (if needed)    
       
       
2nd (soph) CRES 10 CRES 100 CRES 101  
 WRIT 2*   CRES elective  
       
3rd (junior) CRES elective CRES elective CRES elective  
  CRES elective    
       
4th (senior) CRES elective CRES 190    
       
       

Students must also complete all general education requirements except for ER, which is satisfied by CRES 10. 

*WRIT 2 should be taken in or before spring quarter of the second year.

Two-Year Sample Academic Plan for CRES Major (Transfer Students)

Transfer students should complete their general education (GE) requirements or IGETC before enrolling at UCSC, but this is not a requirement to complete the major within two years of transferring. The CRES major consists of 10 courses, allowing transfer students to complete about two CRES courses per quarter along with additional units to complete the required 180 units for graduation.

Sample Transfer-Students Academic Planner for CRES Major – Fall Admission

  Fall Winter Spring  Summer
Entering        KRSG 1T
      Summer Edge (optional)
       
1st (junior) CRES 10 CRES 100 CRES 101  
  CRES elective CRES elective  
       
2nd (senior) CRES elective CRES elective CRES 190  
CRES elective CRES elective