Honors College 499CG - HonsThesis-AmerStruggles 1

This two-semester, 8-credit honors thesis/project course focuses on two of the most intractable structural issues confronting contemporary American society: immigration and mass incarceration. This course will place these two issues in historical context through a variety of academic, journalistic and autobiographical texts and documentaries, which will allow students to see how the contemporary phenomena of immigration and mass incarceration have common ideological underpinnings and common historical roots. In addition to tracing the development of these "wicked problems" through the different eras of American history, the course units will also address such secondary issues as media representations of immigrants and convicts; cultural attitudes, assumptions and expectations; the intersections of journalism, activism and public policy; the ethnography of marginalized communities such as immigrants and incarcerated children, men and women; and radical fixes vs. more traditional fixes. (499-Seminar)

This course is open to Senior Commonwealth College students only. Instructor consent required. Students should email the instructor and then have a brief meeting with him. Contact Razvan Sibii (razvan@comm.umass.edu)