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English 350-192-011 Freshman Seminar Multicultural America Instr:
Sandra E. Jones
Course Information: TR 2:05-3:20 CRT 468
Course Description You hear it all the time: “We live in a multicultural society.” But what does “multiculturalism mean exactly? Is it a reality or a hope? Is it a valuable dream or a politically correct fantasy? Is talking about “multiculturalism” a way of taking about bigotry and racism and prejudice, or just a feel-good way of ignoring them? Are there really ways we can each understand the experience of people different from ourselves? Can we put that understanding to work in our lives, families, jobs, schools, and neighborhoods? These are some of the questions that lie behind this course. They
are questions that each citizen, especially those involved in education,
faces today. Literature provides an exceptionally good medium for
exploring these questions, since literature has always been a way of imagining
a life different from one’s own, of walking in someone else’s shoes, of
thinking and feeling beyond one’s own narrow experience. Our survey
of the field will concentrate on essays and short stories that give expression
to the variety of the American experience of cultural identity, representing
most of the major ethno-racial groups including Asian, Hispanic, African,
European and Indian.
Sandra E. Jones is Assistant Director of the Cultures and Communities
Program Office and a lecturer in the Department of English at UWM.
She teaches English literature and composition, Women Studies and Africology.
She earned her Master’s Degree at UWM and is currently a doctorial candidate
in English. She is interested in issues of multiculturalism and cross-cultural
literacy and believes that the university classroom is an important space
for understanding difference among people.
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