Rhetoric, Writing, and Public Discourse 255: Social Justice Movements

This course examines the issues animating movements for social justice, as well as the protest strategies and organizing tactics that activists draw on to challenge systems of power. Students will engage with speeches, manifestos, and other acts of protest by contemporary and historical changemakers in the United States and beyond. Course materials additionally include documentary films, photographic images of protests, and scholarship on issues such as the ethics of confrontation and disruption, the tensions between publicity and privacy, the relationship between violence and nonviolence, and the role of bodies in acts of protest. Issues, organizations, and movements covered may include racial justice and civil rights, Black Power, feminism and intersectionality, ACT UP, Queer Nation, the United Farm Workers, student movements, peace activism, disability justice, environmental and climate justice, the American Indian Movement, and resistance to voter suppression. Assignments include reading annotations or responses, facilitating class discussion, a presentation on a current social justice movement, and two short essays. All assigned course materials are available at no cost to the student. This course is open to (and suitable for) all class levels, including first-year students. May be taken for credit toward the Indigeneity, Race, and Ethnicity Studies major or minor.