This course explores how activists and ordinary citizens have come together to create mass movements toward cultural, political, social, and economic change. This course will investigate campaigns from three social movements: the U.S. Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s, an environmental justice movement and the global movement for gay liberation. Social movements will be investigated through narrative text and images, along with films, speakers, and case studies. The course will analyze the relationship between theory and practice by looking at case studies of autobiographical accounts and by exploring how concepts of identity, solidarity, and organization play out in social movements.
For the Fall 2020 semester this course will be offered online.