ES 342 - James Baldwin

Units: 3 ; Breadth Area: GE-UD-3; Social Justice
This course assesses James Baldwin’s vanguard role in American discourses of race and gender and appreciates the impact of his radical synthesis of race and gay consciousness on American politics and the construction of an aesthetic of radical Black masculinity.

Breadth Area(s) Satisfied: GE-UD-3 - Upper Division Arts or Humanities, Overlay - Social Justice
Prerequisites: Completion of GE Areas 1A, 1B, 1C and GE-2 with grade C- (CR) or better (GE Areas A1, A2, A3 and B4 for students on the 2024-25 or earlier catalogs).
Strongly Recommended Preparation: Upper division status (greater than 60 earned semester units) and completion of lower division Area 3 requirements (lower division Area C requirements for students on the 2024-25 or earlier catalogs); and ES 100, ES 200.
Possible Instructional Methods: On-ground, or Hybrid, or Online-Asynchronous.
Grading: A-F or CR/NC (student choice).
Course Typically Offered: Variable Intermittently

Student Learning Outcomes - Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:

Students will be able to explain discipline-specific theoretical frameworks including queer of color theory and intersectionality as it applies to the literature and essays of James Baldwin and to understand how Baldwin functioned as an avatar of these disciplinary developments
Students will be able to recognize the complexity, heterogeneity and power dynamics regarding gender, class, and race between and within Black communities depicted by James Baldwin

GE-UD-3. Upper-division Arts or Humanities Learning Outcomes

Demonstrate an understanding of and ability to apply principles, methodologies, values systems, and thought processes employed in the arts and humanities.
Analyze cultural production as an expression of, or reflection upon, what it means to be human.
Demonstrate how the perspectives of the arts or humanities are used by informed, engaged, and reflective citizens to benefit local and global communities.

Social Justice Overlay Learning Outcomes

use a disciplinary perspective to analyze issues of social justice and equity;
describe the challenges to achieving social justice; and
identify ways in which individuals and/or groups can contribute to social justice within local communities, nations, or the world.