About Us
Brown University has a long and distinguished history of recognizing and encouraging diversity, exemplified not merely in the racial composition of the student body, but also academically through its curricular options. The Ethnic Studies concentration was added to the Brown curriculum in 1996 as an interdisciplinary and comparative concentration that examines the construction of race and ethnicity in social, cultural, historical, political, and economic contexts. The ET concentration is housed at the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America (CSREA), which also supports a number of community-based research projects—English for Action, the Transcultural Community Health Initiative, and others.
Concentrators develop individual programs in consultation with faculty advisors, with courses drawn from the humanities and social sciences. Each program is organized around a set of core Ethnic Studies courses, intended to help students identify a set of historical and theoretical questions to be studied, and to give them the tools necessary to address the questions in a systematic and well-defined manner.
The following are some examples of areas of study on which students can focus:
- Social issues that affect racial groups (e.g. racial inequalities on health or education)
- The study of cultural production or cultural representations of particular racial groups
- The history of particular racial and ethnic groups
- U.S. based historical or subject oriented comparisons of racial groups
- The study of comparative process of racialization
- The formation and history of diasporas and/or transnational communities
The list above is not an exhaustive one. There is a great deal of flexibility in the organization of the focus area. The goal is to allow students to develop and address their own interests. Students should feel free to contact individual professors via email to schedule appointments re. the concentration program. Please note that some ET faculty hold office hours at the CSREA—while others are based out of their respective departments. Prof. Jose Itzigsohn serves as the main ET concentration advisor and is the signatory for all concentration forms.