Pathways to Social Justice
The Pathways to Social Justice Curriculum
Georgetown’s Pathways to Social Justice (PSJ) curriculum prepares students to critically analyze historical and contemporary power differentials. A cornerstone of this requirement is the one-credit University Seminar in Race, Power, and Justice, which is designed to ensure that every student at Georgetown develops a baseline vocabulary for discussing racial difference and marginalization. This seminar will provide the foundation for each student’s engagement with other PSJ-attributed “overlay” courses offered across Georgetown’s Main Campus. Starting in Fall 2024, every Georgetown student must take two three-credit PSJ overlay courses prior to graduation.
By fulfilling the Pathways to Social Justice requirement, students will gain a better understanding of how social, political, geographic, economic, and other cultural factors shape experiences of the world, as well as how these factors contribute to marginalization and inequality. PSJ courses will also explore how communities have resisted marginalization, and will focus on axes of identity that have formed the basis for historical and contemporary marginalization and oppression, including race, gender, class, caste, disability, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
For Faculty: Pathways to Social Justice Course Application
As instructors design their courses, they should consider five separate “Instructional Priorities” that lie at the center of the Pathways to Social Justice curriculum. Each overlay course bearing the Pathways to Social Justice attribute must meaningfully incorporate at least three of the five instructional priorities listed below.
Priority 1: Inclusive Scholarship
This priority encourages courses to foreground the scholarship of intellectuals who have historically been marginalized from fields of academic study.
Priority 2: Intersectional Approaches to Identity
The Intersectional Approaches to Identity priority applies to courses that examine how identity develops along multiple axes (e.g. race, gender, class, sexuality, disability, nationality, immigrant and refugee status, etc.) in relation to structures of power.
Priority 3: Historical Legacies of Inequality and Their Contemporary Impacts
Looking to the past is crucial for understanding our current conditions. This priority highlights courses that explore historical phenomena that have generated and intensified inequality, including slavery, colonialism, imperialism, migration, and patriarchy. Courses should consider how historical inequalities persist in the present, and how the recurrence of inequality over time informs the understanding of justice today.
Priority 4: National, Regional, and Global Comparisons
This priority seeks to foreground how specific national, regional, and global contexts shape power relations and visions of justice. In these courses, students will make connections between other regions or nations of the world and their own. In this way, courses should foster an appreciation of how individuals, cultures, and societies—especially non-European societies—have negotiated power relations in the pursuit of justice, and how those lessons may apply to students’ own pursuits.
Priority 5: Imagining Justice
This priority highlights how historically exploited communities have developed ways of thought, being, and social systems that resist oppression, heal from trauma, and seek justice. Courses that meet this priority will offer students a deeper appreciation of scholarship that details strategies used to survive and, perhaps, overcome systemic and structural oppression.
Approved Overlay Courses:
School | DEPARTMENT | Number | Course Title | Instructor |
---|---|---|---|---|
CAS | BLST | 2160 | Black Digital Films | Brienne Adams |
CAS | BLST | 1550 | Black Athletes on Being Human | LaMonda Horton-Stallings |
CAS | BLST | 1300 | Diaspora in Latin & Caribbean America | Melanie White |
CAS | BLST | 1010 | Introduction to African American Studies | Robert Patterson |
CAS | BLST | 2250 | Disciplining the Poor | Rosemary Ndubuizu |
CAS | AMST | 3700 | Policing America | Brian Hochman |
CAS | AMST | 3270 | Workers in the American Food System | Mireya Loza |
CAS | AMST | 1101-01 | Race and Class in DC | Sherry Linkon |
CAS | ANTH | 1001 | Introduction to Cultural Anthropology | Amrita Ibrahim |
CAS | ANTH | 2270 | Solidarity Forever | Brandon Hunter-Pazzara |
CAS | ANTH | Strike | Brandon Hunter-Pazzara | |
CAS | ANTH | 1175 | Crisis and Creativity in the Arab World | Laurie King |
CAS | ANTH | 2218 | Race and Diversity | Liliana Duica-Amaya |
CAS | ANTH | 1001 | Introduction to Cultural Anthropology | Nejm Benessaiah |
CAS | ANTH | Intersectional Ecologies | Nejm Benessaiah | |
CAS | ANTH | 2250 | Introduction to Medical Anthropology | Sylvia Onder |
CAS | ANTH | Moral Economies | Vanessa Watters Opalo | |
CAS | ARAB | 4893 | Introduction to Arabic Sociolinguistics | Ahmad Alqassas |
CAS | ARTH | 2850 | Latin America II | Andrea Huezo |
CAS | CASS | 1491-13 | Borders | Nicoletta Pireddu |
CAS | ECON | 2056 | Poverty and Inequality | Caue Dobbin |
CAS | EDIJ | 2800 | Race, Place, and Education Reform | Nardos Ghebreab |
CAS | EDIJ | 3200 | Seminar in Urban Education | Sabrina Wesley-Nero |
CAS | ENGL | 2590 | Intro to Game Studies | Amanda Phillips |
CAS | ENGL | 4172 | Afterlives of US Imperalism | Christine So |
CAS | ENGL | 2980-01 | Whose English? | Elizabeth Catchmark |
CAS | ENGL | 2702 | Grief and Grievance | Libbie Rifkin |
CAS | ENGL | 2110 | Native American Literature | Lisbeth Fuisz |
CAS | ENGL | 1482 | Late Romantics | Manu Chander |
CAS | ENGL | 2061 | Asian/American Women’s Writing | Peggy Lee |
CAS | ENGL | 4151 | Staying Cool | Peggy Lee |
CAS | ENGL | 2630 | Law and Literature | Sara Schotland |
CAS | ENGL | 4130 | Migration, Detention, and Asylum | Sara Schotland |
CAS | FMST | 2432 | Prison Literature | Sara Schotland |
CAS | FMST | Gaming and Justice | Amanda Phillips | |
CAS | FMST | 3355 | Documentary Film: History and Theory | Sky Sitney |
CAS | FREN | 4555 | Visions of Empire, 1800-Present | Johann Le Guelte |
CAS | GERM | 4180 | Black Germany | Verena Kick |
CAS | GOVT | 2609 | Race in International Relations | Desh Girod |
CAS | GOVT | 2219 | Prisons and Punishment | Marc Howard |
CAS | GOVT | 4231 | Race, Gender, and American Politics | Nadia Brown |
CAS | GOVT | 3824 | Religion, Ethics, and World Affairs | David Hollenbach |
CAS | HIST | 1106 | The Atlantic World | Alison Games |
CAS | HIST | 1099-21 | Rio de Janeiro | Bryan McCann |
CAS | HIST | 1150 | Global History of Skateboarding | Bryan McCann |
CAS | HIST | 1099-21 | Asian American Labor History | Crystal Luo |
CAS | HIST | 1099 | US Working Lives | Joseph McCartin |
CAS | HIST | 4216 | Apartheid | Meredith McKittrick |
CAS | HIST | 1201 | Africa II | Meredith McKittrick |
CAS | HIST | 3815 | Latinx Social Movements | Mireya Loza |
CAS | IDST | Blackness as an Organizing Strategy | Corey Fields | |
CAS | IDST | 1491 | Environmental Inequality | Meredith McKittrick |
CAS | IDST | 1491 | Discovering Culture through Language | Sylvia Onder |
CAS | IGST/CASS | Disability, Culture, and the Question of Care | Libbie Rifkin | |
CAS | EDIJ | Becoming an Education JEDDI | Sabrina Wesley-Nero | |
CAS | JOUR | 3368 | Media and Social Justice | Ann Oldenburg |
CAS | JUPS | 1010 | Intro to Justice & Peace Studies | Anthony Jenkins |
CAS | JUPS | 2030 | Conflict Transformation | Anthony Jenkins |
CAS | JUPS | 1010 | Introduction to Justice and Peace Studies | Elham Atashi |
CAS | JUPS | 2040 | Religion in Conflict and Peacebuilding | Shereazade Jafari |
CAS | JUPS | 4070 | Peace Education | Tony Jenkins |
CAS | LING | 2360-01 | Language and Food | Cynthia Gordon |
CAS | LING | 1000-01 | Introduction to Language | Lara Bryfonski |
CAS | LING | 2210 | Language and Social Justice | Lourdes Ortega |
CAS | LING | 2030 | Language and Society | Marissa Fond |
CAS | LING | 2050 | How Languages Are Learned | Meg Montee |
CAS | LING | 5322 | African American Language | Minnie Quartey |
CAS | LING | 5312 | Language and Politics | Nadja Tadic |
CAS | LING | 5350 | Language, Gender, and Sexuality | Nadja Tadic |
CAS | MUSC | 1150 | Music in a Multicultural Word | Robynn Stilwell |
CAS | PHIL | 2516 | Latin American Philosophy | Clark Donley |
CAS | PHIL | 2090 | Ethics of Al & Health | Joel de Lara |
CAS | PHIL | 2002 | Bioethics and Disability | Joel Michael Reynolds |
CAS | SOCI | 4119 | Urban Inequality | Carla Shedd |
CAS | SOCI | 1201 | Equality of Educational Opportunity | Karolyn Tyson |
CAS | SOCI | 3374 | Culture and Consumption | Yuki Kato |
CAS | THEO | Black Churches and Ecumenism | Beverly Goines | |
CAS | THEO | 3240 | Christain Theology and Mental Health | Elizabeth Antus |
CAS | THEO | 2291 | Korean Christianity and Interfaith Justice | Min-Ah Cho |
CAS | THEO | 3231 | Mystics, Prophets, Heretics | Min-Ah Cho |
CAS | THEO | 2860 | Intro to Religion and Ethics in International Affairs | David Hollenbach |
CAS | THEO | 2570 | Chinese Philosophy | Erin Cline |
CAS | 1300 | Play Analysis | Christine Evans | |
CAS | TPST | 1141-01 | Introduction to Sexuality Studies | April Sizemore-Barber |
CAS | WGST | 1141-02 | Introduction to Sexuality Studies | April Sizemore-Barber |
CAS | WGST | AIDS, Politics, and Culture | April Sizemore-Barber | |
CAS | WGST | 2251 | Gender & The Law | Tricia Hoefling |
CAS | WGST | 2265 | Poverty and Reproduction | Tricia Hoefling |
CAS | WGST | Sex, Social Justice, and the Bill of Rights | Tricia Hoefling | |
CAS | ENGL | 4132 | South Asia in the Indian Ocean | Coilin Parsons |
CAS | ENGL | 4257 | Disability Narratives | Theodora Danylevich |
CAS | WGST | Reproductive Health | Tricia Hoefling | |
CAS | SOCI | 4954 | Environmental and Food Justice Movements | Yuki Kato |
CAS | TPST | 3320 | Contemporary Feminist Playwriting | Maya Roth |
CAS | ERTH | 2240 | Environmental Justice | Randall Amster |
CAS | ERTH | 2250 | Environmental Justice | Tim Bartley |
School | Department | Number | Course Title | Instructor |
---|---|---|---|---|
GU-Q | HIST | 1802 | US History II | Karine Walther |
GU-Q | HIST | 3609 | American and the Muslim World | Karine Walther |
GU-Q | HIST | 4202 | Africa and the Politico-Economics of Indep | Phoebe Musandu |
GU-Q | IHIST | 1201 | Africa Since 1800 | Phoebe Musandu |
GU-Q | IHIST | 1200 | Africa to 1800 | Phoebe Musandu |
GU-Q | IHIST | 4210 | STEM and Power in Africa | Phoebe Musandu |
GU-Q | HIST | 1106 | Atlantic World | Trish Kahle |
GU-Q | IHIST | 4208 | Topics in African Women’s History | Phoebe Musandu |
GU-Q | ENGL | Introduction to Environmental Humanities | Victoria Googasian |
School | Department | Course Number | Course Title | Instructor |
---|---|---|---|---|
MSB | FINC | 3263-10 | Environment, Social and Governance Investing | Reena Aggarwal |
MSB | MGMT | 3205 | Intercultural Communications | Rachel Pacheco |
MSB | MGMT | 3277 | Imagination and Creativity | Robert Bies |
MSB | MGMT | 3278 | Courage and Moral Leadership | Robert Bies |
MSB | STRT | 3255 | Moral Foundations of Market Society | Jason Brennan |
School | Department | Course Number | Course Title | Instructor |
---|---|---|---|---|
SFS | AFSP | 3357 | African Politics and Government | Lahra Smith |
SFS | CULP | Caste and Race | Arjun Shankar | |
SFS | CULP | 2100 | Theorizing Culture and Politics | Arjun Shankar |
SFS | CULP | 2250 | Love in the Time of War | Marios Falaris |
SFS | CULP | 2100 | Theorizing Culture and Politics | Shiloh Krupar |
SFS | GHDP | 2252 | Introduction to Global Development | Shareen Joshi |
SFS | INAF | 1010 | Introduction to Critical Geography | Shiloh Krupar |
SFS | JCIV/INAF | 1766 | Interfaith Marriage in Literature and Film | Meital Orr |
SFS | REES | 4463 | Memory Wars in Ukraine, Russia, and Eastern Europe | Diana Dumitru |
SFS | STIA | 3181 | Water | Mark Giordano |
SFS | AFSP | 2206 | History of West Africa | Halimat Somotan |
School | Department | Course Number | Course Title | Instructor |
---|---|---|---|---|
SOH | GLOH | 3370 | Pandemics & Politics | Matthew Kavanah |
SOH | GLOH | 1140 | Introduction to Global Health | Matthew Kavanah |
SOH | GLOH | 1140 | Introduction to Global Health | Shabab Wahid |