Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) majors develop a deep understanding of how race and other modalities of power have structured human life and have informed the imagination of social transformation and justice in the past and the present. CRES accordingly offers a study of the dynamic power relations resulting from the cultural and institutional productions of the idea of “race” on a local, national, and global scale. Here, “race” is understood as a major ideological framework through which both practices of power and domination and struggles for liberation and self-determination have been articulated and enacted throughout modern history and in the contemporary moment. The study of “race,” as such, is a rigorous project, one which yields critical insights into the social, political, cultural, and economic processes that have defined and shaped the modern era—colonialism and slavery, conquest and displacement, genocide and warfare, migration and creolization, criminalization, imprisonment, and disenfranchisement, globalization and post-9/11 security state policies such as racial profiling. These phenomena orient our attention to particular academic fields with which CRES is necessarily in dialogue. These fields include postcolonial studies, settler colonialism studies, human rights studies, indigenous studies, migration, diaspora and border studies, mixed race studies, legal studies, environmental studies, and science studies.

Doctoral students from other departments may obtain a designated emphasis in CRES by completing the following requirements in addition to the requirements for the doctorate in their home department:

✔ The student must have a designated graduate adviser from the CRES principal faculty (or, by exception, from the affiliated faculty). The student must meet with this CRES adviser to develop a coherent plan for meeting the requirements for the designated emphasis, preferably before the end of the students first year. This plan must be approved by the CRES Chair.

✔ A member of the CRES principal faculty (usually the CRES graduate adviser) must serve on the student's qualifying examination committee and on the dissertation committee.

✔ The student must take four relevant graduate seminars taught by CRES principal faculty, at least one of which must have the CRES designation (ie. CRES 2XX). One relevant graduate seminar taught by non-program faculty may be counted with the approval of the CRES Chair. The CRES Chair may also approve the substitution of an individual or group independent study addressing a set of readings or focused on research and writing for one of the four required graduate courses. The specific courses used must reflect a coherent plan of study that embodies both breadth and focus. Current academic year courses recommended for the designated emphasis (DE) are listed on the CRES website, but eligible courses are not limited to this list.

✔ The student must prepare a significant piece of scholarly writing in the area of CRES. This writing may take the form of a substantial seminar paper, a master's or qualifying exam essay, or a portion of the doctoral dissertation. The student's CRES adviser will determine whether a particular piece of writing meets this requirement.

Students pursuing the designated emphasis are encouraged to serve as a teaching assistant for at least one CRES core or elective course. CRES faculty are encouraged to appoint CRES designated emphasis students as teaching assistants when possible and appropriate.