St. John's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Queens Campus
Overview
Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) foregrounds the examination of class, gender, race, sexuality, and other modalities of lived identity in our interconnected world. Understanding marginalized and minoritized people in the United States, and their links to the African, Asian, Indigenous, Latin America, and Oceanic diasporas, is crucial for day-to-day workforce knowledge and experience in many fields. CRES majors engage in an interdisciplinary course of study including the arts, economics, history, politics, and sociology to graduate with a skill set focused on enacting social change on the local and global scale.
Apply Plan Your Visit Institute for Critical Race and Ethnic StudiesThe Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies provides a comprehensive curriculum that prepares you for graduate school or for a career in advocacy, the arts, business, education, government, journalism, law, public health, and social work.
Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) at St. John’s University is a home for cutting-edge research and critical pedagogy on colonialism, contemporary and historical structural and social inequalities, economic globalization, empire, health-care systems, international migration, and legal and carceral structures. CRES provides you with rigorous training in methods of critical inquiry that are relevant to the most pressing cultural, political, and social challenges we face in the 21st century and their historical antecedents.
The B.A. in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies program requires a total of 33 credits (15 credits in the CRES major sequence and 18 credits of interdisciplinary elective courses and an internship). The design of the program provides you with the flexibility to add another major or minor if desired.
Department Contact
Natalie P. Byfield, Ph.D.
Founding Director, CRES, and Professor of SociologyAdmission
For more information about admission to this and other acclaimed undergraduate programs at St. John’s University, please visit Undergraduate Admission.
Courses
To earn the B.A. in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, you complete 120 credits including core, major sequence, and elective requirements. For more information about courses, please see the St. John’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences section of the Undergraduate Bulletin.
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
CRES 1000 | Introduction to Critical Race and Ethnic Studies | 3 |
CRES 2000 | Methods in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies | 3 |
CRES 3000 | Anti-Blackness Around the Globe | 3 |
CRES 3050 | Comparative Racialization: Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Latinidad | 3 |
CRES 4995 | Capstone Seminar in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies | 3 |
To fulfill the elective requirements, you must select one course each from six of the seven field categories.
History, Historicism, and Historiography
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
HIS 3375 | Asian American History | 3 |
HIS 3711 | African American History to 1900 | 3 |
HIS 3712 | African American History since 1900 | 3 |
Sociology, Social Formation, and Sociogeny
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
SOC 2230 | Sociology of Latinos/as in the US | 3 |
SOC 2350 | Social Construction of Race in the Americas | 3 |
SOC 2450 | Sociology of the Black Experience | 3 |
PSY 2230 | Psychology of the African American Experience | 3 |
| ENG 3645 | Comparative Migration Literature | 3 |
ENG 3650 | Caribbean Literature | 3 |
FRE 3820/3822 | French Afro-Caribbean Literature and Culture (French/English) | 3 |
FRE 3850/3908 | Race and Immigration in France (French/English) | 3 |
FRE 3870/3923 | Urban Culture in Contemporary France (French/English) | 3 |
Religion, Law, and Philosophy
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
PHI 3750 | The Philosophy of Race | 3 |
THE 3245 | Liberation Theology | 3 |
THE 3255 | Race and Religion in the US | 3 |
Political Economy and Economics, Capital, and Accumulation
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
CRES3410 | Racial Capitalism and Political Economy | 3 |
STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (Natural, Health, Clinical Sciences)
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
ANT 2500 | Critical Approaches to Reading and Writing Anthropology | 3 |
SOC 1035 | Science, Technology, and the “Human” | 3 |
CRES 3510 | BIPOC Feminist Science and Technology Studies | 3 |
Education and Social Justice
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
ENG 3420 | Race and the Environment | 3 |
ENG 3760 | Writing as Social Action | 3 |
ENG 3845 | Black Women’s Rhetoric | 3 |
CRES 4999 | Internship/Externship | 3 |
THE 4995 | Integrating Interdisciplinary Social Justice Seminar | 3 |
FRE 3920 | Human Rights in Francophone Africa | 3 |
RCT 2100 | Transnational Feminist Rhetoric | 3 |
Arts, Performance, and the Digital
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
ENG 3560 | American Ethnic Literature | 3 |
ENG 3590 | Hip-Hop Aesthetics | 3 |
ENG 3640 | Vernacular Literature | 3 |
MUS 1210 | American Popular Music in the 20th/21st Centuries | 3 |
MUS 1300 | History of Jazz | 3 |
ART 1830 | Racism in Film | 3 |
Career Outcomes
With an understanding of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, many career paths are open to you, including in education, politics, public health, research, and social work. Graduates often combine their disciplinary training with complimentary interests and skill sets. Top career areas include
- Area, ethnic, and cultural studies teachers, postsecondary
- Social and community service managers
- Social science research assistants
- Social scientists and related workers
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the employment of Social and Community Service Managers will grow 27.6 percent in New York through 2028. In a 2021 market study conducted by Hanover Research, there is an expected 26.8 percent upward trend for area, ethnic, and cultural studies teachers, postsecondary, between 2019 and 2029 in the greater New York area.
St. John’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences provides the opportunity to obtain practical experience and networking connections through valuable internships and externships throughout the New York metropolitan area. Please visit University Career Services for more information.
Global Approach to Education
You benefit from St. John’s University’s focus on an international academic experience. The University offers extensive study abroad courses during the academic year, as well as during the winter and summer semesters. You can live and learn at St. John’s Rome, Italy, campus and at our Paris, France, and Limerick, Ireland, location. For more information, please visit Global Education.
Additional Information
Other facilities include high-tech classrooms, laboratories, and our 1.7 million-volume University Library. Our D’Angelo Center is a five-story, 127,000-square-foot University and student center, with classrooms, lecture halls, and a Starbucks café.
All students take advantage of St. John’s location in dynamic New York City. Our faculty and University Career Services have strong ties to employers and other professional and educational resources throughout the New York area.