Syllabus Spotlights – Sawyer Seminar

The course will discuss mid-century Japanese American artists including Isamu Noguchi, Leo Amino, Nori Morimoto, and Ruth Asawa. We will be talking about the histories of US systemic and structural racism and how this has seeped into the art field/art history. We will talk about the internment experience as well as US exceptionalism within art historical narratives at the time. We will also talk about the countering of this within Asian American Art movements/coalition-building.

Drew Ciccolo, American Studies

Introduction to American Studies

Kristyn Scorsone, History

The History of Newark

The History of Newark directly speaks to the Sawyer Seminar series’ examination of the past, present, and future of Newark. Each week we will be thinking through an aspect of Newark’s urbanization and pivotal events in its history. Beginning with Newark’s founding in 1666, we will account for the indigenous Munsee Lunaape peoples. We will then explore Newark’s role in the institution of slavery, immigration and the Great Migration, the impact of urban redevelopment and later forces of gentrification, the Newark uprising of 1967 and the lesser-known Puerto Rican riots of 1974, and the ways in which Newark’s largely Black and Brown LGBTQ+ community have engaged in grassroots mobilizations and community-building in the face of government neglect and societal oppression. Throughout the semester, we will think about how the city has been shaped by various communities that have made Newark their home and have challenged systemic issues at the intersections of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and transphobia.

Diane Wong, Political Science