Race and Ethnicity (Minor)

Overview

The Race and Ethnicity minor is offered through Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts.

This page outlines the requirements for the minor in Race and Ethnicity. This interdisciplinary area of study promotes rigorous academic inquiry into the critical role issues pertaining to race and ethnicity have played in academic, artistic, and political discourses in the United States and around the world. The minor draws upon courses that examine the categories of Race and Ethnicity, the ways in which these categories are constructed, and the means by which they operate, are maintained, and are challenged. Courses in Race and Ethnicity explore the multiple intersections of social categories, such as socioeconomic class, gender, sexuality, and national origin.

Curriculum

Race and Ethnicity is an interdisciplinary area of study that draws on courses offered across the university. 

The minor in Race and Ethnicity requires a minimum of 18 credits, distributed as follows:

  • 2 introductory courses (6–8 credits)
  • 3 or 4 electives on a theme, discipline, region, or ethnicity. Of these, at least 1 must be at the advanced level. (12 credits)

Note: Students must receive grades of C or better in all courses taken to fulfill the minor.

Total credits: 18–20

*Race and Ethnicity electives are designated by the director of this minor.

Here is a representative sampling of Race and Ethnicity courses across the university. Courses may change; see the university course catalog for fall 2026 Race and Ethnicity courses that fulfill these requirements.

  • JMUH 1806 A Music of Miles Davis and Gil Evans
  • JPER 4524 A Afro-Cuban Orchestra
  • JPER 4570 A Coltrane Ensemble
  • LANT 3150 AX Migration and the Environment
  • LHIS 2082 A Word and Image in African American History
  • LHIS 2227 A War and Protest in the Black Atlantic
  • LHIS 3090 A The Politics of Xenophobia: From Fascism to Populism
  • LINA 2039 AX Hip-Hop Pedagogy and Practice
  • LLSL 2217 A 19th- and Early-20th-Century American and African American Literature
  • LLSL 3122 A African American Contemporary Literature After 1965
  • LLSL 3416 A Postcolonial Fiction, Migration, Diaspora, and the Transnational
  • LPOL 3038 AX China in Revolution and Reform
  • LREL 2808 A Islam in America
  • LTHR 2912 A Re-interrogating the "School-to-Prison Pipeline" Through Engaged Arts Practices
  • LVIS 2018 A Picturing People: Race, Empire, and Archive
  • NCST 2103 A Contemporary Debates in Race and Ethnicity
  • NFLN 1103 A Exile and Ethnicity in French Film
  • NHUM 2010 A Race, Class, and Education
  • NPSY 3824 A Black Psychology and Mental Health
  • NSOC 3502 A Identity and Social Theory
  • PLAH 2005 A Art and Myth of Mexico
  • PLAH 3026 A Downtown to Bushwick: Artists' Spaces
  • PLAH 4006 A Latin American Artists in New York
  • PLVS 4018 A 20th-Century Popular Culture and American History
  • PSAM 3850 A Advanced Photo Concepts: Race and Representation
  • UENV 2100 A Environmental History, Race, and Natural Resource Management
  • UGLB 3423 A Empire, Capitalism, and the (Re)production of the "Middle East"
  • UGLB 3430 A Rethinking "Africa": From Development to Afrocentrism
  • UGLB 3515 A Politics of Violence: Indigenous Lands and Bodies
  • UURB 3110 A Black Geographies
  • UURB 3545 A Beyond Policing: Abolition and the U.S. Carceral State
  • UURB 4522 A 400 Years of Inequality

Eligibility

Minors are available to undergraduate students across The New School. Please meet with your Student Success advisor to see how a minor will fit in with your overall degree requirements. If you have additional questions about requirements for the Race and Ethnicity minor that cannot be answered by your Student Success advisor, please consult Tara Menon, program director of Race and Ethnicity, at menont@newschool.edu.

General guidelines for declaring a minor are available here. Current students can declare or change a minor by logging in to my.newschool.edu, clicking on the Academics tab, and then clicking on the link to Major/Minor Declarations.

Requirements Worksheets

Track your progress using the program requirement worksheet for the year in which you declared the minor in Race and Ethnicity:

Take the Next Step

Contact your Student Success advisor to discuss how a minor will fit with your degree requirements.

Declare or change a minor on my.newschool.edu in the Academics tab. 

Take The Next Step

Notice of Nondiscriminatory Policy

The New School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.