BUZZ
Courses choices include ‘Illegal is Not a Noun,’ ‘Arabic Prison Writing,’ and ‘Latinx Environmental Justice’
Columbia University is offering a new minor this fall, “Justice: Theory and Practice,” which is “centered on the concept of justice and what it means to live in a just society.”
Created by the school’s Department of Psychology, the minor is “organized around the guiding question, ‘What does justice look like?'” and “brings together theoretical, empirical, historical, interpretive, and community-engaged approaches to the study of justice.”
It also seeks “to bridge traditional boundaries—between disciplines, between the university and the broader community, between theory and action, between empirical and interpretive approaches, and between those on the margins and those at the center of privilege.”
The Columbia Spectator reports interested students have a pair of “tracks” from which to choose: “Incarceration, Public Safety, and Restorative Justice” and “Justice Perspectives on Contemporary Problems,” with interdisciplinary classes in philosophy, comparative literature, sociology, and urban studies among others.
Courses include:
- “Critical Philosophy of Race”
- “Stigma & Belonging in a Diverse Society”
- “Arabic Prison Writing”
- “Race and the U.S. Carceral System”
- “Latinx Environmental Justice”
- “Literature and Oil”
- “Post-9/11 Immigration Policies”
- “Illegal is Not a Noun”
- “Music, Sound, and Antisemitism”
- “Social Justice: Connecting Academics to Action”
Psychology Professor Geraldine Downey, whose primary research interest is “the study of personal and status based rejection,” said the new minor’s courses will be “interesting” and applicable to the outside community.
Humanities Professor Emerita Jean Howard (pictured), who teaches the course “Prison Literature” (“explores the extensive consequences of imprisonment through writing”), said justice is “a very ancient philosophical question which constantly has to be rethought in the historical conditions where we all live … we hope that students will come out of this minor with a more measured and a complete personal understanding of what justice means.”
Alessia Hu, GS ’28, is a student pursuing the minor. She is interested in several justice-related topics, including disability justice, the power of language, and sustainable ways to use artificial intelligence as a tool for accessibility.
“A lot of why I want to be involved in the minor is because I have all these questions,” Hu said. As an art history major, Hu said the minor allows her to combine her passion for art with social work. …
Jason Bostic, GS ’27, who now works at the Center for Justice, was a participant in Justice Ambassadors and Project Restore Bed-Stuy. He described the minor as perfect, noting that while many of the concepts and literature taught at Columbia can feel theoretical, the minor will be a bridge to the practice of social justice.
“It takes everything that we learn and it makes it applicable to things that people from marginalized communities go through on a day-to-day basis,” Bostic said.
According to its website, the “Justice: Theory and Practice” minor “culminates” with a senior project that can “take multiple forms,” including a “creative or interpretive project that explore[s] how justice is represented, experienced, and contested.”
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