At Rice University:
- POLI 325: African American Politics
Race has been a central issue in United States politics since the country’s founding. From debates about the South’s “peculiar institution” to the Civil Rights Movement to contemporary discussions about a post-racial America, political discourse in the United States has often revolved around issues of race. In this course, we will examine the major political issues, struggles, and ideologies of African Americans in order to better understand U.S. Politics. Topics will include early and contemporary African American political thought, racism and segregation, inequality, the politics of the Civil Rights Movement, African American participation in electoral politics, and other contemporary issues. - POLI 480: Seminar on Political Behavior
This course explores the psychological roots of political behavior with a focus on understanding how ordinary citizens navigate the complicated world of politics in the United States. Topics include partisanship, personality and politics, political knowledge, the role of emotions in politics, and voting behavior. - POLI 535: Race, Ethnicity, and U.S. Politcs
This seminar is designed to provide students a broad overview of the subfield of race, ethnicity, and politics (REP) with a particular focus on the United States. Race and ethnicity permeate politics, and any REP course could cover the multitude of topics one might encounter in any American politics graduate course. Because we cannot cover every topic, in this semester we will be covering topics within four themes: (1) identity and ideology, (2) participation and voting, (3) representation, and (4) psychology and racial attitudes. These themes are meant to give students greater depth of knowledge than a full survey of topics might, while still covering the most dominant research areas within REP. - POLI 539: Political Psychology
This seminar is designed to provide students a broad overview of political psychology. In many ways, political psychology is not its own substantive area of research, but is instead an approach to understanding phenomena of both political and psychological interest. In this course, we will survey the theoretical and methodological approaches scholars have used to understand political attitudes, decisions, and behavior of citizens (and, to a lesser extent, elites). Readings for this course will rely on “classics” in the discipline, but will focus primarily on recent and emerging research trends in political psychology. Topics will include framing, priming, and media effects; political cognition and information processing; knowledge and sophistication; attitudes and belief systems; values and political tolerance; political trust; emotions; personality; and biological approaches to studying politics.