The Major

The STPEC major provides students with the opportunity to develop their own individualized course of study while they acquire a foundation in areas of concern to the STPEC program. Students choose classes to fulfill their upper-level requirements (see below) from a list of classes pulled from the Five Colleges. Transfer students may petition to have courses taken at other institutions accepted for STPEC credit. STPEC also encourages its students to spend one or two semesters studying abroad and, with program approval, to use courses taken abroad to satisfy STPEC requirements.

Students must take three introductory courses before they will be admitted to STPEC’s Core Seminar I: 1) A course in social theory selected from the STPEC recommended course list (we especially recommend our in-house Gen Ed course, STPEC 190A, Introduction to Radical Social Theory); 2) A course in political economy selected from the STPEC recommended course list; 3) STPEC’s first-year seminar, STPEC 101, Introduction to STPEC.

Once admitted, students must complete at least 43 credits within the STPEC Program distributed as follows:

A) Five upper-level courses (15 credits): Includes one course each in modern social theory, political economy, history and politics of women, history and politics of race in the U.S., and the non-Western world, all of which must be selected from the STPEC course list. We strongly recommend that students fulfill at least one upper-level requirement by taking a STPEC Senior Seminar.

B) One upper- or lower-level history course (3 credits).

C) One graded internship (3 credits minimum).

D) Four STPEC seminars (16 credits):

a) The Core Seminar sequence: Two seminars taken consecutively which provide an in-depth interdisciplinary study of social and political theory and its application in particular situations. Enrollment limited to 25 STPEC majors. Both seminars offered every semester.

b) Two senior seminars: Opportunity for students to engage in intensive work in specific areas of interest decided by the professor and students. Recent seminars have addressed such topics as “Law and the American Working Class,” “Race and Urban Political Economy,” “Gandhi’s Critique of Modernity,” “Latino Politics and Identities,” “Global Health Inequalities,” “Social Construction of the Body,” “Economies of the Middle East and North Africa,” “The Political Economy of Race and Class,” “U.S. Women’s Lives,” “Conquest of the Americas,” “American Labor: Theory, Work, and Movements,,” “Reading and Creating Political Autobiography,” “Queer Theories/Social Realities,” and “Sex, Drugs, Rock ‘n’ Roll and Seatbelts: Individual Liberty, Morality, and Politics.”

E) STPEC 393A Writing for Critical Consciousness (3 credits). Fulfills the University’s Junior Year Writing requirement. Offered every semester; enrollment limited to 20 STPEC majors.

F) STPEC’s Integrative Experience (IE) (3 credits): Fulfills the University’s General Education (GenEd) requirement to integrate learning over the career of the student into a senior project. There are two ways to fulfill the IE requirement. One of them is as part of the internship requirement, the other is by taking a class that culminates with an independent project integrating social theory with art, sciences, mathematics or with other disciplines covered under GenEd requirements.

Important: Grades of C or higher must be obtained in all courses required for the STPEC major.

Note: All requirements for completing a degree in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences apply, including the Global Education requirement.

Matriculated students new to the STPEC Program must contact the STPEC office for an initial advising session, complete an application form, and attend an introductory meeting with either the STPEC Program Director or the Associate Director.