Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. (Matthew 5:9 KJV)

This course considers the intersection of place, history, culture, infrastructures, laws, and human geography and settlement. To gain an understanding of peace, violence, and conflict, along with resolutions for the latter, the course takes as in-depth a look as we can into how history, laws, institutions, and social interactions, and infrastructures situate places, peoples, and nations along the peace continuum. We interrogate the embodiment of peace, violence, and conflict and how this matters in the discourse and study of peace globally.

(“Picture: “The Gathering” by Eurnice Harris (c) 2018 - GoodVictory Art Studio Used with permission.)

“The field was the place to witness his cruelty and profanity. His presence made it both the field of blood and of blasphemy” (Frederick Douglass 1845)

This course, through a lens of dignity and respect, focuses on the systemic forces of racism and social problems, with an awareness of individual agency, care for the individual, and community wellness. We discuss ideas that can produce and sustain social equity, social promise, and spaces where justice, dignity, and hope can flourish.

[I created and designed this course]

(Picture: (c) 2022. Art with pen ‘Frederick Douglass” by Eurnice Harris, GoodVictory Art Studio. Used with permission)

“The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land.”
― W.E.B. DuBois ( 1903:4)

This is an interdisciplinary course designed to explore race at the intersection of space and human geography. This course considers the intersection of race, public history, culture, infrastructures, laws, and human geography and settlement. To gain an understanding of migration and residential patterns across racial groups, we take as in-depth a look as we can into how history, laws, institutions, and social interactions construct the racialization of space and the spatialization of race (Lipsitz 2007). Specifically, the course provides an overview of how race is both mobilized and stabilized across spaces, places and systems. Consequently, this course will interrogate the spatial organization of race and how race and racism are mobilized in particular ways across America.

[I created and designed this course]

Picture: “Prayer Changes Things” (c) 2017 by Eurnice Harris. GoodVictory Art Studio. Used with permission).

“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” - Ida B. Wells

In a nation of plenty, we find extremes of both dearth and abundance. This course employs a critical lens to examine the production, reproduction, and persistence of various inequalities. Throughout this course we examine how social disparities are experienced, assigned, perpetuated, interpreted, embodied, and reproduced. Part of our journey involves studying social conditions in America and how both affluence and poverty fit into the ‘social problems’ matrix.

(c) 2020, Purifoye. Picture: Homeless tent enclave, Washington, D.C.

“The size, situation, and economic conditions of cities today are linked to their origins, their relationship to regional neighborhoods, and their place in a continuously refocusing of national and international economy” – William Flanagan, 2010

This course provides a broad overview of the field of urban sociology, which includes public history, human geography and settlement, city cultures, the political economy, transportation, and urban architecture and development. Course readings and field assignments are designed to help familiarize students with places and spaces through a sociological lens.

(c) 2020, Purifoye. Picture: Caribbean Community Rally for Black Lives Matter, Washington, D.C.

“The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land.”
― W.E.B. DuBois

This course is taught from a socio-historical perspective and examines how people of color and ethnic minorities have been located and relocated through migration patterns. We also examine how the construction of race and racial imaginaries have shaped settlement patterns, criminal injustices, and social isolation and conflicts for Indigenous peoples, Aboriginals, Blacks and African Americans, Mexicans & Hispanic/Latinx groups, and Asian Americans.

(c) 2021, Purifoye. Picture: CPD & pedestrian exchange, Lollapalooza 2021.

“The power of a free mind consists of trusting your own mind to ask the questions that need to be asked and your own capacity to figure out the strategies you need to get those questions answered.”
- Patricia Hill Collins

This course is designed to provide students with an overview of classical, contemporary, and modern social theories. Students engage major theoretical works while also engaging in reflection exercises, critical interpretations, and investigative inquiries. Throughout the term we work with two goals in mind: a) to understand the author’s thesis, and b) to apply the various theories to better understand and discuss current issues and events in our society.

(c) 2021, Purifoye. Picture: Lollapalooza 2021, VIP entrance.