Sonoma State University

"If you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else." -Toni Morrison

"My hope emerges from those places of struggle where I witness individuals positively transforming their lives and the world around them." - bell hooks

The interdisciplinary American Multicultural Studies Department is dedicated to providing students with critical thinking and leadership skills that will help them navigate the multicultural and multiracial American landscape. AMCS offers a major and minor in American Multicultural Studies. We also offer a concentration in Africana studies, as well as pathways in comparative ethnic studies; hemispheric studies; critical race, sex, gender, and sexuality studies; literature and the arts; multicultural education; film studies; and Native American studies. Our flexible program allows students to tailor their major requirements to their particular interests.

AMCS graduates

The AMCS degree is versatile, as evidenced by our graduates who are now lawyers, college professors, social workers, educators, student affairs professionals, academic counselors, nonprofit administrators, arts administrators, and social entrepreneurs.

Come explore the AMCS program!

Announcements

Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Kim Hester Williams has published an essay titled "Out of the White (Terror) and into the (Black) Presence: Difference as Monstrous in Stephen King's It, Chapter Two" for the book The Many Lives of Scary Clowns (2022). 
Katherine Lee
Welcome Our New AMCS Faculty:  The department is thrilled to welcome Dr. Katherine H. Lee! Her research focuses on the politics of academic writing in higher education and how these politics impact BIPOC students. Her current research project recovers the overlooked history of writing instruction and writing pedagogy in Ethnic Studies and Asian American Studies programs, looking specifically at how these programs have reconceptualized the work of academic writing. 
Patrick Johnson
Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Patrick Johnson publishes his latest article titled "If It's Cool: Notes on Slow Jams, Black Masculinity, and the Possibilities of Black Pleasure" in Women’s Studies in Communication.
Faculty Spotlight:  AMCS/CALS lecturer and filmmaker Malinalli López has released her latest film Hyena.
Faculty Spotlight: AMCS Professor Mike Ezra is feature as part of the School of A&H Faculty Spotlight, for being featured in the four-part SHOWTIME documentary “The Kings".
Faculty Spotlight: AMCS Assistant Professor Patrick Johnson is feature as part of the School of A&H Faculty Spotlight, for his publishes “It’s a Man Thing Gina”: Watching Gender in Martin” in Culture, Communication & Critique (2021).
Faculty Spotlight: AMCS Professor, Kim Hester Williams,  is feature as part of the School of A&H Faculty Spotlight, for her essay on Jordan Peele's Us is published in the recent issue of Gothic Nature journal.
Journal of Civil and Human Rights at Sonoma State University: Dr. Michael Ezra has been writing and publishing about various aspects of the civil rights movement for years, including Civil Rights Movement: People and Perspectives (2009) and Muhammad Ali: The Making of an Icon (2009) and felt that the growing community of talented scholars focused on the civil rights era, a subset of the broader field of African American Studies, was large enough to support a journal. Read about the creation of the Journal of Civil and Human Rights.

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