"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.
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!
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Learn more and give on April 4, 2024 at givingday.sonoma.edu.
Sonoma State's Giving Day is back on Thursday, April 4, 2024. For 24 hours, our entire community will come together to transform the future of Sonoma State. The American Multicultural Department is thrilled to be part of Giving Day!
Alumni, donors, parents, faculty, staff, students, and community members can participate in the celebration and festivities. Donations of all sizes have a huge impact and help support student life initiatives, academic programs, athletics, student scholarships, enhancing research, and so much more!
Support the American Multicultural Department!
Your support will help Support Professional Development Activities for American Multicultural Studies Faculty!
Donate here!
Learn more and give on April 4, 2024 at givingday.sonoma.edu.
Patrick Johnson, Assistant Professor in American Multicultural Studies, kicked off Black History month by speaking at SSU's the HUB and was featured in the Press Democrat.
The theme of this year's celebrations is "Black Art: For Us By Us". Johnson spoke of the importance for Black students to allow themselves to enjoy Black art, and not to worry about how others perceive them and their enjoyment of that art.
Johnson was also the keynote speaker at the 7th Annual Black History Month Celebration at Crosswalk Community Church in Napa.
Check out all of the events happening on campus for Black History Month.
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).
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.
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.
In 2019, American Multicultural Studies celebrated their 50th anniversary. Read more about our history!
AMCS/CALS lecturer and filmmaker Malinalli López has released her latest film Hyena.
Dr. Kim Hester Williams publishes her newest poem "Losing Count: A Re-Collection, by Numbers" in The Goose, A Journal of Arts, Environment, And Culture in Canada. Vol 19 (2021).
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".