Ethnicity, Race, and Migration

82–90 Wall Street, 2nd floor, 203.432.5116,
erm@yale.edu
https://erm.yale.edu

Chair
Fatima El-Tayeb

Director of Graduate Studies
Hi'ilei Hobart

Faculty Tarren Andrews (Ethnicity, Race, and Migration), Laura Barraclough (American Studies), Ned Blackhawk (History; American Studies), Chris Cutter (School of Medicine, Child Study Center), Michael Denning (American Studies; English), Fatima El-Tayeb (Ethnicity, Race and Migration; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies), Roderick Ferguson (American Studies; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies), Zareena Grewal (American Studies; Ethnicity Race and Migration), Fadila Habchi (Ethnicity, Race, and Migration), Leigh-Anna Hidalgo (Ethnicity, Race, and Migration), Hiʻilei Hobart (Ethnicity, Race, and Migration), Grace Kao (Sociology), Albert Laguna (American Studies; Ethnicity, Race, and Migration), Ximena López Carillo (Ethnicity, Race, and Migration), Lisa Lowe (American Studies), Mary Lui (American Studies; History), Gana Ndiaye (Ethnicity, Race, and Migration), Stephen Pitti (History; American Studies), Ana Ramos-Zayas (American Studies; Ethnicity, Race, and Migration; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies), Alicia Schmidt Camacho (Ethnicity, Race, and Migration), David Simon (Political Science), Quan Tran (American Studies; Ethnicity, Race, and Migration), Deborah Vargas (Ethnicity, Race, and Migration; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies), Kalindi Vora (Ethnicity, Race and Migration; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies).

GRADUATE CERTIFICATE IN ETHNICITY, RACE, AND MIGRATION

The program of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration (ER&M) provides a framework for interdisciplinary inquiry related to global race formations, indigeneity, human mobility, culture, and politics. The program draws from the long-standing fields of U.S. ethnic and Native studies, postcolonial, and subaltern studies but also represents emergent areas like queer of color critique, comparative diaspora studies, critical Muslim and critical refugee studies, race and media studies, feminist science studies, and the environmental humanities. Our concerns are both historical and of the present, and we work at various scales of analysis: (trans)local, (trans)national, (trans)regional, and global. Our approach departs from nation-centered area studies by crossing geographic and linguistic boundaries. We ask fundamental questions that have long defined the humanities and social sciences, but often from the vantage point of non-state peoples, diasporas, and the minoritized. We value the social and political imaginaries of global subjects and use them to investigate sovereign power, social conflict, labor formations, and cultural production from a critical, integrative approach. We actively support public-facing and socially engaged scholarship and cultural work. 

The certificate is open to doctoral students (currently FAS Ph.D. students) with a research focus related to ethnicity, race, indigeneity, and migration in line with the program’s interdisciplinary and transnational framework. Students are encouraged to apply for the certificate by meeting with the ER&M director of graduate studies (DGS) during their first year. The application form can be found on the program website. 

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS FOR THE GRADUATE CERTIFICATE IN ETHNICITY, RACE, AND MIGRATION

Students who wish to receive the certificate must complete the following coursework, research, and teaching requirements:

1. ER&M 7000: The core seminar in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration (offered every spring term). This seminar provides an in-depth survey of historical and current research and methods in the study of race, ethnicity, indigeneity, and migration within a global and interdisciplinary framework. 

2. Three electives from existing graduate-level courses. The ER&M certificate program draws from graduate courses taught by faculty members with primary or secondary appointments in ER&M. The course list may be found at the ER&M website. Courses offered by faculty without an ER&M affiliation but with relevant content must be approved by the DGS. The same elective courses may count for the student’s home department’s requirements and the ER&M certificate.

3. ER&M 7001, Advanced Practicum in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration: This course is open to students in their third year and beyond. The seminar provides support for designing or writing the dissertation and for other professionalization matters (including publication, pedagogy, and conference presentation). Students choose to complete one of the following within the practicum:
a. A thirty-five page essay based on original research. This paper can develop from an assignment in one of their elective courses. It can take the form of a research paper, dissertation prospectus, draft dissertation chapter, or journal-length article. Students will present their paper to the ER&M community as part of this requirement. 
b. A research project that departs from the format of the traditional academic essay or thesis. This project should be based on original research and may culminate in an annotated syllabus, exhibit, webpage, documentary, or other multimedia project. Students will present their project to the ER&M community as part of this requirement. 

4. Teaching: Students will complete one semester of teaching in ER&M. This can include a teaching fellowship for an ER&M course, or students may apply for the Associates in Teaching program to serve as co-instructor of a seminar with a member of the ER&M faculty. When appropriate, students may elect to complete an Opportunity for Professional Development, offered through the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, in lieu of a standard teaching assignment. Teaching and alternate assignments will be approved by the DGS.

5. Advising: Students are expected to name a member of the ER&M faculty to their doctoral committee. This faculty member will serve as a primary adviser in ER&M at the end of coursework. Students should designate this adviser by the end of their final qualifying exam and prior to presenting the dissertation prospectus.

Courses

ER&M 6606b / ANTH 7818b / SPAN 9718b / WGSS 7718b, Multi-Sited Ethnography: Trans-Atlantic Port Cities in Colombia and Spain  Eda Pepi and Ana Ramos-Zayas

Critical to colonial, imperial, and capitalist expansion, the Atlantic offers a dynamic setting for adapting ethnographic practices to address questions around interconnected oppressions, revolts, and revolutions that are foundational to global modernity. Anchored in a Spanish and a Colombian port city, this course engages trans-Atlantic “worlding” through a multi-sited and historically grounded ethnographic lens. Las Palmas, the earliest mid-Atlantic port and Europe’s first settler colony in Africa, and Cartagena, once the principal gateway connecting Spain and its American empire, illuminate urgent contemporary issues such as climate, displacement, inter-regional subjectivities, and commerce. During a spring recess field experience (March 8–16, 2026), students will immerse themselves for four nights each in Las Palmas and Cartagena, developing critical “tracking” skills that bridge ethnographic practice with cultural theory. Preparation for fieldwork includes an on-campus curriculum, organized around Cartagena and Las Palmas, and sessions with Yale Ethnography Hub faculty, covering different methodologies. As part of this broader programming, the curriculum delves as well into trans-Atlantic migrations from the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa that have transformed port cities, labor and aesthetic practices, class-making racial formations, and global geopolitics. After recess, the course shifts toward independent work, as students synthesize field-collected data and insights into a collaborative multimodal group project and individual ethnographic papers. Instructor Permission: Interested students must apply by November first via the course website. This course does not have a shopping period, but students may withdraw by the university deadlines in April. Prerequisite: Conversational and reading proficiency in Spanish. Readings are in English and Spanish, with assignments accepted in either language.
Th 1:30pm-3:20pm

ER&M 6680b / AMST 7768b / HIST 7500b, Asian American History and Historiography  Mary Lui

This reading and discussion seminar examines Asian American history through a selection of recently published texts and established works that have significantly shaped the field. Major topics include the racial formation of Asian Americans in U.S. culture, politics, and law; U.S. imperialism; U.S. capitalist development and Asian labor migration; and transnational and local ethnic community formations. The class considers both the political and academic roots of the field as well as its evolving relationship to “mainstream” American history.
T 9:25am-11:15am

ER&M 7001a, Advanced Practicum in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration  Fatima El-Tayeb

This course is open to graduate certificate students in their third year and beyond. The seminar provides support for designing or writing the dissertation and for other professionalization matters (including publication, pedagogy, and conference presentation). Students complete an essay of thirty-five pages based on original research. This paper can develop from an assignment in one of their elective courses. It can take the form of a research paper, dissertation prospectus, draft dissertation chapter, or journal-length article. Students present their paper to the ER&M community as part of this requirement. Or, students may choose to complete a research project that departs from the format of the traditional academic essay or thesis. This project should be based on original research and may culminate in an annotated syllabus, exhibit, webpage, documentary, or other multimedia project. Students present their project to the ER&M community as part of this requirement. Prerequisite: admission into graduate certificate program/completion of qualifying exam in home department.
W 1:30pm-3:20pm

ER&M 7100a, Pedagogies in ERM  Ana Ramos-Zayas

Faculty members who have a 2:2 course expectation may develop a pedagogy seminar associated with their undergraduate introductory lecture course if it enrolls at least seventy-two students and has at least three teaching fellows leading discussion sections. The course’s TFs must enroll in the pedagogy seminar; they receive full course credit but not toward their degree requirements. This course intends to properly recognize the additional time required of faculty who offer large lecture classes, especially in the fulfillment of the responsibilities outlined in the start of term memo. Courses with sections require substantive guidance on teaching, including weekly teaching fellow meetings, meetings, section visits, and discussions of course assessment. This course is graded SAT/UNSAT. Two student-teaching fellows are able to submit teaching evaluations of their experience in this pedagogy seminar through the course evaluation process. Prerequisite: TF position in an ER&M undergraduate lecture course with at least seventy-three students.  0 Course cr
HTBA

Further details about the certificate requirements, courses, and the application process can be found at the ER&M Program website, at https://erm.yale.edu.