Marci Littlefield
Associate Professor
Social Sciences, Human Services and Criminal Justice
EMAIL: mlittlefield@bmcc.cuny.edu
Office: S-633F
Office Hours:
Phone: +1 (212) 220-8343
Marci Bounds Littlefield is an Assistant Professor in Sociology and Ethnic Studies at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY. She received a Master in Public Affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson Graduate School of Public Affairs and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin.
Professor Littlefield’s areas of specialization include race and ethnicity, gender and family. She has presented her work at national conferences and published widely on topics including black women in the media and their roles as mothers; gender and racial groups as a source of support for individuals affected by domestic violence, and the role of the African American church in community and economic development.
Expertise
Race and Ethnicity
Degrees
- M.P.A. Lyndon B. Johnson Graduate School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin, Public Affairs,
- B.A. Oberlin College, Government and African American Studies,
- Ph.D. University of Texas, Austin, Sociology,2003
Courses Taught
- This course surveys the long history of cross-racial and inter-ethnic interactions among immigrants, migrants, people of color and working people in the United States and the wider world from the era of mercantile capitalism in the sixteenth century to the present. By making inroads into the dynamic worlds that indigenous people, people of African and Latin American descent, European Americans, and Asian Americans made and remade, the course aims to reach across borders of all kinds, including national boundaries, to cultivate global, transnational and comparative perspectives on race and ethnicity. In particular, it places emphasis on relationships and conflicts between these diverse groups, especially how they were treated and defined in relation to each other. Broadly, this course is concerned with how these groups struggle to stake out their place in a highly unequal world.
- The changing status of women in African traditional societies is compared with changes in the status of Black women in the United States, the Caribbean, and Brazil.
- This course studies the social world and how it has evolved over time, as well as how individuals are influenced and structured by social interactions in small groups and by larger social forces. The course covers major sociological theories and research methods, and key concepts such as culture, socialization, social class, race/ethnicity, gender, technology, social inequality, and social change.
- This course examines the basic functions of the family in contemporary society. The social processes involved in courtship, marriage, parenthood, alternative family models, the roles of family members, and the relationship between the various models and the community will be examined. Prerequisite: SOC 100 or ANT 100
Research and Projects
- Currently, Professor Littlefield is using visual culture in her teaching. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities in teaching and research, and has been selected to participate in several projects to engage in innovative and collaborative teaching practices with the Department of Education, New York University Faculty Resource Program in Athens, Greece.”My research agenda focuses on a number of areas of inequality and stratification” says Professor Littlefield. “I am concerned with how African Americans experience and mobilize to resist the various forms of racial oppression they endure, with a focus on the critical roles of the family, gender and church. My publications address these issues in regard to the gender-conditioned unique strengths and vulnerabilities of black women in the family, in the media and as mothers.”
Her second area of scholarly interest is “the unique role of the black church as an unsung but effective base of resistance to oppression,” says Professor Littlefield. “My current project looks at the role of visual culture in the 19th century, in legitimizing sexual violence against black women.”
Publications
- a??The African American church as an Enclave and Ethnic Resource: The Role of the Church in Economic Developmenta??, Chapter 19 pp.271-284 Earl Wright II and Edward V. Wallace (eds.),Routledge
- The Role of Resilience and Anti-Resilience Behaviors in the Romantic Lives of Black Same Gender Loving (SGI) Men, with Sheldon Applewhite ,Journal of Black Sexuality and Relationships Volume 2, Number 2, Fall 2015 pp. 1-38
- A Community Conversation on Adolescent Pregnancy and Parenting Services: Networks of Support, Gatekeepers to Care, and Non-Compulsory Fathering in a Black Urban Community, Tamara G.J. Leech, Elizabeth A. Adams and Marci Bounds Littlefield ,Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice. Vol.7 Issue 4
- The Media as a System of Racialization; Images of Black Women and the New Racism,American Behavioral Scientist
- Social Support and Resilience in the Aftermath of Sexual Assault: Suggestions across Life-Course, Gender and Racial Groups, with Tamara G.J. Leech,. ,Surviving Sexual Violence: A Guide to Recovery and Empowerment, Rowman & Littlefield
- Social Services, Faith-Based Organizations, and the Poor,Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly
- Black Women, Mothering and Protest in 19th Century American Society,Journal of Pan African Studies, Special Issue Africana Mothering: Shifting Roles and Emerging Contradictions
- Religion and Economic Behavior; Activities of Faith Based Organizations in Indiana,University of Michigan National Poverty Center Conference Book, The Impact of Religion and Faith Based Organizations on the lives of low income Families
- The Black Church and Community Development and Self Help: the Next Phase of Social Equality,Western Journal of Black Studies
