Famine and Feasting: Foodways of the Middle East

This class considers Middle East food studies from a transdisciplinary perspective. Contemporary and historical approaches mix to illuminate the region from a novel perspective. Instead of seeing the Middle East’s foodways in isolation, the course takes a global approach to consider the social contexts that make food and make food meaningful. Our analysis moves between fields, factories, markets, kitchens, restaurants, and beyond. Famine will also be seen in a comparative dimension with African and South Asian case studies.

Communism as a Global Ideology

This course focuses on the ideology of communism as a global and cultural movement. Students will first examine its socialist precursors and then study the specific philosophical tenets of communism as described by its original proponents Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. After covering the first communist takeover in Russia, the course will then follow the trajectory of the ideology’s transmission from the Soviet Union to other countries around the world spanning the years of World War II through the end of the Cold War.Specific case studies will include Cuba, North Korea, East Germany, China, Vietnam, and Cambodia.

Contemporary Russia

This interdisciplinary course on contemporary Russian politics and culture will focus on the last 20 years, during which Russia emerged from the difficult transition of the 1990's to become once again a world power. While focused on the Russian Federation, the course will also study many of the other nations that emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the continued tension between Russia’s assertion of a sphere of influence and the expansion of pan-European institutions such as the European Union and NATO. This course also examines the vast cultural and social changes that have affected the Russian people since the fall of communism.

Globalization and East Asia

This course provides an in-depth and multi-disciplinary look at the phenomena, causes, and consequences of globalization. Although most of the course content has a regional focus on East Asia, the theoretical and empirical foundations of many of the issues covered in this course are not strictly constrained to this part of the world and can be easily applied elsewhere. The course starts with a broad historical overview, then turns to the explanations of globalization, and then later discuss the consequences of globalization.

Heroes & Villains: Populism in Latin America

Gain a working knowledge of populism in Latin America (and beyond), from different disciplinary perspectives focusing on two broad questions: who are “populists” and what is “populism.” Explore how debates about what leaders, movements, parties, or governments qualify as “populist” are often driven by different disciplinary and methodological approaches. Develop and apply individual conceptual understanding of “populism” in an independent research paper.

International Trade and Globalization

This course will explore the causes and consequences of international trade and investment as a leading cause of globalization. The course will study international migration through the lens of international trade models. The course will discuss who benefits and who loses and consider potential policy implications. In the last part of the course, the political economy of trade will be introduced in order to understand the motives behind bad trade policy.

Global Health

The course aims to provide a theoretical and substantive understanding of the field of global health from a social science perspective. What makes “global health” a field of study at all and why does it matter? Key topics that will be covered include: communicable disease, non-communicable disease, political economy of development, neoliberalism/developmentalism/colonialism, metrics and counting, social determinants of health, ethics, and globalization.

Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa

Political Ecology (Cross Listed with Geog 360)

This course explores socio-environmental dynamics and the politics of environmental change from an interdisciplinary political ecology perspective. It covers a range of pressing natural resource and environmental issues and provides students with the tools to evaluate them critically. The goal is to demonstrate how environmental problems, decision-making, and the distribution of environmental costs and benefits are inherently political and power-laden."

Interdisciplinary study of the Andes, emphasizing the continuing encounter between European and indigenous civilizations. Topics include theories of social change and identity formation, religious and cultural syncretism, indigenous political and social movements, and the region's socioeconomic development. Taught on campus in preparation for Bolivia component. 

Multiple Sections Available

Multiple Sections Avaliable

Multiple Sections Available