Courses

This one-credit course is designed to provide students selected for the Student Orientation Leader (SOL) Program with keys to effective leadership. While the emphasis is on experiential learning, students also examine in an academic context various leadership styles, learning to identify and/or develop their own. The course will emphasize ethical leadership, personal responsibility, and community service. While taking this course, students will be engaged in various on-campus orientation activities, including trust building, goal setting, time management, team building, communication, and group process, that utilize their leadership role as an SOL. The course includes journal writing, readings, and group presentations. This course is not required but is open to students who qualify.

Introduction to the basic structure and function of the modern Japanese language, covering the basic sound system, grammatical constructions, writing system, and basic vocabulary/expressions. Important cultural aspects of the language are discussed as well.

Every field of inquiry that deals with data uses methods of descriptive statistics to summarize and describe their data.  Every field of inquiry that deals with data seeks to draw inference beyond the available data.  This course introduces widely-used methods of descriptive statistics and methods of statistical inference through the lens of applied mathematics.  This course is not recommended to students who have taken and passed BIO 205.

Continuing development of the fundamental aspects of the modern Japanese language as in JPN 101 with more Kanji characters and grammatical constructions.

This course is a survey of East Asian history from the earliest time to the present. The course is restricted to those aspects of East Asian history that enable us to understand the complexities and diversities in the historical experience of three East Asian countries: China, Japan, and Korea. This course concentrates on how three East Asian societies have achieved their own economic, political, social, and cultural developments, sometimes by way of mutual inspiration, influence or actual interaction with each other, and, later, with a broader world.

Computer science is the study of problem-solving strategies called algorithms.  In this course, students will develop the essential skills of programming, examine select algorithms and data structures, and learn the broad strokes of the theory of computing, which includes formal languages, Turing machines, and the notions of universality, computability, and intractability regarding computational problems. 

This course is a detailed and systematic exploration of East Asia. The course helps students to appreciate rich histories, diverse societies, and their intricate connections in the East Asian region, particularly China, Japan, and North and South Korea. It examines areas of security, politics, society, culture, identity, and economy that pertain to the East Asian countries nationally and regionally. Students will reflect on legacies of imperialism and colonialism from the past, challenges of nationalism and authoritarianism at present, as well as post-war efforts in economic and trade liberalization, democratization, anti-democratization, and modernization. This course serves as a gateway into other courses on Asian studies at SUA.

This is an exploration and celebration of Latin America, the richly diverse and fascinating area of the world that includes Mesoamerica, South America and the Caribbean. We will use multiple perspectives that focus on race, gender, and class to understand the experiences and processes that have shaped the region. Students will reflect on identity, revolutions, social movements, nation-state formation, and modernization based on analysis of primary sources within cinema, music, literature, and historical documents along with many rich secondary sources. This class is a gateway into the study of Latin America at SUA and fulfills an enrollment prerequisite for several other courses. It is also highly recommended for students interested in traveling to Latin America for study abroad.

What is Europe, and what does it mean to be “European”? A region within the Eurasian continent, Europe has uncertain edges. It is home to considerable diversity, with subregions such as Western Europe, Iberia, the Mediterranean, Scandinavia, the Baltics, the Balkans, and more. Europe has seen considerable out-migration, especially to the Americas, as well as growing in-migration, especially from Africa and the Middle East. This course provides an interdisciplinary look at the meaning of Europe and the emergence of a common European identity, especially through the European Union. Historically, we begin in Rome and Christendom, through the Enlightenment and colonialism, as well as the World Wars and Cold War through today. Thematically, we explore migration, religion, race, and nationalism, with particular attention to minority identities and the roles of institutions in shaping emergent European identities.

This is an introduction to literary genres and to the art of critical reading. The course will survey important examples of lyric poetry, short narratives, essays, novels, and drama. The main objective is to help students gain confidence and insight as they read difficult literary masterpieces, such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as well as help in grappling with the intense poetic strategies of poets such as John Keats and W. B. Yeats. The course will survey a variety of critical approaches to literary texts and it will also focus on the student’s growth as a critical writer. Lit 140 serves as a prerequisite for higher courses in literature.

INTS 150, An Introduction to Southeast Asian Studies, provides a multidisciplinary glimpse into one of the most diverse regions of the world.  No other region features the range of faiths, cultures, languages, economic development, and regime types found in Southeast Asia.

The course begins with a week of introduction and overview, then moves into a week of history before introducing the countries of Southeast Asia: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, and the Philippines.  This section ends with a look at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and a midterm.  Having laid some foundations, we then move on to discuss themes that cut across the region.  I see this as a sampler of different scholarly fields: Diaspora and Asian American studies, economic development, political science, conflict and peace studies, gender studies, urban studies, indigenous studies, and then a look at music and film.  Finally, students will vote on the last substantive class of the semester.

The primary objective of this course is to stimulate your interest in the region.  If it totally satisfies your interest in Southeast Asia, I have failed.  The course should make you want to visit the region and study it in greater detail (Learning Clusters?).  Other learning objectives include developing an appreciation of the region’s diverse cultures (they are living cultures and are not ‘exotic’), a nuanced understanding of colonialism and its legacies, and a clearer picture of some of the many barriers to development.

This introductory course offers a rigorous initiation to the “close reading” of literary texts and critical essays as well as to in depth interpretive activity. While it serves as a prerequisite for advanced courses in literature and humanities, it serves no less as preparation for critical reading in all intellectual disciplines in which difficult texts, complex writing and both research and scholarly rigor are in play. Lit 155 serves as a prerequisite for higher courses in literature.

This course provides students with an introduction to the modern Middle East and North Africa (MENA). We use the conventional definition of the MENA which includes most of the Arab speaking world, Turkey, and Iran. It offers students a thematic exploration of the modern history, cultures, languages, religions, ethnic groups, and politics of the MENA. The purpose of this course is to familiarize students with a region that, despite its significance in current events, continues to be misunderstood and stigmatized. The course aims to break commonly held stereotypes about the region, including the status of women, modernity, and religion.

(required for first and second year students, optional for third year students.)

Aims at further developing students’ Japanese language proficiency in the six aspects of listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar, and cultural understanding.

Continuation of JPN 201 while further enhancing students’ proficiency level in listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar, and cultural understanding. Necessary linguistic, cultural, and mental preparations for Study Abroad studies are included.

This course explores powerful and complex major work from the remarkable period of North American literary maturity, an era often called the “American Renaissance:” Melville’s Moby Dick; Twain’s Huckleberry Finn; Whitman’s Leaves of Grass; Emerson’s Essays; Henry Adams’ Education; Thoreau’s Walden; and Emily Dickinson’s elegant poetry, and other texts.

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the major themes and concepts of international human rights. Ideas supportive of contemporary international human rights norms can be found in a number of religious and philosophical traditions. This course exposes students to those traditions as well as to the development of movements that aspire to enshrine a growing list of rights into legal, social and political institutions and practices.

This course examines major texts of literature in North America’s 20th century cultural upheaval: the poetry of William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens; novels by Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner and Joseph Heller; dramatic texts by Eugene O’Neil alongside studies in the relationship between art and the rise of cinema with its competing but often derivative narrative and imagistic techniques.

This class begins when the Spanish colonies were much richer and more powerful than the British or Portuguese. Considering American ascendancy after independence, students will explore the reasons for uneven hemispheric development in institutions, governance, and patterns of colonialism. Students will look closely at the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the US often pursued its interests at the expense of its southern neighbors. Case studies of overt and covert operations include Mexico (1848), Nicaragua (1856), Cuba (1898), Guatemala (1956), Chile (1973), and Panama (1989). Despite the fact that the United States has also supplied billions of dollars in humanitarian aid to the region and remains its largest trading partner and important ally, Latin Americans retain a highly ambivalent attitude toward its northern neighbor. Many are attracted to American popular culture and goods, but are deeply distrustful of American political intent and economic power. Students who have completed Introduction to International Relations are encouraged to enroll.

This course will survey the major works, genres, and themes of Chinese and Japanese pre-modern literature, focusing on literature of the Tang/Song dynasties and the Nara/Heian eras (c. 700-1200 AD). Students will study the works of individual poets and essayists, their contributions to the classic anthologies, and excerpts from the major novels and prose narratives of the premodern age. The course will also examine foundational critical theories within Asian literature, such as the genesis of poetry, the relationship between images and ideographic meaning, and the roles of fiction and diaries within society.

This course will survey the principal works, authors, and themes of Chinese and Japanese medieval literature, focusing on literature of the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties and the Kamakura, Muromachi and Edo eras (~1100-1800CE.)The course will look at the three dominant genres of poetic anthology, personal narrative and staged drama, with particular attention paid to the conflicts between elegance and earthiness, worldliness and reclusiveness, and the changing perspectives towards gender and personal identity.

Students taking this course will read and discuss texts from various Asian countries but will focus primarily on works from China and Japan. The literature dealt with in class will be drawn from various periods, nations, and genres in the 19th and 20th centuries.

This course explores various aspects of the literatures that have developed in Latin America. The works read in class may be drawn from indigenous sources as well as from the Spanish and Portuguese traditions. All works are read in translation.

This course is a historical and cross-cultural examination of women’s issues. The approach is multidisciplinary and draws on the humanities, social sciences, life/physical sciences, and other fields of study. The course is based on research that views women from their own perspectives rather than from the points of view of what men have traditionally studied, claimed, or written about women. The course examines historical and intellectual roots in worldwide movements for social change and equality. The course also offers a holistic approach to the study of fundamental issues of sex and gender-how they have been reflected in culture and history, how they shape social, political, economic and institutional organization as well as personal experience and perception, and how they interact with issues of race, ethnicity, and class, among others.

This course is a historical survey of East Asian-American relations from around 1800 to the present, with special emphasis on the origins and changes of American thinking about three East Asian countries: China, Japan, and Korea. It also examines American interests in East Asia.

The essay is everywhere: a newspaper, a YouTube Channel and a college app. Invented by Montaigne in the Early Modern Europe, the essay has risen to be a dominant cultural form. What did Montaigne want the essay to be? Has the essay become a victim of its success? We will consider four epochs in the history of the essay: Antiquity (Plutarch and Marcus Aurelius); Renaissance and Early Modern (Montaigne and Thomas Browne); Romanticism (Rousseau and Hazlitt); and Contemporary (Joseph Brodsky, Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes, James Baldwin, Zadie Smith, etc.) The class culminates in the examination of the cross-media forms of the essay (photo-essays of Lee Friedlander, essay films of Orson Wells and Chris Marker, and online video-essays).

From Heraclitus on, the concept of nature has proven to be unique in its ability to expand imagination, stimulate thought, and articulate disagreement. This class will place major texts in the traditions of natural philosophy, pastoral, and cultural critique alongside contemporary interventions, including arguments for the ecology without nature. Our goal is to rethink nature in response to the technological mastery of all life made possible by the advancement of science. The texts to be studied include Aristotle, Pliny the Elder, Lucretius, Virgil, Rousseau, Diderot, Thoreau, Darwin, Dennett and Will Self. 

This course briefly reviews the complex history, politics, economics, and international relations of West Asia, aka the Middle East. The term “Middle East” was probably first coined by Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan in his 1890 book, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783. Because of its strategic significance, the term has found currency. But it is alien to the heterogeneous peoples and cultures of the region. The region’s unique historical circumstances (ecological, religious, and oil) have given it the appearance of a culture-area.

This class examines the styles of comedy from Aristophanes to Samuel Beckett and contemporary stand-up. We begin by clarifying distinctions fundamental to comic representation of action (such as invective, humor, grotesque, wit mock, irony, sarcasm, deadpan, etc.) Then we undertake a journey through different worlds of comedy (the comedy of errors, satire, grotesque, nonsense, and black humor). Throughout our readings, we will consider the following alternatives: Does comedy subvert or reinforce existing social norms? Does it unmask or justify inequality? Is laughter a servant of hegemony or an agent of emancipation? In each of our readings, we will work to identify the potential of comedy to sketch sociological commentary, supply models of selfhood and offer incentive to political action. Primary texts will be supplemented by reading in the theory of comedy (Hegel, Baudelaire, Bergson, Freud).

This course is a survey of Modern China from around 1600 to the present. The course helps students to understand the origins, processes, and outcomes of the revolution in 20th century China. The course analyzes the complex and contradictory process of revolution, including the Communist Revolution and the many other revolutions that have transformed Chinese society and politics.

This course provides a survey of China’s economic development under the centrally planned socialist system since 1949, and the on-going economic reform since 1978. China’s role in regional economic growth and its economic relationship with the world economy will also be addressed.

This course provides students with a foundation in empirical research both quantitative and qualitative, with the objective of equipping students with the tools to carry out their own original research in all of the fields that comprise International Studies including but not limited to political science, area studies, international relations, history, anthropology, international political economy, sociology, history, and law.

Our course is organized around the major stages of the research process including choosing a topic, developing a research question, conducting a literature review, constructing a thesis or hypothesis, and finally supporting a thesis or testing a hypothesis through different qualitative and quantitative research design strategies.

By the end of the course, students will feel confident to carry out their own original research projects in various fields. Through the process of learning how to carry out research, students will develop their logical thinking skills such as reasoning, analytical thinking, and problem solving which are fundamental skills for future careers and graduate school.

This course examines the emergence of the Third World in modern history, the response to and reformulation of the question of modernity among Third World peoples and intellectuals, and the formation of modern global relation, beginning around 1450 to the present, in which Euro-Americans played a central part. This course also explores recent changes in the status and the meaning of the Third World and lays out numerous historical problems that still remain in this increasingly globalizing and interactive world.

This course introduces students to the ancient literatures of Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome, primarily poetry and drama, from Gilgamesh through Virgil. The course is designed to give students a broad understanding of the major literary works of this period and their historical significance.

Shakespeare is the greatest dramatist of all times. Most recently the sixteenth-century bard has been a great scriptwriter for Kenneth Branagh and Hollywood. This course focuses on a close reading of selected tragedies and comedies. Attention will be paid to the specificity of the English language of the period in order to facilitate reading. Due attention will also be paid to action, character as well as to the heft and swing of the meter and rhyme. The goal of the course is to help students understand the reasons for Shakespeare’s unparalleled success by locating the remarkable achievement of his literary career in the context of the theatrical, literary, social, and political world in which he worked.

This class begins with a question: What do the two largest and, arguably, most powerful nations in Latin America have in common? Brazil and Mexico are postcolonial societies of fallen Iberian empires. They are also regionally commanding, exceedingly diverse, devoutly Catholic, socially unequal and traditionally exploitative of their poor and weak (especially the indigenous peoples of Mexico or descendants of African slaves of Brazil). These countries also attract thousands of foreign visitors who marvel at their natural beauty and celebrate their rich multicultural traditions. Through history, politics, culture and current events, this class will compare and contrast these two diverse nations. Text, film, music and images will be used in a classroom environment that stresses multiple pedagogical styles. This class may be of special interest to students who wish to study abroad in Latin America.

This course offers students the opportunity to study the work and processes of the United Nations system. The goal of this course is to build on previous knowledge in pursuing a more advanced understanding of what, how and why the United Nations system does what it does. Special focus is given to the work of the United Nations in the areas of: International Peace and Security, Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, and Development. 

This course examines recent trends in literature and/or criticism across cultures from a comparative point of view. The primary emphasis is on examining the way in which both literary texts and critical methods respond to changing points of view about the individual, culture, and history. The works examined in this class changes from year to year, but normally includes major works of drama and fiction.

What is democracy? Who benefits from it? Is democracy better suited to some peoples than to others? What causes democracy – does it come from within a country or is it caused by international factors? (Why) is democracy desirable? This course addresses these and other questions in a comparative context, looking at established democracies, emerging democracies, and recalcitrant authoritarian regimes from around the world. Students are expected to leave the course with a critical, nuanced view of democracy, an appreciation of various electoral systems, and in-depth knowledge of both a democratic and nondemocratic country of their choice. 

This course is geared primarily for students who have completed JPN 202 and are preparing to study abroad in the following semester. Focuses on developing listening and speaking skills for conversations in various situations where the appropriate use of grammatical constructions and knowledge of language functions/sociolinguistics are required.

This course provides an overview of the major issues in international and intra-state conflict resolution, transformation and peace building. Using case studies and simulations, students will examine the causes of violent conflict, the conditions for peace and the ways in which negotiation, mediation and peace building strategies can facilitate the transformation from violent political conflict to sustainable peace.

Aims at further developing listening and speaking skills while learning more advanced language functions and sociolinguistics.

Intends to develop reading and writing skills while strengthening the mastery of vocabulary, expressions, Kanji characters, and grammar. Main reading materials are short essay and expository readings. Writing activities include message, letter, and journal writing.

Aims at achieving more advanced-level reading and writing skills. Main reading materials are extended discourse of expository, journalistic, and literary readings. Writing focuses on expository and essay writing.

This course is about the way that Latin American immigration to the US, and often their return back to Latin America, affects the communities, families, racial identities, and even sex lives of both immigrants and the people they leave behind. The course will draw on readings primarily from Anthropologists and Sociologists who see immigration, not as a linear process of arrival and eventual integration, but as a transnational process of the movement of people, money, culture, and politics back and forth across borders in complex ways that affect both the US and Latin America. Thus, while the course will cover the overall historical trends of Latino immigration to the US, changing demographics, the effects of US immigration laws on immigrants and their families, and the overall economic and political trends in Latin America that explain why people migrate, the real focus of the course is on the effects of these overall trends on communities and families in both the US and Latin America as illustrated through ethnographically rich case studies based on participant observation with migrants, return migrants, and members of the sending communities.

Many scholars have argued that the whole idea of Asia is an invention, since geographically speaking the separation of Asia from “Europe” (or West, in a strict sense) makes little sense. This is the point of departure for this course, which will examine constructions and representations of East (Asia) and West, as ideas, in significant scholarly and literary works, and films, both Euro-American and Asian. The course examines each work in its relationship to its historical circumstances in order to convey a sense of changes historically in such constructions and representations.

This course will examine the life, work and influence of Murasaki Shikibu, author of the Tale of Genji (c. 1005-1015 CE), taking into consideration the intellectual and aesthetic heritage of the Heian era as a whole. Students will also investigate the arts and culture of her age, her concept of Yamato-damashii, or “essential Japanness,” and her vision of the role of the author within the “floating world” of human actions.

Home to over half the world’s population, the 24 countries of South, Southeast, and East Asia present diverse political worlds. This course is intended to provide students with a detailed understanding of the diverse political systems and issues in (and between) Asian countries. It examines colonial legacies, struggles for democracy, the challenges of military and populist rule, ethnic politics, development, armed resistance, regional cooperation, and more. Students are expected to develop deeper knowledge of and appreciation for politics in Asian countries. Far from being a story of top-down power politics, students will also learn about grassroots struggles and forms of resistance. Above all, this course emphasizes diverse political contexts across Asia’s political landscapes.

This class examines the evolution and disintegration of literary dissent in the twentieth-century Europe. We begin by surveying the three forces responsible for the emergence of dissent: the ideology of communism; totalitarianism as the governmental form; and socialist realism as the literary canon. The conceptual backbone of the class is the contrast between individual acts of dissent and the dissident movement. While the individual acts of dissent proceed from rejection or disagreement with the regime, the dissident movement was born out of seduction and subsequent disillusionment in the very idea of the communist state. In the final segment of the class, the students will inquire into the legacy of dissident thought through class presentation and discussion. Readings include texts by H. Arendt, K. Marx, F. Furet, C. Lefort, M. Bulgakov, A. Platonov, Abram Tertz-A. Syniavsky, Solzhenitsyn, Milosz, Havel and others. We will also study films by Alexander Medvedkin, Chris Marker, and Sergei Eisenstein.

This course investigates the economic performance and development of the economies of Pacific Asia; covering Japan, Asian NIEs (Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore), ASEAN-4 (Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines), China and Vietnam. Through this class, students will gain factual knowledge on the economic characteristics of and policies on these economies’ structural change, economic growth, and development; and the economic relationship among these economies as well as between this region and the world economy in the era of globalization. The emphasis of this course is on the application of proper economic analytical tools to examine the effectiveness of various development strategies and policies on each economy’s development process. The applicability of the development experiences of these economies to other developing countries will also be briefly discussed.

How does equitable growth occur, especially in a region where sustained growth and equality have long been elusive goals? In the last two decades, millions of Latin Americans have risen out of dire poverty, much of the region has democratized, and Latin American commodities have expanded into vast new markets, such as China. Nonetheless, poverty and inequality in the region (and its violent effects) remain pervasive and nearly intractable problems. Besides poverty and inequality, other course themes include liberalism, neoliberalism, structuralism, institutions and norms, civil society, foreign investment, globalization, and regional integration. The imposition of policies and “structural adjustment” by outsiders will be considered, as is the capacity of this region to generate new political and economic paradigms or policies, such as dependency theory and conditional cash transfers. Since “development” is a particular kind of utopia, cultural studies and anthropology are not excluded, but most material comes from economics and political science.

Central America is often known as a region of rich cultural heritage but also a legacy of vast inequalities and forms of violent repression and rebellion. The purpose of this course is to understand the cultural, political, and economic factors that have led to this particular situation. We begin by looking at the process of conquest and colonization in shaping new societies and social structures, then explore the socio-economic processes that set the stage for many of the conflicts and problems that Central America faces today, and finally we explore the current situation in Central America as it relates to changing ideas about gender and the role of women, racism and race mixing, immigration and exile, and forms of violence caused by over 30 years of civil war and economic upheaval. 

This course introduces historical complexities and issues, and various constraints that have shaped the lives and struggles of East Asian women from the “pre-modern period” to the present, in their dealings with the questions of their own culture and, later, modernity. Literary works and films will be widely used. 

This course examines historical issues and problems of family, women and revolution in modern Chinese history through their representations in literature and films, both Chinese and foreign, with the emphasis on the analysis of the Chinese revolution through family and women narratives. The course considers literature and film in their relation to historical circumstances. Film and literature have been selected to cover a multiplicity and complexity of class, ethnic, gender, generational, and regional perspectives.

This course is intended as an advanced survey of the People’s Republic of China from its beginnings in 1949 to the present. The survey will cover internal developments in Chinese socialism and its global context as well as developments in Chinese society and culture since 1949.

This course introduces students to the basic histories, social structures, cultures, and current issues facing indigenous peoples in Central and South America. It explores how indigenous communities and identities have been formed, from the conquest and through today, examining a range of processes and events, such as colonialism, integration into the global economy, racism and racial hierarchies, civil wars, indigenous social movements, and migration and exile. It also examines the responses of indigenous peoples to these processes and events, looking specifically at topics such as retreat, revolution, and political activism. The goal of the course is to understand indigenous peoples as products of complex processes through which communities, identities and inequalities are produced, not as social isolates. 

In the 21st century the novel continues to thrive as a literary genre nourished by a long and rich history with sustained cross-cultural significance. What factors contribute to the resilience of this literary form? How has the novel become synonymous with modernity itself? What, if any inter-textual dialogue among writers and books may be discerned? This course examines the phenomenon of the novel by evoking these trajectories: its emergence, its ongoing diversification and its global dispersion and reinventions. From year to year the course will stress readings drawn from Anglo-American, European, Post-Colonial and/or Asian spheres. Traditional categories (realism, modernism, postmodernism will be supplemented by local variations and re-orientions Alongside such authors as Dickens, Sterne, Austen, Stendhal, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Conrad, Joyce, Nabokov, Beckett, Pynchon, Cormac McCarthy, Natsume Soseki, Mo Yan, and others, theoretical texts will frame the novel’s significance in the context of cultural production and the formation as well as erosion of historical consciousness: George Lukacs, Bakhtin, Auerbach, Ian Watt, Raymond Williams, Edward Said, Fredric Jameson, Eto Jun et al.

This is a multidisciplinary course designed to generate a critical and comparative understanding of both the history and contemporary state of Asian America. Particular emphasis is placed upon issues of globalization, labor and refugee migrations, racial discrimination and nativism in U.S. society, and Asian American challenges to structural forms of exclusion.

The purpose of this course is to explore through literary, historical, and political documents the unique way in which French intellectuals were affected by, reacted to, and in some instances voiced their outrage about colonialism and to examine the role some French intellectuals played in the resolution of these conflicts.

This course is designed to provide an understanding of key contemporary social and cultural issues as expressed in popular culture (mainly film, but also including television and the print media) in the Asia Pacific Region. We will also consider representations of Asia and Asians in mainstream and independent films. The course explores different approaches to questions such as; what do we mean by media power and media effects? How do we make sense of and understand the connotations inherent in the ways current events and history are presented? In what sense are cultures shaped by unconscious desires, fantasies and identifications? What is the relationship between media representations of gender, ethnicity, and identity and reality?

This course uses ethnographic case studies to understand how sex, gender, and sexuality are socially constructed in different societies around the world and how these social constructions generate different identities, social categories, and relations of power. The course uses analytical tools of Anthropology to understand the cultural logic behind practices and beliefs that are informed by culturally specific sex/gender/sexuality systems; how those cultural logics and practices are related to relations of power between individuals; how they become embedded in institutions of the state that affect the way rights are distributed and often violated; and what happens when they come into contact through various types of transnational movements of people and ideas. The course will also expose students to debates about how we use these understandings of the cultural logics of gendered practices and ideologies in order to address specific examples of gender/sexuality discrimination, gender violence, and international human rights discourse and policies.

This course satisfies the advanced writing skills course requirement.

The course aims to study the ideology and Programs of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) on peace and non-violence, in the context of British colonial rule. The emphasis of the course is on concepts such as colonialism, imperialism, nation, community and nationalism, in the light of historical, religious and political environment. Students will learn to analyze primary and secondary sources as well as pre-conceived notions using multidisciplinary approaches.

A product of the Indian reform and nationalist movements, Gandhi’s philosophy highlighted the importance of peace, human dignity and social inclusion. This has allowed other societies elsewhere to adopt his methods to resolve political, economic, and social disputes. Gandhi stirred the social conscience of his nation and the world through his use of non-violence (ahimsa) and active civil disobedience.

The study of American trade politics occupies a special place in the history of political science and policy studies. It has contributed to new insights into the role of economic groups in American politics, the creative and often independent role of state and public officials in the national policy process and the impact of international structures and processes on domestic politics and policymaking. This course examines the formation of American trade policy since World War II, when the United States assumed the mantle of global leadership and embarked on a world historic project designed to create an open international trading system. Organized around an exploration of state-society relationships at the intersection of international and domestic economies, the course seeks to answer an interrelated set of questions: who defines America’s national trade interest; under what conditions do they define it; and where does their power come from?

This course introduces students to one of the major issues of the world economy: the process of economic development. It provides an understanding of the causes and consequences of underdevelopment and poverty in the context of developing economies and attempts to explore possible means to overcome obstacles to development. Topics covered include: economic growth, sources of growth (capital formation, population and human capital, technology), economic structural change, income distribution, institutional factors, development strategies, government policies, international trade, foreign aid, foreign investment, and debt crisis. 

This course provides an introduction to international economic concepts and contemporary issues related to international trade and international finances. It illustrates the philosophical foundations and historical context of various theories of trade and finance and their applications to trade policies and trade relations. Other areas examined include: balance of payment, determination of exchange rate, foreign investment, multinational enterprises, financial market internationalization, international economic policies, and international economic organizations. Emphasis is on the critical evaluation of and debates on current trade policies and other international economic issues, such as North-South trade relations, free trade vs. protectionism, and international resources movement.

What is the state?  How is it organized?  How do different countries select leaders, where is power located, who rules, and who is excluded?  Under what conditions do people obey the state, resist it, or transform it?  Which societal configurations challenge state control?  How do states gain the legitimacy to rule?

INTS/POLI 365, State - Society Relations in Comparative Context, provides students with a conceptual understanding of the composition of states in diverse societal contexts.  The course begins with a discussion of regimes, leading to the first assignment, in which students assess the regime of a country of their choice.  The second part of the course is concerned with defining the state and understanding its institutions.  This will motivate the second assignment, in which students will design what they feel to be an ideal institutional configuration for their country.  The third part of the course pushes back, looking at societies and how they undermine your designs.  Your third paper will consider resistance from various societal forces.  You will then assemble and revise your three papers to form a broader paper on state / society relations.

Students will develop a heightened understanding of democratic and non-democratic regimes, how electoral systems turn votes into seats, the tradeoffs in different systems, and how these systems interact with a myriad of societal forces that may resist the state (sometimes for good reason).

This course satisfies the advanced writing skills course requirement.

This course is a survey of modern Japan from the mid-19th century to the present, with emphasis on historical issues that have led to diverse understandings and interpretations. The course focuses on the development of modern ideology, social relationships, and economic and political institutions in a global context. The course takes the development of Japanese capitalism in the global economic system as the central event of modern Japanese history and of Japan’s changing place in the world during the 20th century.

This course satisfies the advanced writing skills course requirement.

This course engages students in an examination of how indigenous peoples of Oceania have been deeply engaged in global cultural, political, and economic processes since the time of their earliest encounters with representatives of the West. This class incorporates classic and contemporary studies from Anthropology and Pacific History together with the voices and views from islander writers and artists. Social Science perspectives are helpful for understanding natural and cultural environments, cultural history and change, language issues, and current socioeconomic and educational issues facing the Islands today. Writers and artists can show the world what it means to be an islander, how islanders view themselves, and how they view other places and times. By combining these two points of view, the class will examine the tensions between cultural traditions and globalization and how we, as outsiders and as islanders, come to know and empathize with the peoples of Oceania.

The course provides a multidisciplinary glimpse into the various ways that Islam manifests itself politically around the world. Part One looks to the faith – the scripture and organization of Islam. Part Two looks to the rise of Islamic politics in the post-colonial world. Then, the course will shift to discuss five manifestations which speak to the Janus-faced, conservative and progressive nature of Political Islam: violence, simmering wars, Sharia Law, social justice, and human rights. The course concludes by considering democracy in the ongoing evolution of Political Islam. The primary objective of this course is to help students understand the fragmented, even contradictory nature of Political Islam. Even terms such as jihad or sharia contain diverse messages, from demanding violence or promoting education. Students are expected to overcome images of Islam as monolithic, and instead to look to Islam as a living religion, one struggling with the same social issues facing all other world faiths.

This course examines anthropological and sociological perspectives of race and ethnicity. Drawing on studies from many different parts of the world, the course explores the nature of ethnic identity, the cultural construction and social meaning of race, the dynamics of race relations and ethnic stratification, and current theories of ethnic conflict and minority rights. The aim of this course is to develop the theoretical tools for comparing the politics of identity and cultural and racial difference cross-culturally and to be able to think critically about our own common sense understandings of race and ethnic relations.

Introductory survey of Japanese culture in the ancient, medieval, and (pre-war) modern periods. Significant aspects of each period are discussed while shedding light on its culture (everyday life of the Japanese) and Culture (including thoughts, values, religions, aesthetics, political and economic circumstances). The main medium of instruction is Japanese.

The goal of this class is to understand the particular forms of violence that exist in Latin America, the causes of these forms of violence, and how they are connected to particular local and national histories, cultural ideologies, and social structures. It is also the goal of this class to understand the meaning of violence: that is, how do people in Latin America make sense of the violence around them? How do they justify and/or condemn it? How is violence sometimes used as a way to make meaning, to protest inequality and impunity, and to assert subjectivity? The course will be based primarily on ethnographic case studies of different forms of violence (structural, institutional, state-sponsored, intra-familial, vigilante, armed resistance, etc.) that look at its socio-economic-political context but also its cultural meaning to the perpetrators, victims, and bystanders. The rationale of the course is that it is by understanding the meaning of violence, the context within which it is carried out, and its cultural logic, that we are best equipped to begin to address it. 

This course sets out to analyze the historiography of the Pacific War with particular reference to problems of memory, interpretation, authentication, and politicization of history. During the course of the semester students are introduced to a wide range of primary and secondary materials drawn from both national and sub-national sources. These are supplemented by cinematic representations of the Pacific War that have become an important channel for the preservation of historical memories.

This course approaches the study of human rights regimes in contemporary East Asia from a comparative perspective and within a global framework. Among the topics covered will be: (1) the relationship between state and international organizations in shaping human rights regimes; (2) the activities of subnational agencies and citizen-based advocacy groups; and (3) case studies in human rights as reflected in, for example, the emergence of social welfare provision, and the rights of patients, indigenous and national minorities.

Exploration of socio-cultural aspects of contemporary Japan through analysis and translation of literature and film. Thematic messages represented in the works are discussed in the scope of their social and cultural significance. The main medium of instruction is Japanese.

Through lectures, discussion, student presentations, and other pedagogies, this class aims to achieve four primary objectives: 1) To explore the role that disease and medicine played in important historical events; 2) to study the social, institutional and cultural dimensions of disease, ailments and medicine in today’s global societies; 3) to become familiar with some of the basic mechanics of epidemic diseases, such as smallpox, influenza, yellow fever, cholera, bubonic plague, syphilis and AIDS; 4) and to understand how some of the most important policy debates in international studies take (or should take) infectious diseases into consideration. Western (bio)medicine is emphasized, but Eastern traditions and alternative medicine are not excluded. Students interested in careers in medicine, public health, and global health policy may consider this class.

“W” Fulfills Advanced Writing Requirement. Students are required to satisfactorily complete one W-coded, writing-intensive course taught in any Concentration or in the Writing Program. Advanced Writing Skills courses in the concentrations may satisfy other degree requirements (e.g., one of the five courses taken in the upper division in their home concentration). Dual concentrators are only required to complete one Advanced Writing Skills course. Additional W-designated INTS courses are to be added to the course rotation. Students should expect to see two “W” courses per semester.

Introduction to practical aspects of Japanese linguistics, including comparisons to other languages. The main medium of instruction is Japanese.

Survey of modern Japanese culture and in-depth analysis of crucial issues in contemporary Japanese society and popular culture. The main medium of instruction is Japanese.

This course introduces students to the study of public international law. Traditionally called the law of nations, international law provides one mechanism by which states can avoid, manage, or resolve international conflicts. As this system of law has evolved, it has expanded to cover an increasing number of issue areas as well as a broad range of international actors. Students develop an understanding of how international law is created and implemented as well as explore the role of legal norms in contemporary international politics and global governance.

This course provides a multidisciplinary glimpse into a great range of violent wars – past and present – in one of the world’s most diverse and exciting regions. It is divided into three parts: historical conflicts, post-independence conflicts, and sources of peace. The course will emphasize how different forms of conflict have distinct causes and how different forms of conflict resolution must be tailored to fit each war. Students will consider how cultural factors condition conflict as well as conflict resolution, how the state provides and undermines security, how civilians experience different wars, and the possibilities and limitations of peace negotiations.

This course begins with a brief survey of the history of the main theories of reading as they emerged in the West with Plato and Aristotle. The goal of the course is to help students understand and familiarize themselves with a body of texts written about the role and function of literature within the disciplines. The course includes an examination of the relationship between primary and critical texts in light of movements that took shape in the twentieth century such as Formalism, Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, and Cultural Studies. The aim of the course is to equip students with the necessary tools to become sophisticated and demanding readers and to sharpen their critical judgment whether or not they intend to pursue graduate studies in the Humanities.

The United States of America originated as colonies within the British Empire, and the early founders of the republic openly celebrated the expected emergence of an American empire after the American Revolution. In what ways can the history of the United States be understood through this lens of emerging empire? Might that lens obscure as much as it reveals? What is imperialism, how is it different from colonialism, and what relationship to American cultural development has it had? To explore answers to these and other questions, students will focus on the US experience of empire and compare it to the history of imperialism and colonialism in India, Africa, and elsewhere. Students will read classic and contemporary works in Colonial Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and American Cultural History in preparation for group discussions, seminar papers, and independent research.