Course Descriptions
International Studies
INTL 110 - Introduction to International Studies: Globalization - Homogeneity and Heterogeneity
Globalization is upon us, resulting in unprecedented cultural interpenetration and civilizational encounter. Most of what animates this condition is old. However, the contemporary velocity, reach, and mutations of these forces suggest a new "world time," full of contradictions, perils, and promises. This course introduces students to globalization by asking What is globalization, and how does one study it? What are the principal forces (social groups, ideas, institutions, and ecological circumstances) that shaped and now propel it? What are its concrete consequences, and how are we to respond? Open to first- and second-year students, or permission of the instructor.
INTL 111 - Introduction to International Studies: Literature and Global Culture
One of the most significant trends of the current era has been globalization: the shrinking of distances, the greater interpenetration of the world's peoples, and the rise, perhaps, of a so-called global culture. Yet it is too simple to say, "it's all a big mix," for the questions of how the mixing is done, and who mixes, are complex. The study of literature illuminates these questions. By reading important recent texts, this course tackles "world" questions: what does it mean to be from a certain place? what is a culture? and who are we in it? We'll work to link our own personal readings with the texts in dialogue with the world. Texts will be drawn from U.S. multicultural, "world," and travel literature, and rich theoretical readings. Open to first- and second-year students, or permission of the instructor.
Prerequisite(s): Open only to First Year students and rising sophomores.
INTL 112 - Introduction to International Studies: Globalization, Media, and Technology
How has the experience of globalization been shaped, defined, and complicated by media? This course centers the role of media and media technologies in exploring how collectivities are formed, differences articulated, and encounters negotiated in an (unevenly) interconnected world. Today we tend to associate globalization with digital media, but from the newspaper reports of foreign correspondents to portrayals of cultural identity on soap operas and sitcoms, media have long informed understandings of the world and our varied places in it. Thinking about, through, and with media artifacts across a range of geographic contexts, we examine and interrogate dynamics of global exchange.
Frequency: Every year.
Prerequisite(s): Open to first- and second- year students, or permission of instructor.
INTL 113 - Introduction to International Studies: Border-crossing in the Age of Globalization
Open to first- and second-year students. This course develops a base of knowledge, concepts, and analytical skills for engaging with International Studies' multi-dimensional concerns. Ranging across disciplines but with an emphasis on social science, we study global theories of interaction and conflict between human groups and explore sites and implications of increasing encounter. Focusing on culture, people flows, nationalism and ethnicity, democratization, contending interests, security, religious fundamentalism, gender, and modes of community integration, we examine how particular cases reflect broader processes. Open to first- and second-year students, or permission of the instructor.
INTL 114 - Introduction to International Studies: International Codes of Conduct
Can we all live by one set of rules? This course investigates the broad field of global studies by addressing fresh and age-old issues in international law from the personal to the global, including borders, sources and enforcement of international law, law of the sea, immigration and asylum, post-national federation, colonization, world order, and global citizenship. Readings include case studies, memoirs, fiction, and other texts focusing on individuals, cultures, and states. Open to first- and second-year students, or permission of the instructor.
INTL 194 - Topics Course
Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing.
INTL 202 - Global Media Industries
Global media collectively have tremendous influence in how many see and comprehend the world and therefore on the information and beliefs upon which they feel or act. While media are central to the continued production of a sense of "the world" at large or the "global" scale, media industries are situated geographically, culturally and institutionally. Even if they promise worldwide coverage or are multinational companies, there is much to be gained from studying how media are produced and distributed differently according to specific social, political, economic and historical conditions. This course considers media industries around the world with a focus on the relationships between the labor and infrastructures behind representations in a broad range of media (television, radio, cinema, news, telecommunications, internet).
Cross-Listed as: MCST 202
INTL 210 - Globalization and Contemporary Art
This course will examine the developments of contemporary art beyond traditional centers of gravity in Europe and the United States. Using a series of case studies, it will examine how globalization impacts artistic production in different parts of the world, including Asia, Africa, India, Latin America, Russia, Eastern Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. While analyzing a diverse range of artistic practices in these regions, the course will critically explore key discourses around the topic of globalization, including hybridity and diaspora, from post-modern and post-colonial perspectives. No background in art history necessary.
Frequency: Alternate fall semesters.
Cross-Listed as: ART 210
INTL 225 - Comparative Economic Systems
This course examines the workings of economic systems from the perspective of the incentives facing the firm and consumer. The course provides an introduction to the economics of information and organization which is used to evaluate resource allocation under the specific institutional environment of different economic systems. Our understanding of the incentive system is then used to evaluate the overall economic system. The focus of the course is primarily on the U.S., Japan and the former Soviet Union/Russia. As time permits the course may examine China, Germany and Central Europe. Counts as Group E elective for the Economics major.
Cross-Listed as: ECON 225
INTL 230 - Infrastructure and Inequality
Infrastructure is infamously boring - as sociologist Susan Leigh Star once put it, 'infrastructure' is the term we give "the forgotten, the backgrounded, the frozen in place." But as events of recent years have demonstrated - from the pipeline protests at Standing Rock, to Russian hacks on U.S. power grids, to concerns over Chinese construction in the Global South - infrastructure is a political project of vital importance. Infrastructure is a site where hopes and dreams are invested. It is also a place where unequal influence is laid bare. In this course we will consider infrastructure's technical politics, tracing water pipes and railway networks; interstate highways and fiber-optic lines. Through close attention to the making, maintenance, and end-user experience of these systems, we will practice reading the politics built into our built environments. Students in this course will learn theoretical frameworks and practice methodologies for studying infrastructure in social context at transnational, national, and local scales.
Frequency: Offered occasionally.
INTL 235 - Barack Obama on the Global Stage
Barack Hussein Obama II, a Hawaii-born, Indonesia-raised son of a white American anthropologist and a visiting Kenyan economist, was the world's most powerful human from 2008 to 2016. The literature on Obama is vast; we will not attempt a full survey. Instead, this course focuses on twenty major Obama speeches given in iconic settings: Accra, Ankara, Berlin, Buchenwald, Cairo, Cape Town, Hanoi, Havana, Hiroshima, Jakarta, at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, and in ten other world locations, attending to country-specific, regional, and global dynamics; stagecraft, reception, race, gender, and other issues. We will avoid hagiography.
Frequency: Alternate years.
INTL 239 - Economics of Global Food Problems
This class will examine food distribution, production, policy, and hunger issues from an economics perspective. It explores and compares food and agriculture issues in both industrialized and developing countries. Basic economic tools will be applied to provide an analytical understanding of these issues. Topics such as hunger and nutrition, US farm policy, food distribution, food security, food aid, biotechnology and the Green Revolution, the connection between food production and health outcomes, as well as others related themes will be explored in depth throughout the semester. This course counts as a Group E elective for the Economics major.
Frequency: Offered occasionally.
Cross-Listed as: ECON 239
INTL 245 - Introduction to International Human Rights
This course offers a theoretical and practical introduction to the study and promotion of human rights. Using broad materials, it focuses on the evolution and definition of key concepts, the debate over "universal" rights, regional and international institutions, core documents, the role of states, and current topics of interest to the human rights movement.
INTL 246 - Global Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health
In this course, learners will explore key topics in adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH). Topics will range from the impact of adolescent physical, sexual, and social development on sexual behavior to policy and programmatic issues influencing ASRH outcomes in low-resource communities around the world. Emphasis will be placed on the social, economic, environmental, behavioral, and political factors that affect adolescent's sexual and reproductive health outcomes. Important clinical topics such as contraception, adolescent pregnancy, abortion, and sexually transmitted infections will be discussed from the United States and international perspective. Upon successfully completing this course, learners will be able to identify a range of issues important to adolescent sexual and reproductive health and understand key policy topics pertinent to adolescent sexual and reproductive health both in the United States and around the world.
Frequency: Every year.
INTL 250 - Terrorism and Art: The Spectacle of Destruction
Russia presents an excellent case study for the topic of political violence. Terrorism as a means of political persuasion originated in the land of the tsars; Russian history features an incendiary cycle of repressions, revolts, and reprisals. Studying the origins and depictions of these events in works of art reveals how culture mediates between the world of ideas and the sphere of action. We will consider the tactics and motives of revolutionary conspirators as well as the role that gender and religion played in specific acts of terror. We will explore the ways in which Russian revolutionary thought and action served as a model for radicals around the world. The Russian case will provide a framework for in-depth study of examples of terrorism from Algeria, Ireland, Germany, the U.S., and the Middle East. Texts will include novels, poems, manifestos, letters, journalistic accounts, and films, as well as readings in cultural history and political theory. Taught in English.
Frequency: Alternate years.
Cross-Listed as: RUSS 250
INTL 253 - Comparative Muslim Cultures
This course examines the Qur'an and hadith, and other authoritative texts that ground Islamic jurisprudence, and explores the diverse ways in which Muslims have understood and interpreted these teachings in locations across the world (i.e. Indonesia, the Middle East, South Asia, Europe and the United States) and at various points in history.
Cross-Listed as: ANTH 253
INTL 258 - The Middle East Through Film
This course provides an introduction to the history, politics, and aesthetics of Middle Eastern cinema. Over the course of the semester, we will examine the development of both local and regional cinematic traditions; the role of cinema in the production of the collective memory of conflict and war; the international circulation of film as a form of soft power; and, not least, the profound discursive power of cinematic humor. Readings will offer an introduction to methods of film analysis as well as to the political and artistic history of the modern Middle East
Frequency: Offered occasionally.
Cross-Listed as: MCST 258
INTL 260 - Digital Cultures
In the early days of the internet, many people predicted that the increased speed and scale of communications would make for a more homogenous world. Now, decades later, we see something different: a proliferation of cross-fertilizing cultures, sub-cultures, and counter-cultures online. This course explores some of this rich variety, studying online social worlds (from influencers to hacktivists) and the ways in which IT-informed ways of being seep into social life offline (from ideologies of innovation to algorithmic oppression). Critically deploying the concept of culture and the tools of ethnography to understand these emergent formations, this course will pay particular attention to difference and power while situating "the digital" in international context.
Frequency: Every year.
Cross-Listed as: ANTH 260
INTL 263 - Muslim Women Writers
Against the swirling backdrop of political discourses about women in the Islamic world, this course will engage with feminist and postcolonial debates through literary works by Muslim women writers. The course will begin with an exploration of key debates about women's agency and freedom, the Islamic headscarf, and Qur'anic hermeneutics. With this in mind, we will turn to the fine details of literature and poetry by Muslim women. How do these authors constitute their worlds? How are gendered subjectivities constructed? And how do the gender politics of literary texts relate to the broader political and historical contexts from which they emerge? Themes will include an introduction to Muslim poetesses and Arabic poetic genres, the rise of the novel in the Arabic speaking world, and Muslim women's literary production outside of the Middle East: from Senegal to South Asia, and beyond.
Frequency: Every year.
INTL 265 - Translation as Cross-Cultural Communication
When communication takes place across language barriers, it raises fundamental questions about meaning, style, power relationships, and traditions. This course treats literary translation as a particularly complex form of cross-cultural interaction. Students will work on their own translations of prose or poetry while considering broader questions of translation, through critiques of existing translations, close comparisons of variant translations, and readings on cultural and theoretical aspects of literary translation.
Frequency: Occasionally offered.
Prerequisite(s): Advanced proficiency in a second language.
INTL 272 - The Post-Soviet Sphere
The USSR's 1991 dissolution ended one of history's great experiments. Socialism sought to dissolve ethnicity and overcome ethnic conflict with a focus on equality. Instead it exacerbated nationalism and created-separated identities. But how? Topics include ethno-creation, control, and resistance; ethnic animosities and the USSR's destruction; new states after 1991; "diaspora" populations beyond ethnic homelands; local rebellions; new "native" dictatorships; and recent international organizations.
Frequency: Alternate years.
Cross-Listed as: RUSS 272
INTL 276 - Global Contagions, Past and Present
Despite Covid-19's sudden 2020 appearance, global contagions are far from new. Exploring the vast history, literature, and science of 14th to 21st century pandemics can inform, frame, and indeed calm our current experiences. The course starts with "Pandemics 101," reads widely in history and social inquiry, and tackles major literary accounts of past plagues by Camus, Defoe, and in the 2011 Hollywood thriller "Contagion." Throughout, we attend keenly to how, and from whose perspectives, pandemics are told. We will also engage our recent and current experiences, researching and narrating today's coronavirus impacts in comparative and historical perspective. Prerequisite: some experience with a widespread pandemic.
Frequency: Alternate years.
INTL 280 - Indigenous Peoples' Movements in Global Context
During the last three decades, a global indigenous rights movement has taken shape within the United nations and other international bodies, challenging and reformulating international law and global cultural understandings of indigenous rights. The recognition of indigenous peoples' rights in international law invokes the tensions between sovereignty and human rights, but also challenges the dominant international understandings of both principles. In this course, we examine indigenous peoples' movements by placing them in a global context and sociologically informed theoretical framework. By beginning with a set of influential theoretical statements from social science, we will then use indigenous peoples' movements as case studies to examine the extent to which these theoretical perspectives explain and are challenged by case studies. We will then analyze various aspects of indigenous peoples' movements and the extent to which these aspects of the movement are shaped by global processes.
Frequency: Every other year.
Cross-Listed as: SOCI 280
INTL 282 - Introduction to International Public Health
This course introduces and explores the major health problems facing developing countries, and the main approaches to remediation. The course considers the social determinants of health, and the need for public health programs to address the root causes of health inequities as well as illness itself. Focus is at the country, international-organization, and donor levels. Attention will be given to major indicators, recent trends, policies, and metrics for monitoring progress. A case study, such as international tuberculosis control, will be used as an applied analysis.
Frequency: Every year.
INTL 284 - Imaging the Modern City
From c.1850-1950 the world's cities transformed as never before. Across the globe, these burgeoning metropolises were reconstituted as massive stages for the economic and cultural transformations of the day - the sites of industrialization, centralized planning, mass transport, and the locus of global migration. This course will trace the broader history of global urbanization during this period with an emphasis on how these processes were represented and imaged by nineteenth and twentieth-century urbanites. How was the modern city conceived as it transformed beyond all recognition? How did the global scope of the modern city impact these images? How were new technologies incorporated into this radical re-imagining of the modern city? And how did these images travel across the globe, themselves spurring further urbanization as they went? Geographically, the class introduces the radical transformation of urban morphology that began in mid-19th century European cities such as Manchester, London, Paris, Vienna and engages the transfer and reinterpretation of such processes on global cities from Kolkata to Moscow to Mexico City to Rio de Janeiro to Chicago and back, often to Paris. The class also engages classic and contemporary urban theory, artistic representations, and other narratives of the modern city.
Cross-Listed as: HIST 284
INTL 285 - Ethnicity and Nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe
This course explores ethnic nationalism's causes and consequences in Eastern Europe. Drawing on several disciplines, we begin by examining the core concepts and theories in the contemporary study of nationalism. We then explore both the historical roots of Eastern European nationalisms, and their implications for democracy, minority inclusion, regional stability, and European integration.
Cross-Listed as: POLI 285
INTL 288 - Identity, Race, and Ethnicity in Japan
From notions of the "pure self" to teenage ganguro ("face-blackening"), Japanese culture is rife with instances of ideology and performance that reflect a deep complexity in its engagement with issues of identity and foreignness. This course traces the roots of this complexity back to Japan's beginnings as a modern nation and examines its cultural development into the present day. Works of fiction will be paired with readings in history and criticism to explore the meanings of identity, race, and ethnicity as they are expressed and contested in Japanese culture. The course will cover the literature of Korea and Taiwan, the experience of domestic minorities, and the contemporary cultures of cos-play ("costume-play") and hip-hop. No prior knowledge of Japanese required.
Frequency: Alternate years.
INTL 290 - World to Table: Global Food Studies
Food has been a global issue for over half a millennium. The intercontinental movement of potatoes, sugar, rice, tobacco and more has shaped populations, economies, empires, and environments, while food today inflects the worldwide experience of nationality, ethnicity, religion, health, gender, race, class, culture, rights, and indeed life. Thus this course explores global food from many disciplinary, geographical, and thematic perspectives. We will also interact with local food institutions, address in a limited way our own food practices, and cook and eat a bit too.Al
Frequency: Alternate years.
INTL 294 - Topics Course
Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing.
INTL 301 - Power and Development in Africa
In a notable turn around, a significant number of African societies, in recent years, have experienced both economic growth and renewal of the spirit of women and men acting as citizens. These are commendable achievements. Yet, old quotidian urgencies such as precarious personal safety, hunger, poor health, and political disorder are still prevalent. This is the dialectic of development. This course explores these contradictions. Most of the attention will be given to the concepts of power, politics, and development in contemporary Africa. The course concludes with each student submitting a research paper on a specific problem (e.g. environment, economic, social, cultural, political) confronting one country of the student's choice.
Frequency: Every year.
Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing or permission of instructor.
Cross-Listed as: POLI 201
INTL 316 - Mapping the New World: Exploration, Encounters, and Disasters
Europeans were by no means the first peoples to explore new territories and human populations. Renaissance scientific methodology, however, led European travelers to meticulously document each New World encounter in writing and develop new tools with which to navigate and represent space, devices that subsequently became weapons of colonial domination. But as Nature and indigenous populations refused to be subjected to European epistemology, failure and disaster were frequent events: shipwrecks left Old World survivors stranded among unknown lands and peoples in the Americas; Amerindians rejected the imposition of a foreign culture and religion, murdering colonists and missionaries; Africans rebelled against slavery and escaped to mountains and jungles to form autonomous communities. An examination of maps, exploration logs, missionary histories, travel literature, historiography and colonial documents will provide the foundation for this course on the ambivalent reality of the Old World's encounter with the Americas, in which Europeans were often the losers. This course satisfies the Area 1 requirement for the Spanish major.
Frequency: Generally taught alternate years.
INTL 317 - Writers and Power: The European East in the 20th Century
Eastern European writers and filmmakers have long been prominent figures, reflecting their confrontation with the 20th century's three most powerful ideologies: fascism, communism, and democracy. This course explores the interactions between writers and these systems of power in the works of major figures such as Ionesco, Kundera, Havel, Milosz, Forman, and Kusturica. We follow written and cinematic engagements with power at both social and individual levels, and extend to broad questions of history and community.
INTL 320 - Global Political Economy
Traces the evolution of (global) political economy as a peculiarly modern way of understanding and organizing (global) social life. Particular attention will be paid to how the distinction between the political and the economic is drawn and implemented in interconnected ways within nation-states and in international society. Course includes a detailed study of one of the key components of the international political economy: international trade, international finance, technological processes, etc.
Frequency: Every year.
Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing or permission of instructor.
Cross-Listed as: POLI 320
INTL 321 - Cultures of Neoliberalism
Neoliberal theory posits the relative autonomy of the economic sphere from both culture and politics. Rejecting this assumption, the course will give students the ability to understand the interconnection of economic, political and cultural practices as well as the ways that economic theories are shaped by cultural assumptions about what constitutes a person, a life, a society, etc. We will read some of the foundational texts from the neoliberal school of economic thought (Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman) alongside more contemporary reflections on the culture and politics of neoliberalism from the fields of Anthropology, Geography, Philosophy, Cultural Studies, and Critical Race Studies. Additionally, we will look at both the global institutions that craft and enforce economic policies as well as their impacts in multiple international contexts. This course will emphasize interdisciplinarity and original research. Finally, in addition to key texts, we will examine recent documentaries that attempt to render economic structures visible.
Cross-Listed as: MCST 321
INTL 325 - China, Russia and Central Europe in Transition
This course surveys the theoretic and empirical literature on Soviet-style central planning and the transition to a market economy. The economic history of central planning is examined with emphasis on the experience of the Soviet Union and its variants in Eastern Europe and China. The tool of analysis is the branch of economics known as the economics of organization and information, which will be used to analyze the operation, strengths, and limitations of central planning. The legacy of central planning forms the backdrop for an examination of the transition to a market economy. Counts as a Group E elective for the economics major.
Frequency: Alternate years.
Prerequisite(s): ECON 119 or ECON 129; and one 200s level ECON course from Group A electives; ECON 221 or ECON 225 are recommended. C- or higher required for all prerequisites.
Cross-Listed as: ECON 325
INTL 330 - Surveillance and Power
This course considers surveillance as a social formation, inseparable from the theory and exercise of power. On the one hand, it takes up the pressing questions surveillance raises, from the development of cutting-edge technologies to the complex work of international regulation. On the other hand, it situates surveillance historically as central to projects of imperial conquest, state formation, and colonial rule. Engaging with theoretical works, primary sources, empirical studies and artistic renderings, students will grapple with problems of surveillance and power across geographic and historical contexts.
Frequency: Every year.
Cross-Listed as: MCST 330
INTL 335 - Global Generosity
From Italian Mafia dons to famous American philanthropists; from the knitting of "trauma teddies" in Helsinki to gift shopping in London; and from ceremonial exchange rings in Melanesia to the present day global refugee crisis: this course will investigate how generosity is understood and practiced in global perspective. We'll begin the semester by examining key debates surrounding reciprocity, gifts, and exchange, theories of altruism and generosity, and patron-client relations. We'll then explore the birth of the "humanitarian spirit," and the complicated ethics and politics of humanitarian intervention. We will compare diverse religious traditions' approaches to giving, including Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, and Jainism. And we'll explore contemporary debates surrounding volunteerism within sectarian and neoliberal political regimes.
Frequency: Offered occasionally.
Cross-Listed as: ANTH 335
INTL 345 - Advanced Themes in Human Rights
This course closely investigates human rights violations and the dilemmas facing the actors and institutions that seek to address them. The specific focus may vary with each offering, responding to instructor expertise and focus, emerging and volatile situations worldwide, or new advances in the field. Prior coursework on human rights, or instructor's permission required.
Prerequisite(s): Prior coursework in human rights or permission of instructor.
INTL 352 - Transitional Justice
This course explores the rapidly evolving field of transitional justice, examining how and why regimes respond to wide-scale past human rights abuses. Drawing on examples worldwide, it asks why states choose particular strategies and examines a variety of goals (truth, justice, reconciliation, democracy-building), approaches (trials, truth commissions, file access, memorialization, reparation, rewriting histories), actors (state, civil society, religious institutions), experiences, results, and controversies.
Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing or permission of instructor.
Cross-Listed as: POLI 352
INTL 362 - Culture and Globalization
The world is far more interconnected today than ever before, but what does this mean in terms of culture? This course looks at the impact of globalization on cultures and at examples of global cultures such immigrants, media and popular cultures, world cities, and transnational intellectuals, ethnicities and ideologies. It also looks at the way cultures interact at geographic borders and in the margins of society.
Cross-Listed as: ANTH 362
INTL 364 - Culture and Revolution
This course examines the relationship between cultural and political change during three very different revolutions: France 1789, Russia 1917, Iran 1979. How do people change when governments are overturned? How do revolutions shape popular consciousness? Do people understand events as revolutionaries intend? To answer these questions, we will examine symbols and political ideologies, mass media, education, social identities, the culture of violence, popular participation and resistance, and other issues. Readings will include revolution-inspiring works of Voltaire and Rousseau, Marx and Lenin, Khomeini and the Koran. We will read sympathetic and antagonistic contemporary accounts, and look at popular culture to see how events were understood. Fashion and etiquette, comics and caricatures, movies and plays will be used.
Frequency: Alternate years.
Cross-Listed as: RUSS 364
INTL 367 - Postcolonial Theory
Traces the development of theoretical accounts of culture, politics and identity in Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean and related lands since the 1947-1991 decolonizations. Readings include Fanon, Said, Walcott, Ngugi and many others, and extend to gender, literature, the U.S., the post-Soviet sphere, and Europe. The course bridges cultural, representational, and political theory.
Prerequisite(s): Prior internationalist and/or theoretical coursework strongly recommended.
Cross-Listed as: ENGL 367
INTL 368 - Sustainable Development and Global Future
This course examines the history and modern use of "sustainable development" as a framework for international development. Close attention is given to the role of philanthropies, NGOs and social movements in shaping projects and policies. The course examines a range of topics including appropriate technology, microfinance, ecotourism and ecovillages. Prior coursework in international development and/or environmental studies is strongly recommended
Frequency: Offered occasionally.
Cross-Listed as: ENVI 368.
INTL 372 - Post-Nationalism: The European Union
The European Union aims to overcome nationality for the common good. Its successes have challenged traditional customs and identities, and it has stumbled over cultural questions, foreign policy, and constitutional foundations. Topics will include genesis of the EU; erosion of national sovereignty and consequent anxieties; European institutions vs. local control; cultural norms confronted with EU economic, political, and human rights; incorporating new member-states, and the very notion of "Europe." Throughout we will ask whether one can get "beyond nationalism."
INTL 380 - Global Leadership
Leadership is among the deepest features of associational life, pervading every profession and institution, especially in the age of complex global change. Thus this seminar explores leadership. We begin with the relationship between structure and agency, and then focus on vision and invention, integrity and legitimacy, flexibility and decisiveness. Readings draw from Western, Islamic, and Indian sources. The main paper will focus on a major individual from any century or locale, chosen by the student.
Prerequisite(s): Open to all but first year students.
INTL 381 - Transnational Latin Americas
Examines critical and primary literatures concerning the transnational, hemispheric, Atlantic, and Pacific cultures that have intersected in Latin America since the early colonial era, with a particular focus on the 19th and 20th centuries.
Frequency: Alternate years.
Prerequisite(s): One 100- or 200- level history course or consent of instructor.
INTL 382 - Poverty, Health, and Development
This course explores the links among poverty, health and socio-economic development in low-income countries. Key principles, methodologies and approaches to designing and evaluating programs to improve the health of poor populations will be discussed. We will explore several contemporary approaches to linked poverty reduction, public health improvement, and development. Enrollment limited to International Studies majors, Community and Global Health Concentrators, or International Development concentrators, or by permission of the instructor.
INTL 384 - Langston Hughes: Global Writer
The great African American writer Langston Hughes (1902-1967) is best known as the poet laureate of the Harlem Renaissance. But his career was vaster still. He was a Soviet screenwriter, Spanish Civil War journalist, African literary anthologist, humorist, playwright, translator, social critic, writer of over 10,000 letters, and much more. This course engages Hughes-s full career, bridging race and global issues, politics and art, and makes use of little-known archival materials. This course fulfills the U.S. writers of color requirement for the English major.
INTL 394 - Topics Course
Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing.
INTL 415 - Cultural Resistance and Survival: Indigenous and African Peoples in Early Spanish America
In the Old World, Spain defined its national identity by locating its "others" in Jews, conversos, Muslims, moriscos, Turks, gypsies, pirates and Protestants. In the New World, Spaniards employed many of the same discursive and legal tactics-along with brute force-to subject Amerindian and African peoples to their will and their cultural norms. But indigenous and African populations in the Americas actively countered colonization. They rejected slavery and cultural imposition through physical rebellion, the use of strategies of cultural preservation and the appropriation of phonetic writing, which they in turn wielded against European hegemony. We will examine a fascinating corpus of indigenous pictographic codexes, architecture, myths, and histories and letters of resistance, along with a rich spectrum of texts in which peoples of African descent affirm their own subjectivity in opposition to slavery and cultural violence. What will emerge for students is a complex, heterogeneous vision of the conquest and early colonization in which non-European voices speak loudly on their own behalf. This course satisfies the Area 1 requirement for the Spanish major.
Frequency: Generally taught alternate years.
Prerequisite(s): SPAN 305 and another 300-level Spanish course or consent of the instructor.
INTL 477 - Comparative Environment and Development: A Seminar in Political Ecology
A concern for the relationship between nature and society has been one of the pillars of geographic inquiry and has also been an important bridge between other disciplines. By the 1960s, this area of inquiry was referred to variously as "human ecology." Over the last decade, certain forms of inquiry within this tradition have increasingly referred to themselves as "political ecology." The purpose of this seminar is to review major works within the traditions of cultural and political ecology; examine several areas of interest within these fields (e.g., agricultural modernization, environmental narratives, conservation, ecotourism); and explore nature-society dynamics across a range of geographical contexts. Towards the end of the course we will explore how one might begin to think in practical terms about facilitating development in marginal environments.
Frequency: Offered every other year.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor. Prior completion of a geography course(s) with an environmental or development focus is encouraged.
INTL 485 - Senior Seminar: Confronting Global Hatred
Drawing on several disciplines, this course confronts global hatred from three angles. The first is the hater's internal world and looks at how human nature, genetic structure/instincts, and individual psychology may foster hatred. The second is external, exploring the role history, culture, ideology, social structure, religion, and mass psychology play. The third seeks to apply the insights gained from the first two, asking: how might we break the devastating cycles of hatred so present in our world?
Prerequisite(s): Senior standing or permission of instructor.
INTL 487 - Senior Seminar: Globalization and its Discontents
Globalization has helped the international community to come together with an unprecedented immediacy. It has also enabled individuals and on-state actors to assume powers and duties formerly exclusive to state. The dispersion of state prerogatives can be liberating, as when oppressed people use new communication technologies to overthrow their masters. It can also provide opportunities for criminal enterprises and other agents of disorder to act with impunity. Our senior seminar will explore the tensions between the centripedal forces that bring us together, and the centrifugal forces that tear the global community apart. The state will most often be the law. The Westphalian sovereign state has often been declared vanquished by globalization, yet it is still very much alive, and has proven creative in deriving new means to control its subjects. It must do so because those subjects have proven equally creative in resisting state control; and globalization, in both its modern and older forms, has provided those subjects with many tools of resistance.
Frequency: Every year.
Prerequisite(s): Senior standing or permission of instructor.
INTL 488 - Senior Seminar: Thinking on a World Scale
For more than a century, many fine minds - St. Lucian poets, Russian linguists, Mexican mystics, German forest historians, American sociologists, Bengali novelists, and Macalester International Studies students among them - have been drawn to thinking on a world scale. This senior seminar begins by reading some of them at essay length, then tackles current world-scale books the instructor himself has not yet read. Finally we generate some world-scale writing of our own. Open to all geographies and disciplinary specialties.
Corequisite(s): Senior standing or permission of instructor.
INTL 489 - Senior Seminar: Capitalism and World (Dis)Order
Capitalism, for many, is synonymous with the "natural" exchange of goods and services through "the free market." But fuller examination shows capitalism to be neither natural, free, nor limited to economic transactions. Capitalism more precisely is a historical social system and a way of being which now penetrates all forms of life: cultural, ecological, civic and more. This senior seminar aims to identify capitalism's origins and development, and interrogate its contemporary status. Thinkers such as Smith, Marx, and Braudel will loom, but readings will focus on works by Beaud, Weber, Tawney, Kotz, Wallerstein, and others. The course concludes with a significant research paper on a topic, relevant to the theme, of a student's choice.
Prerequisite(s): Senior standing or permission of instructor.
INTL 494 - Topics Course
Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing.
INTL 601 - Tutorial
Closely supervised individual or small group study for advanced students on a subject not available through regular offerings.
Frequency: Every semester.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair.
INTL 602 - Tutorial
Closely supervised individual or small group study for advanced students on a subject not available through regular offerings.
Frequency: Every semester.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair.
INTL 603 - Tutorial
Closely supervised individual or small group study for advanced students on a subject not available through regular offerings.
Frequency: Every semester.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair.
INTL 604 - Tutorial
Closely supervised individual or small group study for advanced students on a subject not available through regular offerings.
Frequency: Every semester.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair.
INTL 611 - Independent Project
An opportunity for advanced students to pursue independent research under the supervision of a sponsoring faculty member.
Frequency: Every semester.
Prerequisite(s): Introduction to International Studies, junior standing, and a written proposal to the faculty supervisor and department chair.
INTL 612 - Independent Project
An opportunity for advanced students to pursue independent research under the supervision of a sponsoring faculty member.
Frequency: Every semester.
Prerequisite(s): Introduction to International Studies, junior standing, and a written proposal to the faculty supervisor and department chair.
INTL 613 - Independent Project
An opportunity for advanced students to pursue independent research under the supervision of a sponsoring faculty member.
Frequency: Every semester.
Prerequisite(s): Introduction to International Studies, junior standing, and a written proposal to the faculty supervisor and department chair.
INTL 614 - Independent Project
An opportunity for advanced students to pursue independent research under the supervision of a sponsoring faculty member.
Frequency: Every semester.
Prerequisite(s): Introduction to International Studies, junior standing, and a written proposal to the faculty supervisor and department chair.
INTL 621 - Internship
Internships join the intellect with practical internationalist experience. Students first identify a specific placement, and agree on objectives and means to gauge progress, including a 1500-word objective midterm report and 3000-word final reflective essay. Course is pass/fail (S/SN) only, but may be included on International Studies major plans.
Frequency: Every semester.
Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing, and International Studies faculty sponsorship. Work with Internship Office.
INTL 622 - Internship
Internships join the intellect with practical internationalist experience. Students first identify a specific placement, and agree on objectives and means to gauge progress, including a 1500-word objective midterm report and 3000-word final reflective essay. Course is pass/fail (S/SN) only, but may be included on International Studies major plans.
Frequency: Every semester.
Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing, and International Studies faculty sponsorship. Work with Internship Office.
INTL 623 - Internship
Internships join the intellect with practical internationalist experience. Students first identify a specific placement, and agree on objectives and means to gauge progress, including a 1500-word objective midterm report and 3000-word final reflective essay. Course is pass/fail (S/SN) only, but may be included on International Studies major plans.
Frequency: Every semester.
Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing, and International Studies faculty sponsorship. Work with Internship Office.
INTL 624 - Internship
Internships join the intellect with practical internationalist experience. Students first identify a specific placement, and agree on objectives and means to gauge progress, including a 1500-word objective midterm report and 3000-word final reflective essay. Course is pass/fail (S/SN) only, but may be included on International Studies major plans.
Frequency: Every semester.
Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing, and International Studies faculty sponsorship. Work with Internship Office.
INTL 631 - Preceptorship
Work assisting a faculty member in planning and teaching a course.
Frequency: Every semester, depending on instructor need.
Prerequisite(s): Advanced proficiency in the area of study and invitation by a faculty member. Work with Academic Programs.
INTL 632 - Preceptorship
Work assisting a faculty member in planning and teaching a course.
Frequency: Every semester, depending on instructor need.
Prerequisite(s): Advanced proficiency in the area of study and invitation by a faculty member. Work with Academic Programs.
INTL 633 - Preceptorship
Work assisting a faculty member in planning and teaching a course.
Frequency: Every semester, depending on instructor need.
Prerequisite(s): Advanced proficiency in the area of study and invitation by a faculty member. Work with Academic Programs.
INTL 634 - Preceptorship
Work assisting a faculty member in planning and teaching a course.
Frequency: Every semester, depending on instructor need.
Prerequisite(s): Advanced proficiency in the area of study and invitation by a faculty member. Work with Academic Programs.
INTL 641 - Honors Independent
Independent research, writing, or other preparation leading to the culmination of a senior honors thesis.
Frequency: Every semester.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair.
INTL 642 - Honors Independent
Independent research, writing, or other preparation leading to the culmination of a senior honors thesis.
Frequency: Every semester.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair.
INTL 643 - Honors Independent
Independent research, writing, or other preparation leading to the culmination of a senior honors thesis.
Frequency: Every semester.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair.
INTL 644 - Honors Independent
Independent research, writing, or other preparation leading to the culmination of a senior honors thesis.
Frequency: Every semester.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair.