This course empowers students to understand their lived experiences as global citizens. Over the semester, we will draw on a range of multicultural and interdisciplinary perspectives to learn how interconnected global challenges impact people’s everyday lives. This course covers a range of global issues, emphasizing local aspects of globalization related to poverty, health, development, environmental change, peace and conflict, migration, and intercultural relations. We will explore how globally interconnected processes impact our everyday lives, including the music we listen to, the products we purchase, and the food we eat.

Sections: 
001: T/Th 4:25 pm -5:40 pm 

• Instructor: Dr. Önder Akgül
• CRN: 51461 

002: MWF 10:50 am –11:40 am

• Instructor: Dr. Austin Crane
• CRN: 53813 

003: T/Th 2:50 pm -4:05 pm

• Instructor: Dr. Alex Herrera 
• CRN: 56324 

For Academic Bulletin Years 2023-2026: Fulfills GSS Requirement
For Academic Bulletin Years 2026-2027: Fulfills GSS and VSR Requirement

*** SPECIAL NOTE: Your Academic Bulletin Year can be found under Catalogue Year on DegreeWorks.

This course offers an interdisciplinary introduction to the modern Middle East, examining how political, social, economic, geographic, and cultural factors have shaped the region and its global connections, as well as the development of the field of Middle East studies. Moving beyond overly simplified or reductionist frameworks, students will critically engage with the evolution of Middle East studies, paying close attention to global and regional power dynamics, structures of knowledge production, and the legacy of Orientalism. They will explore key theoretical debates on topics such as colonialism, development, the rentier state, authoritarianism, sectarianism, and the rise of Islamist political movements. Furthermore, by analyzing key current issues, the course ultimately aims to cultivate a nuanced, historically grounded understanding of the region’s complex realities. 

Instructor: Dr. Önder Akgül

Times: T/Th 2:50 pm-4:05pm

CRN: 56325 

How do you change the world? This interdisciplinary course grounds students in the Global Studies major and three key modes through which people, movements, and institutions shape global affairs: diplomacy, advocacy, and global policy. Drawing on insights from anthropology, history, economics, geography, political science, and area studies, students examine how governments, international organizations, social movements, and civil society actors raise awareness, negotiate differences, influence agendas, and implement solutions. Classic texts and contemporary case studies are paired with practical skill-building in negotiation, advocacy planning, and policy memo writing. By the end of the semester, students will understand how global change is achieved—and how to prepare for a career as a change-maker.

Instructor: Dr. Catherine Studemeyer

Times: T/Th 1:15 pm-2:30 pm

CRN: 56326 

**Cross-listed with GEOG 320

Why does where we live matter more for our health than our genes? Using the lens of health and medical geography, this course explores how geography helps us understand global health challenges, from climate change and pandemics to urban inequality and access to care. Students will learn how mapping, spatial analysis, and case studies reveal patterns of health and illness across the world. Together we will examine how environments, politics, and societies shape health outcomes—and what can be done to reduce inequalities. By the end of the course, students will gain tools to think critically about global health and see how geographical perspectives can make a difference in tackling urgent problems.

Instructor: Dr. Varun Goel

Times: MW 2:20 pm-3:35 pm

CRN: 53814 

**Cross-listed with POLI 391-032 

This course examines NATO’s institutional design, operational missions, and decision-making processes, with special attention to post–Cold War expansion and current debates over its purpose, effectiveness, and future. We will pay special attention to how ideas about collective security, spheres of influence, and geopolitical multipolarity interact complexly in rapidly evolving conflict environments to produce real-time changes to international security structures.

Instructor: Dr. Catherine Studemeyer
Sections: 
001: T/Th 10:05 am–11:20am CRN: 56327 
002: T/Th 2:50 pm–4:05pm CRN: 56328 

**Cross-listed with GEOG 380

This course provides an interdisciplinary perspective on the values, limitations, and potential of human rights in a world marked by inequality. While human rights are hugely influential, they are also highly contested, with persistent debates about their application, effectiveness, and relationship to politics. We will explore this complex and contested reality of human rights through the lens of different global challenges: from migration and refugees to healthcare access to genocide and humanitarian intervention. We will consider interdisciplinary perspectives on the legal, political, cultural, economic, and environmental dimensions of human rights. Throughout the semester, we will examine case studies from around the globe to consider the potential and limitations of human rights to address major challenges facing the world today.  

Instructor: Dr. Austin Crane

Times: T/Th 11:40 am-12:55pm

CRN: 56329 

This course examines the complex role that sports play in a globally interdependent world. Using an interdisciplinary lens we will explore how sports impact, and are impacted by, global economic development, humanitarian action and advocacy, classism and societal structures, conflict resolution and diplomacy, nationalism and identity, global transnational cultural flows, environmental change, and sustainability. We will frame our analysis using a variety of case studies on sporting phenomena (like sportswashing), sporting institutions (like the International Olympic Committee), specific sports, and the on-and-off the field actions of teams and individual athletes. 

Instructor: Dr. Catherine Studemeyer

Times: MW 2:20 pm-3:35 pm

CRN: 53818 

Schooling is a global phenomenon that develops and transforms as a result of internationally moving ideas, pressures, and politics. An introduction to global commitments, expressions, issues, and problems in education helps students both to appreciate the commonalities and distinctions on their state-system, but also to be inspired, critical, and curious about the possibilities with this institution as we look around the world. Students hoping to be teachers, active in the government and/or non-profit sector, and/or informed citizens can benefit from learning about the shared threads, distinctive elements, and future directions of schooling around the world. The course additionally introduces students to the ways that both quantitative and qualitative research methods help us to understand better educational developments. 

These global issues will be examined from multiple disciplinary vantage points including anthropology, history, and sociology. Ultimately, we will try to: 1) understand why certain educational issues and practices are of fundamental concern worldwide; and 2) consider what such concerns tell us about the relationship among schooling, society, and economic development in the world 

Sections

• 001: MW 8:05-9:20am
  
  • Instructor: Dr. Payal Shah
  • CRN: 56327 
• 002: MW 11:40am-12:55pm
  • Instructor: Dr. Kara Brown
  • CRN: 56327