| AG517 | Conflicts and Security | This course will attempt to give students a range of contemporary issues pertaining to the conflicts and security. In the end students will be expected to demonstrate familiarity with a variety of approaches and concepts. While not comprehensive, the course is broad enough to allow students to explore a range of conceptual and practical issues through case studies, readings, classroom debates, and lectures. The course, however, does not deal directly with “classical” issues in security studies (such as causes of war, strategy, deterrence, arms control or alliance theory). Instead, the course deals with contemporary themes and issues such as communal conflicts, the political economy of conflicts, UN peacekeeping and peace building, state collapse and reconstruction, and societal and human security. Overall, the course adopts a practical approach to security studies, and examines, through the case studies, the interventions of the international community to prevent such conflicts, keep and build peace. Through this students are expected to develop knowledge and analytical skills in contemporary issues concerning the subject matter. Students are recommended to present readings and/or case studies during the class that are relevant to the theme of the course. Lecturer will be able to provide guidance as to the choice of the case studies and presentation for class discussion. Please note that the course is participatory in method and deductive in its approach. | Uramoto |
| AG519 | Globalization and Institutional Change | This course examines ethnographies of global capitalism. Ethnography is an understanding of social phenomena from the perspectives of the participants in it. In the course students read ethnographic studies of capitalism as experienced by workers, entrepreneurs, government officials, etc... The purpose of the course is to both understand capitalism as a global phenomena and also how to organize and pursue qualitative inquiries into economic life | Wank |
| AG521 | Globalization and Society | Farrer | |
| AG523 | Globalization and Migration | This course will examine the impact of immigration on the states, societies, and individuals. The first part of the course will address the questions such as why people move and how nations change because of immigration and emigration. It will particularly focus on the implications of highly-skilled migration and global competition for talent. The second part will examine multiculturalism policies and social cohesion. How have multiculturalism affected the states, societies, and people? What are the challenges for the integration of immigrants and ethnic minorities under multiculturalism and beyond? By reviewing various policy examples and case studies, this course aims to help students understand the realities of immigration and ethnic relations, and analyze the intended and unintended consequences of public policies. | Oishi |
| AG525 | Global Culture | Humanity is facing its most daunting challenge in global climate change, threatening life on Earth as we know it. This seminar is designed as a forum for engaging with the monumental challenges posed by this planetary emergency. We will explore this and related environmental issues in interdisciplinary, international, and intergenerational fashion. Based on the idea that our predicament requires us to transform, both conceptually and in practice, our relationship with nature, the course will cover key concepts in environmental studies and issues such as resource wars, sustainable development, green ethics, rights of nonhumans, industrial pollution, and large-scale disasters. We will briefly touch upon some of the many fields of inquiry that make up environmental studies: ecological anthropology, environmental history, political ecology, science and technology studies, development studies, and ecocriticism. This course requires background knowledge of classic social, political, economic, and evolutionary theory. Students are asked to participate in class discussion and write a research paper. | Watanabe |
| AG527 | Globalization and Nation-States | This is a seminar course focused on reading and discussion on some of the major theoretical works on nationalism. The course is designed to familiarize students with some of the most widely recognized theoretical contributions to the study of nationalism, and to give them the necessary background for formulating their own research projects. Nationalism is such a multifaceted phenomenon so basic to the constitution of the modern world that a comprehensive study of the phenomenon is impossible in a single course. This course does not cover all of the major contributions to the study of nationalism. The topics covered include questions of definition, origins of nationalism, nationalist movements, nationalism and the international system, and the future of nationalism. | Anno |
| AG529 | Comparative Politics | This course introduces students to a range of “classic” works in comparative politics. A variety of themes that have been central to comparative political research shall be covered. In doing so, students will become familiar with key theoretical approaches of political science inquiry. | Nakano |
| AG531 | Global Politics | This course aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of a phenomenon that, in some form or another, impacts the lives of everyone today: globalization. Any attempt to analyze the complex dynamics of globalization requires a multi-dimensional, inter-disciplinary approach and for this we will closely examine a number of various sometimes complementary, other times contradictory, issues not only in theoretical but also practical terms. In presenting the many faces of “the beast”, this course intends to stimulate students into a critical assessment of global issues that range from environment, transnational organized crime and terrorism to population growth, migration and health. The course will begin with an introduction of the “theories of globalization”, will continue with a discussion of the distinct aspects and issues of globalization and will conclude with an analysis of the global actors, political structures and processes that are attempting to govern over these global challenges. (In this seminar-style class, I am prepared to accord more time and attention -and even add some which initially do not figure on the syllabus- to those issues which are of particular interest to the registering students.) | Ionescu |
| AG533 | Global History | This class will introduce approaches to global issues through the study of global history. The spread of globalization is one of the most important processes of our time. The central questions to be considered: What has globalization looked like in the past? Do past legacies of globalization or regionalism help or hinder a ‘new’ round of globalization? How is global history different from national or regional history? How have global historians written about the formation of the modern world system? How can the approaches of global history be incorporated in our own research? Among the issues we will consider are the development of global trade; global cities; flow of commodities, people (immigration) and money; the diffusion of technology; diffusion of ideas; creation of globalized cultural systems. | Hess |
| AG535 | Diplomatic History | History is an essential tool to understand the world. However, it is much more than a tool, since its study gives the temporal deepness that every leader of citizen should include in ones reflection on the world. We will try, in this course, not to limit our study on diplomatic matters, but include every topic that will help us to understand the international relations during the 20th century, the century where occurred of the biggest cataclysms of human history. The two world wars, Russian Revolution, the Great Depression, Fascism, Cold War, Decolonization will be the main events that will punctuate this course. | Michelin |