Netherlands

This course invites students to explore the history of the Netherlands and Belgium guided by literary texts reaching back to the seventeenth century and moving to the twentieth century (using English translations). From the fight for independence against Spanish oppression into the Golden Age of Dutch and Flemish culture when the Netherlands became a European superpower, through the changes of industrialization in the nineteenth century, on into the twentieth century with Modernism, Fascism, the German occupation in World War II and the ensuing times of the Cold War. The selected texts for this class, written by leading Dutch and Flemish authors and recognized as being part of World Literature, provide an authentic view of the history and culture of the “low countries” within the European context. Starting with Vondel and his dramatized discussion of cultural and religious struggles in the seventeenth century, followed by a portrait of Holland in the nineteenth century, the literary journey reaches the realms of decadence at the turn of the century. The turbulent events of the twentieth century and the effect they had on the “low countries” is then explored from Dutch and Flemish perspectives, including comic book-art, a movie viewing, the depiction of the Maastricht region in fiction and vice versa views from the United States with Williams Carlos Williams and Joseph Heller. Artistic concepts and writing styles from Symbolism to Post-modernism are central elements of the class discussion, together with the continuing presence of the Dutch and Flemish past. The class comes with a day-long academic field trip to the UNESCO World Heritage city of Bruges in Belgium, exploring and tasting one of the European capitals of Decadence.

This course provides an anthropological perspective on the cultural variation among human societies by examining the history, foundations, and some key cases of the discipline. The course consists of two parts. Part I introduces the history and development of some of the basic concepts, approaches, and research methods of social and cultural anthropology. It does this using a critical reading of Evans-Pritchard's classic Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande which is used as an instrument to understand the discipline’s historical development and its relevance today. Selected readings from Nanda and Warms’ textbook, Cultural Anthropology, establish the principal areas of anthropological inquiry. Students gain insight into ethnographic methodology through a field visit involving preparation, and observation description. Part II develops the conceptual and ethnographic insights acquired in Part I through the study of globalization and Brazilian urban culture. Donna Goldstein’s ethnography of a Rio de Janeiro shantytown demonstrates the continuing relevance of cultural anthropology for the study of contemporary post-industrial society. Goldstein portrays the lives of the poor in a Brazilian favela, conveying the most intimate and hidden details of their lives: from crime and sexuality to responsibilities of kinship and friendship, to childhood dreams of riches and the search for dignity. This focus on problems of the inner city shows the consequences of polarized race, class, and gender relations, the relationship between culture and the economy, and between individual responsibilities, and agency structural constraints. Relevant chapters of Nanda and Warms’ textbook and several articles provide a conceptual framework for Goldstein's ethnography. Students gain further insight into ethnographic methodology and questions of representation through a field visit to an ethnographic museum.

This course explores the principles, problems, and methods of sustainability. After a critical historical introduction, the course studies what the natural sciences tell us about processes and cycles on our planet from a systems point of view. Ecology, the end of fossil fuels, alternative energy sources, environmental pollution, loss of biodiversity, and climate change are reviewed. Besides relevant facts, the sciences also provide interpretive theories with important, but often uncertain, implications for the future. The course then moves into environmental ethics and a critical analysis of the relationship of humans to nature. Having heard the facts and discussed values, the course turns to the social, economic, and political aspects of sustainability, and considers the clash between competing interests and different cultures. Possible solutions to such problems are explored, including environmental economics. The relevant agents, government, NGOs, or grass-roots groups are discussed. Finally, the course integrates the different approaches and points of view in an attempt to arrive at policy recommendations. Preferred prerequisites include a course on Earth Studies or Physics.

Note: Was previously code UCINTSUS21 Sustainability. You cannot take both courses; they are the same.

This course reviews organizations and workplaces with a focus on how to enhance relationships with the organizations. Organization Theory is a branch of social sciences that is particularly interested in the why, how, and when multiple individuals join efforts to reach a common goal. It is a multidisciplinary subject drawing from disciplines such as arts and humanities, educational sciences, psychology, evolutionary biology, economics, and politics. These multiple lenses through which we view organizations make Organization Theory a fascinating and relevant topic to explore and examine at any stage of your study program. The main topics covered in this course are organization-environment relations, organizational design types and culture, leadership development, HRM and well-being, and managing diversity and inclusion at work.

This course probes the entanglements of nature, society, and politics through which the environment is formed, experienced, problematized, interpreted, contested, and governed in different sociocultural contexts. It develops a critical perspective on the dominant patterns of industrial production and consumption and asks how our societies can be made more sustainable. The course draws on insights from environmental history, environmental sociology, science and technology studies, sustainability studies, and recent debates on the "Anthropocene". Thereby, it seeks to complement the fact-oriented perspective of the natural sciences with a reflective understanding of the politics through which our knowledge (and non-knowledge) of the environment is formed. The course is structured in four sections. The first three focus on one core domain of nature-society-politics: the risks of industrial production; biodiversity and land; global climate change. The final section reflects on how we can move from these insights toward a comprehensive understanding and transformative politics of the Anthropocene.