CIEE, Berlin

This course applies a critical lens to representations of gender and identity in contemporary media. Taking gender and sexuality as a critical starting point, students examine the construction of identities under the simultaneous influence of race, class, and nationality. By focusing on popular representations in both the US and the country where the course is taking place, students gain a deeper understanding of identities as both culturally specific and influenced by global media. Instead of suggesting that contemporary identities are determined by what is on TV screens, computers, and in local movie theaters, the course seeks to describe the complex interactions between national audiences and concrete media productions. It analyzes how different audiences reproduce or challenge traditional concepts and stereotypes of gender, race, sexuality, and class. By combining the study of theoretical texts with examples from the advertisement industry, television, movies, and other forms of contemporary cultural expression, it offers a comprehensive and thorough introduction to contemporary studies of the media and identity.

This course explores changes to our global environment in the Anthropocene and practices used to solve these impacts. It poses questions of current sustainability and global system failure, such as can we design a society and economy that is sustainable, democratic, and prosperous? This course uses a broad interdisciplinary approach to build understanding of central issues of sustainability. Students critically examine sustainability through the lens of culture and societal change, political conflict, ecological economics, global environmental issues, globalization and development and ecological design.

Students practice and improve all four main language skills—speaking, listening, reading, and writing—in a highly communicative classroom setting. Students’ knowledge of grammar and vocabulary is systematically reviewed and expanded through an emphasis on speaking and communicating in German. The course covers the main ideas of complex texts on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in their fields of specialization.

This course introduces the concept of strategic management through case analyses, and considers the basic direction and goals of an organization, the environment (social, political, technological, economic, and global factors), industry and market structure, and organizational strengths and weaknesses. The course focuses on the strategic management of the company in a dynamic global context. Students examine the study of the external environment and internal resources and capabilities of the company, in order to guide strategic decisions. Topics include readings and case studies of companies around the world, with special attention to regional and national contexts.

This course examines the philosophical foundations and basic principles of ethics as they apply to businesses and the environments in which they operate. Topics include real-world case studies with insight into how businesses and organizations manage -- and in some cases fail to manage -- challenging ethical and moral dilemmas. Students consider the particular responsibilities of business leaders in fostering ethical awareness and practices within the corporate context.

Students practice and improve all four main language skills—speaking, listening, reading, and writing—in a highly communicative classroom setting. Students’ knowledge of grammar and vocabulary is systematically reviewed and expanded through an emphasis on speaking and communicating in German.

This course examines how individuals and groups shape local-global dynamics of international environmental politics, how economic, political, and social processes at multiple domains shape global environmental changes, including climate change, and how challenges of international environmental politics and policy formulations shape solutions to global environmental changes. This course discusses five areas crucial to comprehending the nature and dynamics of global environmental issues and effective policies to deal with them: international political order, international environmental law, human-environment interactions in the context of market and politics, political and societal challenges of sustainability, and dynamics of human values and rules.

The course focuses on Berlin as a case study of urban governance for sustainability. It compares local policy challenges in national and international contexts, developing a more nuanced view on the top down and bottom up strategies of building sustainable cities. The course combines a comparative policy analysis approach with concepts of international relations studies. The objective is to unravel the concept of sustainability and study its translation into politics and policies in multi-level governance structures.

Tracing the history of beer from China in 7000 BCE, through to the impact of US federal law and European Union regulations, this course explores the determinants and drivers of the economics of beer. It includes an examination of the labor market and brewing, technology and innovation, national beer market trends, media and marketing of beer, new and emerging beer markets, cultural and political factors impacting the beer market, and the decline and rise of local, import, and craft beers.

This course addresses Jewish migration as a part of Germany's past and present, explores integration issues from the perspective of Jewish immigrants and the non-Jewish majority, and makes relevant comparisons with the current population of refugees in Germany. Topics include the trend of Jewish migration from Eastern Europe to Germany as early as the late 19th century and with the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, how Jewish migration from the former Soviet Union fundamentally changed Jewish life in Germany. Students also examine the increase in migration from Israel.