International Studies

This course provides first-hand knowledge about China and its global impact in two interconnected stages. The first part looks at China itself and asks how it is different and not-so-different from the West by examining China’s recent history, its culture, society and politics, study how China is portrayed in Western media. In the second part, we move to “global China”: how do the “domestic” factors studied in the first part of the course shape China’s decision-making at a global level? This part of the course focuses on its role in Africa, Asia and in the West.

This course aims to build foundational knowledge of global policy frameworks, systematically introducing core concepts, historical evolution, and key actors (states, international organizations, NGOs, etc.) of global public policy. Combining contemporary issues such as climate change, global health, and digital governance, it cultivates students' basic capabilities to analyze transnational policy challenges and governance mechanisms through real-world cases like the Montreal Protocol and COVID-19 vaccine distribution. It also covers cutting-edge topics such as technological governance and regional integration to solidify the cognitive foundation of global governance.

Climate change is a global policy challenge whose solutions need to transcend national borders to address its multilayered causes and courses of action. This course reflects on transnational climate governance through the case of the EU Green Deal by exploring case by case its relevant stakeholders: in-house policymakers, member states, civil society, private and international actors. These stakeholders are viewed in parallel to climate policy domains (social and intergenerational justice, carbon markets, sustainable finance), and its tools (lobbying, negotiations and legislative procedures). This course provides a comprehensive approach to studying climate governance, combining theoretical concepts with practical examples, engaging students with real-life policy developments.

Self-identified indigenous peoples inhabit all continents except Antarctica and struggle against oppressive inequality, ethnocidal assimilation and genocidal extermination by the settler societies, colonial/neocolonial/postcolonial developmental states and national populations that surround them.  Nevertheless, the local/global contexts of their struggles differ substantially.  What are the political consequences and effects of grouping together into a global category, for example, the Saami in Scandinavia, the Yanomami of Brazil, India’s adivasi, and Australian Aborigines?  This course will survey the global history of the discourse of indigeneity and some local political contexts of indigenous peoples.  The aim will be to try to understand relevant commonalities and also important differences among indigenous struggles across the world, though our primary focus will be on indigenous peoples in Brazil and Latin America.  Themes will include racism and ethnic discrimination, extractivism and clashes over large-scale economic development projects, human rights and international organizations, and political self-determination and the politics of state recognition.  As this semester coincides with COP30 in Belém, Brazil, we will spend some weeks on questions of eco-politics and indigenous participation in climate change negotiations. 

This course covers the key institutions, actors, and issues shaping Taiwan’s contemporary politics. The class introduces how Taiwan’s democracy operates, how it manages its complex relationship with China, and how it positions itself globally. The first half covers the structure and everyday workings of Taiwan’s political system, while the second half examines current political debates and challenges through weekly topics and guest speakers. Students gain a clear understanding of how Taiwan’s vibrant democracy functions and why it matters in today’s world.

This course examines the rise of human rights discourse and its relationship to other discourses on suffering and social justice. It focuses on the experience of victims of human rights abuse and the politics of meaning. Students will engage in critiques of law as a reductionist discourse on the social by exploring the relationships between human rights and cultural differences such as gender, ethnicity, religion and indigenous cultures. The embodied self, social interdependency and the architecture of social institutions are the backdrop through which the course explores the tensions between universal and relativist understandings of human rights and their realization. Students will be introduced to the fundamentals of human rights, the global human rights machinery, and the ethics of humanitarian intervention, and will consider how sociologists have studied and written about human rights.

This course covers the foundation of international political economy, theories and approaches in international political economy, changes in global political and economic orders, power relations and bargaining processes in international politics and their impact on allocation and distribution of economic resources, and transnational factor and resource mobilization.

This course introduces the fundamental themes of intercultural communication by drawing on current language and intercultural communication theory, research, and practice, to better understand communication between culturally diverse individuals. Through experiential projects and personal reflections, students explore what it means to be an interculturally competent communicator or mediator and the competencies necessary for interacting more appropriately and effectively in intercultural encounters. By engaging with readings, project and reflections, students are encouraged to become more actively engaged with intercultural interactions and to foster an ethno-relative mindset with greater curiosity and open-mindedness. Topics include conceptions of culture and multiculturalism, the relationship between language, communication, power and context, language and cultural socialization, identity and belonging, ‘othering’, prejudice and stereotypes, facework and conflict management, intercultural transition, intercultural relationship-building, social justice and global citizenship.

This course covers advanced theories of International Relations. The course explores central questions of international politics by examining the different traditions of thought about the character and nature of "the international." The course goes beyond realist and liberal theories to explore a counter-history of the theory on international politics and covers topics such as Marxism, feminism, post-colonialism, international political sociology, migration, environmental studies, and critical approaches to the international order and its institutional structures. The course examines how "the international" was constructed as a field of study throughout capitalist modernity, and how these theories are connected to the practice of international relations. It ends by relating international theory to contemporary events, such as the global war on terror and the rise of the far-right.

This course examines the economic geography of developing countries through a Marxist theoretical lens, exploring how capitalism creates and maintains global and local inequalities through spatial processes. Students engage with foundational concepts including primitive accumulation, uneven development, world-systems theory, and the new international division of labor to understand how wealth extraction, labor exploitation, and environmental degradation operate across geographic scales. The course traces the historical development of coreperiphery relations from colonialism through contemporary neoliberal globalization, analyzing specific processes such as export processing zones, land grabbing, structural adjustment programs, and resource extraction in the Global South. Through critical examination of topics including urbanization and slums, gendered labor relations, social reproduction, and environmental crisis, students will develop analytical tools, including mapping, to understand how capitalism necessarily produces geographic inequality while also exploring forms of resistance, social movements, and alternative development strategies emerging from the Global South. Using learning circles and collaborative pedagogical approaches that embody democratic and egalitarian principles, the course connects theoretical analysis with contemporary struggles for social and environmental justice, preparing students to critically analyze and engage with questions of global development, spatial inequality, and transformative social change. 

Students will complete syllabus quizzes, mapping exercises using GIS, a midterm exam, and a final research paper.