Defense Against the Dark Arts

Popular narratives about American politics today are often horror stories or crime stories, set in a realm of dirty tricksters, snake-oil salesmen and swamp creatures. Does entering the political arena mean going over to the dark side? This course separates myths, caricatures and textbook idealizations from the more complicated realities about political operators and their machinations.

American Foreign Policy

In this examination of American foreign policy since 1898, topics include the emergence of the United States as a global power, its role in World War I and II, its conduct and interests in the cold war, and its possible objectives in a post-cold war world. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between domestic interests and foreign policy, the role of nuclear weapons in determining policy, and the special difficulties in implementing a democratic foreign policy.

Dislocation: Class & Politics

Dislocation from work and home has been a common experience of the working class in the United States since World War II. Whether caused by factors such as the gentrification of urban neighborhoods and rural towns, deindustrialization, urban renewal, automation, or the precarity of low-wage employment, the working class experience of dislocation continues today.

War: What Is It Good For?

A multidisciplinary exploration of the ways humans have understood, represented, experienced, and justified war over time and across cultures. Using art, literature, and film in addition to social scientific research, this course considers the many different meanings war has in human societies. It analyzes possible causes of war, including innate human drives, gender differences, socialization, regimes, and ideological and resource competition in a condition of international anarchy. It probes how war is experienced by soldiers and civilians.

Democratization in East Asia

This course examines the dramatic emergence of democratic institutions and civil society in East Asia. The primary aim of the class is to help students understand and analyze the process of democratic unfolding in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. We will also evaluate China's recent, albeit limited experiments with democratic practices. We will begin by contrasting Western perspectives of democracy with both traditional and more contemporary Asian understandings of democracy.

Race & Politics in the U.S.

We examine logical implications of the view of "race" as a social construction. Constructionism's core point is that there are no naturally occurring subdivisions between the level of our species, Homo sapiens sapiens, and local breeding populations, and therefore that "racism" is at bottom belief that such intermediate groupings exist -- whether or not one embraces assumptions regarding their relation to one another in hierarchies of worth or capacities. We will interrogate conceptual elisions that mark thinking about race among scholars and civic actors -- between categories v.

First Year Chinese II

ASIAN-111 continues ASIAN-110 First Year Chinese I, with an introduction to Mandarin Chinese and the development of oral proficiency as well as gradual acquisition of reading and writing skills. Learning is supplemented by online learning resources, out-of-class language partner sessions, Language and Culture Commons Question and Answer sessions and the Chinese Language Table.

First Year Chinese II

ASIAN-111 continues ASIAN-110 First Year Chinese I, with an introduction to Mandarin Chinese and the development of oral proficiency as well as gradual acquisition of reading and writing skills. Learning is supplemented by online learning resources, out-of-class language partner sessions, Language and Culture Commons Question and Answer sessions and the Chinese Language Table.
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