This course will focus on basic Stanislavski techniques: concentration, imagination, relaxation, objective/action, and beats/scene analysis. Each student will apply these concepts to one open scene, one monologue and one realistic contemporary scene.

This seminar provides a structured comparison of two 'emerging giants,' China and India. Interdisciplinary in scope, the class draws upon various approaches and frameworks to analyze the economic, social, and political development of the two countries. Topics include the impact of market-based reforms and migration, demands for representation and increased political participation, nationalism, environmental degradation, and human capital. We will conclude with a focus on China-India relations and their aspirations for great power status in Asia and beyond.

During the 1960s and 1970s military coups brought authoritarian regimes to power in the Southern Cone (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay). Human rights movements emerged demanding information about victims of torture, executions and disappearances which became the way military regimes attempted to eliminate dissent. What accounts for the different role these movements in the transition and consolidation of democracy and the rule of law? Did they take part to the same extent in the design and implementation of accountability mechanisms to prosecute those responsible for the abuses?

Nationalism is one of the greatest challenges to multiethnic states. They have had to create new strategies to deal with the demands of ethnic minorities. Taking the four states of Spain, Canada, Russia, and the former Yugoslavia as examples, we will focus on nationalist movements within these states and the central governments' responses. What has been the effect of the Communist legacy? Are there alternatives to federalism as a way of managing national claims? What socioeconomic policies have governments used to control ethnic tensions?

Elections have been at the core of both the vitality and fragility of American democracy. Free and responsive government is hard to imagine without elections, yet U.S. elections suffer from low turnout, increasing polarization, invisible money, gender inequality, partisan gerrymandering, and new forms of voter disenfranchisement. This course offers an overview of American elections by placing them in historical and comparative perspective.

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.

Since its creation at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Soviet Union dominated the minds of Western foreign policymakers. None of the West's policies in the Middle East, the Third World, Europe, or China after World War II can be understood without the study of Soviet foreign policy. We will examine the development of Soviet foreign policy since 1917 and, following the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the role played by Russia and Russia and the former Soviet republics in the far more complex and multipolar "New World Order." What should U.S.

Why has Latin America struggled to achieve democratic stability? Why is it the region of the world with the highest economic inequality? How have the periodic political and economic crises allowed for creative experimentation with policy alternatives to create a more equal and sustainable social order? This course examines the political and economic evolution and transformation of Latin America from the time of the European conquest until these very days, with a particular focus on the 20th century.

This course addresses the federal Constitution and civil liberties. Topics include the authority of the courts to read new rights into the Constitution; equal protection of the laws and affirmative action for racial minorities, women, gays, and non-citizens. Also, freedoms of expression, association, and the press. Emphasis on the appropriateness of different methods of interpreting law. Case method.

"Black Metropolis" refers to the more than half a million black people jammed into a South Side ghetto in Chicago at mid-twentieth century that featured an entrenched black political machine, a prosperous black middle class, and a thriving black cultural scene in the midst of massive poverty and systemic inequality. This course will follow the political, economic, and cultural developments of what scholars considered to be the typical urban community in postwar United States.