This seminar in social and literary studies of childhood will take up multiple perspectives on young people as writers of poetry. We will explore the work of recent scholars in childhood studies, literary studies, children's literature studies, and critical literacy studies who contemplate questions about young people as consumers and/or producers of culture; as potential poets in the future and/or actual poets in the present; as objects of adult teachers' pedagogical ideas and/or as subjects producing and performing their own ideas and artistry.

The next U.S. president will face a world dramatically transformed from that encountered by Barack Obama when he first assumed office in 2009. China and Russia have become far more assertive in their respective zones of interest, the civil war in Syria has claimed nearly a half-million lives and triggered a devastating refugee crisis in Europe, ISIS has spread terror and violence in numerous countries, and climate change has begun to alter the planet in terrifying ways.

This course will explore the history, ideas, voices and strategies African Americans employed in the struggle to secure rights and demand respect in the United States in the 1960s and 70s. This includes an exploration into the relationship between politics and the arts; the articulation of a black aesthetic; black performance politics; radical imaginaries; print culture through the seminal theorists and activists of the period.

In the last two centuries, the gap in living standards between the richest and the poorest countries has grown enormously. Why? What strategies to halt and reverse this growing unevenness have worked best, and why? Some of our focus will be on poverty traps (vicious circles of poverty) and how to escape from them. Topics will include most of the following: What is development, and what is a rights-based approach to development?

Scholars, practitioners and activists worldwide debate the relationship between Buddhism and environment, some arguing that ecological sensitivities are inherent in the teachings of the religion, while others see these as modern aberrations. We will examine Buddhist perspectives on nature and Buddhist responses to environmental issues. Looking at Buddhist activities in specific settings, we will consider how the religion both informed and was influenced by culture, politics, economics and concerns of local people facing environmental issues.

Reproductive rights continue to be contested and eroded in the U.S. and throughout the world. Most recently, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld laws curtailing access to contraception and abortion, and state legislatures continue to pass an unprecedented number of restrictive bills. There has been an escalation of anti-abortion rhetoric, threats and violence including the murders of three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado. We will examine these issues in historical perspective, looking at the various ways in which the attacks and the resistance has been framed.

International development through the lenses of volunteer tourism, philanthropic projects, cultural and social immersion programs, NGO work, para-professional or professional affiliation with a global institution, and academic fieldwork in sites throughout the Global South are some of the main vectors through which poverty action has been imagined and practiced.

In this course, we will analyze several key texts in liberation thought. The question motivating these readings: What does our liberation require? Our primary text will be Enrique Dussel's recently translated Ethics of Liberation, which we will carefully read in its entirety. As we read Dussel, we will supplement the text with those figures he engages and references, such that we can cultivate a robust understanding of both Dussel and the discourses he is engaging.

This course will explore how women have been at the forefront of articulating a radical vision of politics and de-colonisation in the Global South, through a comparative exploration of feminisms in Latina American countries, such as Bolovia, and India. We will explore how far from being an 'imported' copy of Western feminism, or an 'alien' concept, feminism in these countries draws upon vibrant local legacies of women resisting colonialism, a flawed model of development and hetero-patriarchal oppression.

This course focuses on the labor market transformations that have resulted from economic restructuring informed by neoliberal policies and the reorganization of production in both high and low income countries over the last three decades or so. The course takes a comparative perspective that analyzes the gendered dimensions of these processes, points out the contradictory tendencies at work and emphasizes the shared concerns of workers across the globe.