The Uprisings that swept the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have had a profound impact on the political economy of authoritarian regimes within the region as well as academic frameworks used to explain them. This course examines the economics of the MENA region and asks the following questions: Do the uprisings represent failures of the developmental state, neo-liberalism, or authoritarian regimes? How does human development within MENA compare to other regions in the developing world? To what extent does either religion or oil explain economic outcomes?

The central goal of this course is to track the ways in which Western economic thought has developed historically both as a response to inadequacies of previous theory and as a reflection of new economic problems that emerge as economies and societies evolve over time. The focus will be on (a) classical political economy and its critiques; (b) the marginalist revolution; (c) institutionalist economics; (d) the Keynesian revolution and (e) contemporary theory.

In this class we will study the history and relationship of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism. We will examine the origins of both movements and the history of their conflict. Significant attention will be given to the conflict over Palestine which culminated in the establishment of Israel in 1948 as well as the half-century of war, protest and occupation which followed. We will read primary and secondary sources from many perspectives, and will view films and other materials.

The Middle East is not only a source of migration flows - a place people flee, seeking work and/or refuge in Europe and the West - but also a destination for them. Migrations to the Middle East and mobility within it increasingly characterizes this dynamic region. In this course, we examine documented and undocumented, forced and voluntary migrations (labor migrations, refugees, trafficking) in various contexts (Moroccan, Libyan, Turkish, Iraqi, United Arab Emirates, Palestinian, Syrian).

This course will provide an introduction to economics from a political economy perspective. We will examine the historical evolution and structure of the capitalist system, distinguishing it from other economic systems that have preceded it, such as feudalism, and existed alongside it, such as state socialism. Most of the class will be devoted to examining economic theories that have been developed to explain and support the operation of this system.

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.

During the 1960s and 1970s military coups brought authoritarian regimes to power in the Southern Cone (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay). In an effort to prevent what was perceived as imminent socialist revolutions, military dictators launched repressive campaigns aimed at demobilizing labor and eliminating dissent. At the same time, human rights movements emerged calling for the end of the abuses and demanding information about political prisoners, victims of torture, executions and disappearances.

Africa is known as the continent of orality. Notions of African antiquity as quintessentially pre-literate, non-literate or illiterate remain decidedly intact in the Western imaginary. Moreover, the widely held perception is Africa's lack of written traditions as known in other societies is evidence of Africa's lack of history, and in turn civilization.

W.E.B. Du Bois famously declared "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." In this class, we will explore the complex and conflicted meaning of Du Bois' utterance in the context of the contemporary United States, specifically focusing on how racial norms have shifted in various ways creating the superficial impression that the problem of the color-line is no more and that we are living in a post-racial era. We will begin by exploring race and racialization as it initially emerged in the modern period as a pseudo-science.

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.