This course is designed to give students a preliminary understanding of how history, politics, economics, and the legislative and administrative processes in Washington shape US public policy, and the impact this has on US international relations. In the process, students will discover who influences these policies and a range of potential career paths in this area. The course will focus on events that are happening now: the impact of globalization on US politics and policy, and the Presidential and VP's candidates' views on national security, international trade, and foreign affairs.

This is a stand-alone independent study designed by the student and faculty sponsor that involves frequent interaction between instructor and student. Qualitative and quantitative enrichment must be evident on the proposed contract before consent is given to undertake the study.

Not available at this time

We are now living in the throes of the "Arab Spring" and the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. This General Education IE course seeks to integrate students' contemporary understanding of these events against the backdrop of analogous moments in world history over the past three centuries. The core mission of the course is to examine why economic underdevelopment, in combination with weak or dependent state formations, often induces popular instances of rebellion and revolution in the modern era.

This class is about 1. Ideas that have chagned the discipline of history. 2. Ideas that have changed the larger flow of history. 3. Ideas that have changed you, the student, and your relationship to history. 4. Ideas that have changed your personal history.Satisfies the Integrative Experience requirement for BA-Hist majors. (No credit after History 391G).

Emphasis on European origins and world consequences; the role of ideologies and social systems on military strategy; weapons development, major battles, key individuals. Attention to U.S. participation, notably in the Pacific. (Gen. Ed. HS)

The history of the legal response to rape has often resulted in injustice for both the victim/survivor and the alleged perpetrator. This course will examine the evolution of the U.S. legal system's treatment of rape, paying particular attention to the movement against lynching in the post-civil war era, the rise of the feminist anti-rape movement in the 1970s and the student movement against campus sexual assault. Through an analysis of court cases, legislation, and other texts we will consider the role sexual violence has played in maintaining gendered and racialized power relationships.

What are the problems associated with developing equitable and just policy? Why does social policy in the United States continue to be marked by tensions between the principle of equality and the reality of inequalities in social, political, and economic realms? How might policy subvert or reinforce these differences and inequalities? This class examines the history of social policy in the United States, particularly those policies affecting concerns of gender, race, and class.

This course will examine modern Brazil from 1800 to the present, concentrating on the making of the nation given its massive geographical size and diverse population. Topics studied include Brazil's status as the world's largest slave holding society in the nineteenth century, and twentieth-century attempts to establish democracy.

This course will examine the role of U.S. imperialism in the region and the revolutionary organizing of Central Americans to build a world free of exploitation and state violence. As a diverse group of people, Central Americans have practiced solidarity to unite their movements across class, racial, and geographic borders. Why has the United States intervened in the region? What common interests have national elites and imperialists shared? How have working-class people transformed the region and confronted empire?