The course investigates the connections between the politics of aging and political discourses surrounding seniors from an intersectional and interdisciplinary perspective. The premise of the course highlights the fact that prejudice, stereotyping, and othering based on age (both towards the young, but primarily against the old) are "the last acceptable prejudice" in democratic societies. While there are many international conventions about the rights of children or women, there is little in international law that seeks to protect seniors.

In the 1990s, the importance of ethical exploration in cultural production was often described as a shift from the representation of politics to the politics of representation.  More recently, Canadian cultural theorist and psychoanalyst Jeanne Randolph has explored how we ethically act while participating in a culture of abundance, opulence, and consumerism. This course will explore ethics as a subject in the work of contemporaries across different media and disciplines, and across different cultures.

The United States is at a crossroads in its political history. Long thought of as the paradigmatic example of a stable, multiracial, multiethnic, constitutional democracy, today Americans are coming to terms with the fact that this country’s history is more complex than that imagining would suggest and the fact that survival of our democratic institutions can no longer be taken for granted. The questions that will guide this course are: How has the United States come to this point, and how did we reach the current crisis of democracy?

(Offered as POSC 208, ASLC 208, and EDST 208) This course provides an introduction to the major institutions, actors, and ideas that shape contemporary Chinese politics. Through an examination of texts from the social sciences as well as historical narratives and film, we will analyze the development of the current party-state, the relationship between the state and society, policy challenges, and prospects for further reform. First, we examine the political history of the People’s Republic, including the Maoist period and the transition to market reforms.

In this course we will explore the complex relationship between industrialization, the labor movement, race relations, and the organization of violence in America. It will focus on the transformative year of 1877, which saw the end of Reconstruction, as well as the first nationwide strike in American history. In studying this "Great Upheaval," students will encounter fundamental questions concerning the distribution of income and the use of force in American society.

Most humans live in territories that are controlled by a state. Why do different nations have different types of states? Why are some states more repressive than others, more war-prone than others, better promoters of development than others, more inclusive than others? How can we make sense of the varied reactions to state domination, ranging from active support to negotiated limits to apathy to vigorous contestation? Does globalization make states more or less democratic, more or less efficient, more or less able to promote development?

(Offered as POSC 135 and EDST 135) This course will explore the meaning of justice and its realization in everyday life. We will consider individuals’ perceptions of justice and the significance of the concept in the relationship between citizens and government. We will examine how social movements attempt to seek justice and how this quest for justice defines their strategies and goals. And finally we consider how efforts to seek justice are realized, delayed, or blocked in institutional settings, such as in workplace organizations, prisons, state bureaucracies, and the courts.

Political theory is concerned with core human values regarding order, freedom, equality, identity, rights and obligations, and the institutions and discourses through which struggles concerning these values are mediated. In this course, we will explore arguments in the history of political thought concerning legitimacy and power, representation, the state, and modern understandings of liberalism, democracy, and various form of authoritarianism.

The purpose of this course is to critically examine how political science approaches various forms of political violence and to examine how violence and politics are inextricably enmeshed across regimes and regions. We will engage with literatures drawn from various regions of the world, including South Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa. We will discuss different approaches adopted by social scientists to describe, analyse, understand and interpret violence, with an emphasis on approaches that focus on victims and perpetrators, as well as on consequences of conflicts.

Can countries come together to address the challenges of climate change? And if so, which negotiation techniques are more likely to be successful, and why? Does one solution fit all, or would it be better to rely on different formats for pairs of states? This course employs a diverse set of learning techniques to address these timely questions in international politics. First, we will build on cutting-edge academic research to investigate the mechanisms through which climate change puts each country’s economy and political stability under duress.