Title: New and Noteworthy Courses, Fall 2021
- INAF 262-01 | Community Based Terror Prevention
Instructor(s): Mehreen Farooq
Term: Fall 2021
1-Credit Part of Term Seminar – 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. on four Saturdays 8/28, 9/4, 9/11 and 9/18, ICC 216.
Communities around the world play a vital role on the front lines of terrorism prevention by creating public awareness about threats, and by developing countering violent extremism (CVE) programs. However, to date, few practitioners have entered the field in the US, when compared to their international counterparts. This course will equip students from a practitioner and policy perspective to: 1) understand the threat of radicalization to ideologically motivated violence and recruitment tactics of extremist groups, 2) assess and compare community-based and federal government approaches to CVE, and 3) examine challenges and lessons learned from real case studies of community-oriented prevention and intervention approaches. This course will be an interactive seminar with lectures and group discussions. At the conclusion of the seminar, students will have developed a strategic plan for a prevention or intervention program in a community of their choice. The Faculty is currently the Peace and Security Technical Director at Counterpart International.
- CULP 212-01 | Youth, Violence, and Justice
Instructor(s): Haydar Darici
Term: Fall 2021
Seminar – 3:30 – 6:00 p.m. on Thursdays, Walsh 494
Youth are often considered the engine of social transformation. Indeed, the youth appear as prominent figures virtually in all transformative events around the globe. a notable example is the uprising that expanded to the entire Middle East from Turkey to Egypt to Bahrain. This radical agency attributed to the youth reinforces a set of oppositional but equally powerful public images that index the category of youth: the entrepreneur, the consumer, the laborer, the revolutionary, the activist, the terrorist, the immigrant, the criminal, the child-soldier, the martyr and so forth. These images are ideologically mediated, but they still correspond to historical actuality. In this class, we will develop a critical approach to exploring the public images of youth. Reading interdisciplinary texts, we will trace the discourses and institutions that reinforce these images. We will also investigate how these images are appropriated, subverted, or negated by the youth themselves.
- CULP 267-01 | Transnational Queer Mediamaking
Instructor(s): Mariangela Mihai
Term: Fall 2021
Seminar – 3:30 – 6:00 p.m. on Wednesdays, Reiss 103
Transnational Queer Theory and Mediamaking: This course bring in conversation western queer theory and its Black, Indigenous, and Diasporic critiques with ethnographic accounts of LGBTQIA experiences from around the world. We will explore queer, quare, and kuaer theories to unsettle western-centric understandings of queerness and to gain an in-depth view of how gender pluralism manifests in non-western contexts. Beyond tackling LGBTQIA topics at large, we will discuss the ethics, politics, and controversies of cross-cultural queerness and queer media production, from performance artists to painters, sculptors, and poets; from fashion designers to photographers and filmmakers, we will apply course theories to understand queer media praxis–it’s openings, limitations, and ongoing questionings. We will learn how to “read”, write about, and produce media ourselves. Student will produce a public scholarship multimedia project informed by queer theory and praxis, that will include a film journal, an annotated Spotify Playlist, and a short (5-10 minutes) experimental film.
- GOVX/JCIV 461-01 | Zionism and Anti-Zionism
Instructor(s): Einat Wilf
Term: Fall 2021
Seminar – 11:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. on Mondays, White-Gravenor 407
Zionism is one of history’s most successful revolutions. However, since inception, Zionism faced not only diplomatic and physical obstacles to implementing its vision, but intellectual opposition to its very idea, which continued even once the idea of Zionism materialized in the form of the state of Israel. The course will explore Zionist and anti-Zionist thought in tandem by engaging with original texts and key figures who have shaped the more than century long debates over Zionism and its opposition. The course will do so by exploring how every type of Zionist thought (political, social, religious) was opposed by a certain brand of anti-Zionism, and reflect on how those various debates about Zionism persist to this day. This course is taught by Dr. Einat Wilf, Visiting Goldman Israeli Professor, Author and former member of the Israeli Parliament (Knesset). Course also listed as GOVX 461.
- GOVX/JCIV 462-01 | Political Intelligence
Instructor(s): Einat Wilf
Term: Fall 2021
Seminar – 11:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, Reynolds 133
The only way to know if one would be successful in politics is to enter politics. Successes in other fields do not translate into success in politics and cannot serve as predictors of how one will do once one is in politics. Politics requires its own kind of intelligence that should be added to the list of human intelligences as its own category – “Political Intelligence”. The course will reflect on what is exactly the nature of this “political intelligence”, how it is manifested and could it be learnt. It will do so by exploring historical and current political personalities and situations, texts on political philosophy and human psychology and will draw on Dr. Wilf’s personal experiences in the always intense and never forgiving Israeli parliament. This course is taught by Dr. Einat Wilf, Visiting Goldman Israeli Professor, Author and former member of the Israeli Parliament (Knesset). Course also listed as GOVX 462.
- IECO 231-01 | Economics of Diversity
Instructor(s): Lidia Ceriani
Term: Fall 2021
Lecture – 9:30 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. on Tuesdays & Thursdays, Reiss 281
To participate fully in the society and in the economy, individuals need to be able to access, accumulate, use, and get an appropriate return on different assets. Among others: human capital (education, skills, health and nutritional status), housing, natural, physical, and financial assets. This course analyzes how, at different stages of their lives, individuals may be prevented from accessing assets, or may have limited assets, or hold assets with low returns, or be unable to exploit their assets effectively, for reasons related to their gender, race, religion or belief, disability status, or sexual orientation. The course also studies policy interventions that were successful in breaking the vicious cycle of discrimination and exclusion. Examples are drawn both from developed and developing economies.
- INAF/JCIV 120 | Holocaust: The Destruction of the European Jews
Instructor: Anna Sommer
Term: Fall 2021
Seminar – 11:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, ICC 211A
The main objective of this course is to contribute to an understanding of Nazi Germany’s attempt to annihilate the Jews of Europe. The course stresses the historical study of this genocidal event and examines several key issues including: the factors leading up to the Holocaust; their origin and context; the planning and implementation of industrial extermination; and, the response of nation-states. The course also seeks to understand if German and European anti-Semitism was a driving force that led to this genocide. What was the role of modernity in this process and finally, we will discuss complicity and vicarious liability of European nation-states. This course will be divided into three major components including: the origins and development of anti-Semitism and its impacts on anti-Jewish Nazi policy, preparations for, and implementation of, systematic, bureaucratized and industrialized mass killing of Jews and other ethnic groups, and finally, the response of the world during and after the Holocaust. All these questions will be addressed and accessed through the reading of primary and secondary sources and film. We will be reading survivors testimonies and memoirs, as well s the testimonies of witnesses which often evoke painful and emotional reactions. Finally, we will also focus special attention on the moral questions faced by the victims, perpetrators, bystanders and rescuers.
- INAF/JCIV 183 | Interfaith Marriage in Literature and Film
Instructor: Meital Orr
Term: Fall 2021
Seminar – 12:30 – 1:45 p.m. on Tuesdays & Thursdays, ICC 213
This course will examine works of literature and film from the early 20th century to the present day, which focus on the controversial subject and increasingly prevalent reality of interfaith and intercultural relationships and marriages. The course will begin with a view towards the Jewish perspective on this issue (from Biblical to Israeli) covered in the first three weeks, with the remainder of the semester devoted to the navigation of this complex terrain by different religious and national groups in international literature and film, among them: Christians and Muslims, Arabs, Africans and African-Americans, Asians, Indians, Latino/Hispanics and Native Americans. Texts will include primary works of fiction and cinema, and secondary works by literature and film critics, sociologists and anthropologists. Inquiry will focus on ways in which the concerns of each group have intersected, reflecting communal pressures as well as changing realities and norms. The multiplicity of perspectives across all groups, reveal both the need to marry within the fold to preserve communal, religious-cultural values, along with a growing admission of the reality of increasing diversity in modern, pluralistic societies.
- INAF/JCIV 199 | Intro to Jewish Civilization
Instructor(s): Benjamin Haddad
Term: Fall 2021
Seminar – 12:30 – 1:45 p.m. on Tuesday & Thursday, ICC 104
This course, a discussion seminar based on weekly readings, will explore the ways in which historical changes reshape the relationship of Jewish politics to global affairs, from antiquity to the present. It will follow four themes:
- The Jews’ internal attitudes, rooted in biblical and rabbinic culture, of political self-understanding and behavior, especially their relationship to power and authority;
- The hanging political status of Jews in Europe from 1589, especially the acquisition of increased privileges under the ancient regime and equal rights or emancipation in civil society;
- The internal politics of the Jewish community;
- Jews’ participation in politics and diplomacy in the international arena, and especially their relationship to the ideologies or movements that promoted their emancipation, namely, liberalism and socialism, or critiqued it, namely Zionism and Anti-Semitism.
Throughout this course, we will bridge the study of the Jewish past with an eye towards issues of contemporary interest.
- INAF/DBST 218 | Nazi Policy & Practice Regarding Disability
Instructor(s): Patrick Desbois & Andrej Umansky
Term: Fall 2021
Seminar – 11:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. on Fridays, Car Barn 302 A.
This course will examine both the philosophy and the practice of the Nazis against those who were disabled, whether German, Roma or Jewish. Emphasis will be placed in two areas:
- The roots of the concept of “disability” in Nazi thinking and medical policy, and;
- The application of this policy by medical and social service personnel throughout Nazi-occupied territory.
A close look at the role of eugenics, social Darwinism and “race and blood” hygiene laws will also be included as contributing to the notion of “disability.” Various figures in implementing these policies will also be studied, such as Hans Asperger, a pioneer researcher in Autism, whose own discoveries encouraged the elimination of disabled children at killing centers such as Spiegelgrund.
- IPOL 210 | Borders and Security Concerns
Instructor(s): Elizabeth Stephen
Term: Fall 2021
Lecture – Time & Location TBA
IPOL 210 is an asynchronous on-line course that utilizes a multidisciplinary approach to explore the meaning and experience of borders and related security concerns throughout the world. We incorporate a variety of disciplines – political science, geography, ethics, history, and demography – to examine contested borders of India, the Middle East, Cyprus, and the United States. In addition we study EU immigration policy, multiculturalism, ad statelessness. We analyze historical and modern forced that shape borders, and in turn how borders affect the economic, social, and political fabric of countries. Critical writing is emphasized in the course with three writing assignments and weekly posts. There is no final in the course. A highlight of the course is a simulation that takes place across three evenings. Students are placed into discussion groups with peers from the main campus and the GU-Qatar campus.
- IPOL 429 | Hate Groups and Social Media
Instructor(s): Daniel Byman
Term: Fall 2021
Seminar – 2:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. on Wednesdays, Leavey Center CONF
The Internet is full of dangerous content that poses an array of security risks. Neo-Naziz, Islamic State supporters, and the “Incel” movement are only a few of the movements or organizations that peddle hate and have had members involved in terrorism and political violence. In addition, states often play a dangerous role. The government of Myanmar, for example, has pushed propaganda that contributed to genocidal levels of violence. In the United States and several other democratic countries, even hateful groups have a right to free speech, but do they have a right to be on every Internet platform? How do Internet companies determine whom to ban and whom to permit to use their services? Are there alternative approaches to banning content or users that technology companies should consider? What are the human rights and legal implications of these choices? Which actors have a responsibility to act and why, if at all, should private businesses consider policing their platforms? These are some of the questions this course will address.
- LASP 429 | Favelas & Periferias: Imaginaries and Disputes in Urban Brazil
Instructor(s): Bianca Freire-Medeiros
Term: Fall 2021
Seminar – 11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, ICC 217A
This seminar goes beyond the typical representations of Rio to examine narratives that focus on the experience on living in or visiting Rio’s favelas – spaces commonly associated with poverty and violence. Literary accounts, films, photography, and travel guides will be used to examine competing representations of favelas and their significance in a global context.
- LASP 521 | Western Hemisphere Energy Security
Instructor(s): Osmel Manzano & Carlos G. Sucre
Term: Fall 2021
Seminar -11:00 a.m. on Fridays
The objective of the Seminar is to understand how the Western Hemisphere produces, trades, transforms and consumes energy – in all its forms – in order to discuss strategic and policy implications regarding security of supply, economic development and welfare, among other aspects.
We will start by examining energy flows at the national, sub-regional and hemispheric levels in the world context. the detailed analysis of sources and uses of energy at the different territorial levels will make possible the comparison among countries and the different regional levels leading up to hemispheric energy flow to be compared with the largest countries and regions.
- STIA 431 | Physics & Chemistry of the Earth’s Climate
Instructor(s): John Woodwell
Term: Fall 2021
Seminar – 5:00 – 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays, White-Gravenor 405
In this course, we mine Earth’s geological record for the evidence that allows us to understand the links among the evolution of Earth’s oceans, lithosphere, cryosphere, and atmosphere. We will employ and extend concepts in physics, chemistry, biology, and system dynamics to understand the composition of the atmosphere and related climate at several stages in geologic time, including the present. Students will complete the course with a firm grasp of the forcings, feedbacks, and impacts of climate change. The principles in science and system dynamics that we will develop in the course have applications across a broad suite of issues in science and policy.
- STIA 440 | NuSciTech: Science and Technology of Nuclear Statecraft
Instructor(s): Christopher Lawrence
Term: Fall 2021
Seminar – 5:00 – 6:15 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays, White-Gravenor 213
With the revival of great power politics, nuclear technology will continue to play an important role in shaping international relationships. Nuclear weapons states are currently modernizing their nuclear arsenals; emerging technologies are introducing new dimensions to the challenge of nuclear deterrence and nuclear-energy infrastructures are being re-deployed as a form of international soft power. These developments pose long-term risks to global security. This course will develop a technical understanding of nuclear infrastructures – both peaceful and military – as they pertain to great power competition and cooperation. We will follow a standard physics-course format – with weekly homework sets and three short exams — to establish mathematical (and some calculus-based) skills and physical intuition. Technical lessons will be interspersed with regular qualitative discussion to develop appreciation for the political opportunities and consequences posed by the technology examined.
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