Interdisciplinary survey of people of African descent that draws on the overlapping approaches of history, literature, anthropology, legal studies, media studies, performance, linguistics, and creative writing. This course connects the experiences of African-Americans and of other American minorities, focusing on social, political, and cultural histories, and on linguistic patterns.

Interdisciplinary survey of people of African descent that draws on the overlapping approaches of history, literature, anthropology, legal studies, media studies, performance, linguistics, and creative writing. This course connects the experiences of African-Americans and of other American minorities, focusing on social, political, and cultural histories, and on linguistic patterns.

Why Should Americans Study World Politics?

1. It can kill you.
2. It costs you money.
3. It affects your job.
4. It affects your shopping.
5. It affects your health.
6. The world is becoming more and more globalized, more and more quickly.

Whether we like it or not, world politics affects us greatly. So it is a good idea for us to know what is going on out there.

This inquiry examines the 20th century history of migration from Mexico to the United States and recent efforts to limit the movement of people across the southern U.S. border. The inquiry takes its inspiration from a 2018 podcast episode by Malcom Gladwell titled, “General Chapman’s Last Stand.” The podcast is part of Gladwell’s Revisionist History series (http://revisionisthistory.com). In the podcast, Gladwell tells the story of General Leonard F. Chapman Jr., Commandant of the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, who went on to serve as the Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) from 1972 to 1975. Chapman is credited with reforming the INS into a more efficient and effective agency, but Gladwell argues that Chapman’s efforts also led to an unintentional increase in unauthorized immigrants. In 1970, 760,000 Mexican immigrants, or 1.4% of Mexico’s population, lived in the U.S. By 2008, there were 12.7 million Mexican immigrants in the U.S. which amounted to 11% of all people born in Mexico; an increase of almost 800% in less than 30 years. The question of how and why this happened is the central focus of this inquiry.

There are several hundred thousand Brownfield sites across the country. The large number of sites, combined with how a majority of these properties are located in urban and historically underserved communities, dictate that redevelopment of these sites stands to be a common theme in urban planning for the foreseeable future. Students form a grounded understanding of the Brownfield lifecycle: how and why they were created, their potential role in community revitalization, and the general processes governing their redevelopment. Using case studies and guest speakers from the public, private and non-profit sectors, students develop and hone skills to effectively address the problems posed by these inactive sites.

This class looks at the birth and international expansion of an American industry of political marketing, with a special emphasis on Latin America. We will focus our attention on the cultural processes, sociopolitical contexts and moral utopias that shape the practice of political marketing in the U.S. and in different Latin American countries. By looking at the debates and expert practices at the core of the business of politics, we will explore how the “universal” concept of democracy is interpreted and reworked as it travels through space and time. Specifically, we will study how different groups experimenting with political marketing in different cultural contexts understand the role of citizens in a democracy.

The events of the Arab Spring, beginning in December 2010, saw renewed hope for Arab Civil Society. However, the fall of authoritarian regimes did not always seem to benefit Civil Society – whilst Political Islamic movements often took advantage. In Syria, Iraq, and beyond, groups like the Islamic State are declaring Caliphates in the territories they seize in an attempt to fulfil the Political Islam ideal of a ‘global Islamic Caliphate’ encompassing the Muslim world. This collection of articles aims to address common questions about Political Islam, as well as to provide an assessment of the Islamic State/ISIS/ISIL and finally challenge common understandings on the issue of Islam and democracy.

This course is an introduction to economics for non-majors and political economy, with an emphasis on the moral and ethical problems that markets solve, and fail to solve. Taught by Professor Michael Munger of Duke University, this course includes full length lectures, links to readings, and a sample final exam.

This website was founded at Iowa State University to educate and engage citizens on the political process. The center brings national and international scholars, women leaders and political activists onto campus for programs, seminars and lectures.

Using film as a lens to explore and interpret various aspects of the urban experience in both the U.S. and abroad, this course presents a survey of important developments in urbanism from 1900 to the present day, including changes in technology, bureaucracy, and industrialization; immigration and national identity; race, class, gender, and economic inequality; politics, conformity, and urban anomie; and planning, development, private property, displacement, sprawl, environmental degradation, and suburbanization.

This course introduces undergraduate planning students to the role of the planner in researching issues in cities both in the United States and abroad. This course is a practical, hands-on workshop that challenges students to research, write and present their ideas on two different cities: A U.S. City (preferably somewhere close) and Copenhagen. Students will be equipped to:

select and research a thesis topic,
work professionally with faculty and other experts on the topic of their choice, and
research, write and present.

In recent years both scholars and policymakers have expressed a remarkable amount of interest in the concepts of social capital and civil society. A growing body of research suggests that the social networks, community norms, and associational activities signified by these concepts can have important effects on social welfare, political stability, economic development, and governmental performance. This discussion based course examines the roles played by these networks, norms, and organizations in outcomes ranging from local public goods provision and the performance of democracies to ethnic conflict and funding for terrorism.

Roman Literature of the Golden Age of Augustus Caesar, produced during the transition from Republican to Imperial forms of government, was to have a profound and defining influence on Western European and American societies. These writings ultimately established lasting models of aesthetic refinement, philosophical aspiration, and political ambition that continue to shape modern cultures. This class will be exploring the Golden Age of Latin Literature from an historical perspective in order to provide an intensive examination of the cultural contexts in which these monumental works of classical art were first produced. Readings will emphasize the transition from a Republican form of government to an Empire under the rule of Augustus Caesar and the diversity of responses among individual authors to the profound structural changes that Roman society was undergoing at this time. Particular attention will be devoted to the reorganization of society and the self through textuality, the changing dimensions of the public and the private, the roles of class and gender, and the relationship between art and pleasure. Writings covering a wide variety of literary genres will include the works of Caesar, Cicero, Catullus, Livy, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, with additional readings from Cassius Dio for background.

This course provides a broad overview of issues related to climate change, with an emphasis on those aspects most relevant to computer scientists. Topics include climate science, climate models and simulations, decision-making under uncertainty, economics, mitigation strategies, adaptation strategies, geoengineering, policy-making, messaging, and politics.The course will culminate in a presentation of a research project which might include a paper, a blog, software etc.

This course is designed around analyzing what’s so funny and why is it that we laugh when we do. How is comedy characterized on the fictional page, the screen, and the stage? And what might the comic teach us about the self and culture(s), especially when we come to understand its patterns of transgression as confounding social norms through jokes and laughter? Tracking a history of comedy, beginning with the first Greek humorists, Aristophanes and Plautus, we will traverse genres, periods and cultures to reflect on various types of humor: satire, farce, slapstick, love, tragedy, parody, and screwball.

Explore the future through modeling, reading, and discussion in an open-ended seminar! Our fields of interest will include changes in science and technology, culture and lifestyles, and dominant paradigms and societies.

This course will examine literature and practice regarding community-owned enterprise as an alternative means of increasing community participation and development. The use of cooperatives, credit unions, land trusts, and limited stock ownership enterprises for increasing community participation and empowerment will be examined.

The United States Congress is the most open of the national branches of government, and therefore the most closely studied. This course aims to find ways to deal with the vast array of information we have about Congress by asking two basic questions: What does Congress do (and why), and what are the various ways of studying congressional behavior? This course focuses on both the internal processes of the House and Senate, and on the place of Congress in the American political system.

In this course the conquest and colonization of the Americas is considered, with special attention to the struggles of native peoples in Guatemala, Canada, Brazil, Panama, and colonial New England. In two segments of the course-one devoted to the Jesuit missionization of the Huron in the 1630s, the other to struggles between the government of Panama and the Kuna between 1900 and 1925-students examine primary documents such as letters, reports, and court records, to draw their own conclusions. Attention focuses on how we know about and represent past eras and other peoples, as well as on the history of struggles between native Americans and Europeans.