GG, 3 credits
GenEd World Society courses explore societies and
cultures outside of the United States. These courses take one of
two approaches. Some concentrate on a single nation or region,
examining in depth its political, social, historical, cultural,
artistic, literary, geographic, and/or economic landscape. Others
investigate globalization and its effects across nations and
regions.
World Society courses are intended to teach
students how to:
- Understand the influences (e.g. political,
social, historical, cultural, artistic, literary, geographic,
economic) on world societies or processes (e.g. globalization)
linking world societies;
- Develop observations and conclusions about
selected themes in world societies and cultures;
- Construct interpretations using evidence and
critical analysis;
- Communicate and defend interpretations.
OPTION: Connecting
GLOBALIZATION across GenEd areas.
Select Once Course
Advertising and
Globalization
Advertising 0853, 0953
Explore the current global scope and reach of
advertising in our connected, digital age. Study major
interdisciplinary themes related to the spread of consumerism, self
and social identity, global consciousness, and cross-cultural
effects as a result of the worldwide spread of advertising as part
of the free market system. Particular attention is given to
cross-cultural issues related to cultural imperialism, legal and
societal constraints, ethical questions, universal values and green
marketing. Course work includes comprehensive survey of print and
broadcast advertising found in other countries.
Women's Studies 0801
Explore the ways in which gender "works" in
different cultural and national contexts, and the impact
globalization has on gender relations. "Gender" indicates the ways
in which our social lives are organized around categories of male
and female--in relation to work, family, sexuality, culture, and
nation. "Globalization" describes the transfer of economic and
cultural goods between nations and peoples. Questions we will ask
include: What is globalization and how do women and men experience
it differently? Do women and men work the same jobs in the global
labor market, and do they get paid the same wages? How does
immigration affect families? Does a growing connectedness between
cultures and nations change traditional gender roles? How different
are experiences of women in the "Third World" from those of women
in the "First World," and why? Investigate these issues together by
reading critical writings as well as Internet blogs, watching
films/documentaries, and analyzing popular media.
Geography & Urban Studies 0862, History 0862, Political
Science 0862, Sociology 0862, 0962
Use historical and case study methods to study
the differences between rich and poor nations and the varied
strategies available for development in a globalizing world.
Examine the challenges facing developing countries in historical
and contemporary context and analyze the main social, cultural, and
political factors that interact with the dynamic forces of the
world economy. These include imperialism/colonialism, state
formation, labor migration, demographic trends, gender issues in
development, religious movements and nationalism, the challenges to
national sovereignty, waves of democratization, culture and mass
media, struggles for human rights, environmental sustainability,
the advantages and disadvantages of globalization, and movements of
resistance.
History 0824
Learn about the history of feminine and masculine
gender roles from comparative and international perspectives. Using
case studies from Ancient Greece, Medieval Europe, West Africa,
Victorian Britain, Modern Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, East
Asia, and/or Latin America, we will explore certain a themes--The
State, The Sacred, Work, The Family, The Body and Sexuality, Modern
Revolutionary Movements--to investigate how gender and gender roles
have changed over time, and their significance today. Readings
include primary sources written both by men and by women, secondary
sources, novels, and films.
Geography & Urban Studies 0831
As globalization accelerates, the world becomes
smaller, and is transformed to an extended urban network. Even
though there are places and people off the global grid in both rich
and poor countries, we live in a single, interdependent urban
world. This course seeks to understand this urban world. We ask
questions like: How do changes in the global economy affect the
lives of people from Cairo to Chicago? As 50 million people per
year move into cities around the world how do those cities change?
How will the massive rural to urban migration in China and India
affect resources and the global environment? What is life like in
cities for the majority of the world's poor? What types of plans
and policies could improve cities in this century? Are wages in
Philadelphia being influenced by what happens in Beijing and
Bangalore? The answers will come from a wide range of perspectives,
from geographers, urban planners, sociologists, and economists.
History 0865
Are we living in a time of global crisis? This
course will provide you with the tools you need to find out. This
class focuses on world politics over the past century, up to today.
In this class, we will examine a number of key global problems as
they have changed over time. We will adopt an historical approach,
which means we will read texts and documents about the past as a
way to understand the present. Together we will explore debates
like: is America an empire? What is ideology and is it a factor in
world politics today? What role do diplomacy, strategy, and
military power play in world affairs? How have non-western peoples
and states challenged the power of the West, and with what results?
What are the roots of ethnic and religious conflict? And what can
we as citizens do to address truly global problems? Drawing on
examples from 20th Century world history, this course introduces
you to world politics and the great debates of our time.
Global Slavery
History 0861
Investigate global slavery as an historic
phenomenon and a current reality. How is it that after the great
emancipation movements of the 19th century and the International
Geneva Convention (1926) outlawing slavery there are still 27
million slaves and counting? This course argues that any critique
of globalization requires an understanding of why it has taken
several millennia for anti-slavery law to emerge and why such
legislation continues to have limited reach and effectiveness. It
argues that there is no modernity and no globalization without
slavery. Explore this problem by asking a basic question: By what
techniques, abstract and concrete, do masters make themselves as
visible by constructing slaves as invisible? With film viewings,
carefully selected readings, debates and group projects, you will
be led to make your own connections to these themes, and to
consider global slavery as part of the past and the present.
Imaginary Cities
Film and Media Arts 0869
Film making is an overwhelmingly urban phenomenon.
This class will take you to cities around the world, examining how
international cinema has richly depicted and interpreted urban life
during the last hundred years. As you respond to film clips,
readings, lectures and lively discussions about the increasingly
urbanized face of world societies, you will study films texts, and
research the contexts in which they were produced and consumed. In
a semester-long project you will research and interpret how urban
experience is depicted and explored in a specific film or film
series.
Latin American Media
Broadcast Telecom Mass Media 0823
From the music of J-Lo and Skakira to the style
of the TV show Ugly Betty to Bart Simpson's bad Spanish (no
problemo!), Latin American influences are increasingly evident in
U.S. media and culture. The influence goes both ways: U.S. media
and culture have had great impact in Latin America. This class
focuses on Latin American media as key institutions within the
region and also as they interact with the United States. Media
systems are so intertwined with society that understanding them
requires understanding where they come from, so we will look at
Latin America itself first--where is it? what are its
characteristics? The class will then examine Latin American media
and the ways that Latin American people have reacted to U.S.
influence. We will also explore the growing presence of Latino
media in the U.S. and in Philadelphia.
Through the study of literature, film, and the
East European artistic avant-garde, explore a broad and diverse
cultural history that extends from the Hapsburg empire to two World
Wars, communism, and beyond. Some of the issues to be examined
include: What is Central Europe? Where is it? What makes this
historical/cultural landscape different from Western Europe? We
will also examine the devastation of the World Wars, anti-Semitism,
Stalinist-oppression, and ethnic hatred on the culture and literary
traditions of this region. Films from Central Europe provide a
valuable medium to convey a constructed visual narrative, and we
will use them in conjunction with literary texts to gain a deeper
insight into the complex reality of this region.
Philadelphia Dance Experience
Dance 0827
Open your eyes to the wealth of culture right at your doorstep.
Deepen your appreciation of dance and become an educated audience member
about the various styles and layers of meaning present in any one dance.
We will attend several live performances, looking at dance from a
cultural studies perspective, focusing specifically on European,
African, Asian, and Latin influences in the city of Philadelphia. We
will be interacting with guest artists and lecturers, observing
performances on video, and engaging in guided viewing exercises.
Dance concerts are selected from a variety of styles, including
classical and contemporary forms from around the world.
Religion in the World [I/II/III/IV]
Asian Studies 0863, Critical Languages Center 0863, Philosophy
0863, Religion 0863
Learn about the major religious traditions found
worldwide today: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam,
and several indigenous traditions. Examine the beliefs, practices,
and values of these groups in order to understand the worldviews
and ways of life of the people who practice them. Our
interdisciplinary analysis and interpretation of specific examples
of religious experience will help shed light on the overall meaning
of religion and human existence. We will carefully consider
examples while also focusing on particular thematic issues, like
cosmology and ritual. Develop appreciation for the religious
vibrancy and diversity that exist in human cultures while you
actively engage in the learning process through class presentation,
class participation, paper-writing, and a self-selected field
trip.
Examine the changing relations between
governments and the people they govern during times of conflict.
Starting with the rise of absolutism and the tradition of
paternalism in early modern Europe, we will then look at the
changes that occurred during the Enlightenment and the French
Revolution. Following that, we will look at nineteenth-century
developments in both Europe and the United States, with particular
interest in the tradition of rural radicalism. We will end by
looking at two relatively recent issues: the anti-war movement and
the government response during the Vietnam War; and the changes in
the role of the state which have followed the events of September
11. Throughout, we will trace two aspects of the changing
relationship between the state and its citizens: on the one hand,
the increasing intervention of the state in everyday life; and on
the other, the increasing role of civil society and public
criticism.
Society in Literature &
Film
Arabic 0868, Asian Studies 0868, Chinese 0868, English 0868,
0968, French 0868, 0968, German 0868, 0968, Hebrew 0868, Italian
0868, 0968, Japanese 0868, 0968,Latin American Studies 0868, 0968,
Russian 0868, 0968, Spanish 0868, 0968
Learn about a particular national
culture--Russian, Indian, French, Japanese, Italian, for example,
each focused upon in separate sections of this course--by taking a
guided tour of its literature and film. You don't need to speak
Russian, Hindu, French or Japanese to take one of these exciting
courses, and you will gain the fresh, subtle understanding that
comes from integrating across different forms of human expression.
Some of the issues that will be illuminated by looking at culture
through the lens of literature and film: Family structures and how
they are changing, national self-perceptions, pivotal moments in
history, economic issues, social change and diversity.
History 0864, 0964, Political Science 0864
Total war, weapons of mass destruction, genocide.
These were not solely inventions of the twentieth century nor are
they the natural consequences of a violent human nature. Leaders,
armies, and the strategies they pursue are rooted in their social
and political context. Weapons are the products of not merely
technological but also historical and cultural development. Battles
occur on a political and historical terrain. Learn how ancient
ideology, medieval technology, modern propaganda, and more have
changed how humans wage war and make peace.
The United States border with Mexico is 2,000
miles long, stretching from San Diego, CA to Brownsville, TX. Every
year between 200,000 and 400,000 immigrants attempt to cross this
border illegally. An estimated 12 million undocumented aliens live
in the United States already. Does this influx of Mexicans, Central
Americans and South Americans amount to a serious threat? Though
close study of how one small, quiet Pennsylvania town reacted to a
sudden influx of 10,000 Spanish-speaking laborers, and with the aid
of film, field-trips, guest speakers, fiction and poetry, we will
explore global immigration issues.
English 0923
We will discuss the work of contemporary Bengali
film directors, as also that of a few non-Bengali directors of
parallel and diasporic cinema, with a particular focus on
culturally constructed roles for women in the Indian social
context. The several films that we view in class, to analyze
women's movements out of such prescribed spaces into more
liberating ones, will focus on assault; incest as taboo; the
predicaments of the subaltern, the prostitute, and the widow; and
the more recent issue of immigration. How do questions we raise in
our course intersect with current international discussions of the
treatment of women and class in film? Is the work done by women's
activist groups changing entrenched perceptions of gender worldwide
and, thus, representations of women in film? What is the impact of
significant events in Indian colonial and postcolonial history on
women? How do key concepts addressed by major Western thinkers such
as Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud affect depictions of women in
cinema? You will look up websites on cinema and do group oral
presentations to engage directly with these questions.
Geography & Urban Studies 0866, History 0866, Political
Science 0866
We live in a global age when events beyond our
borders significantly affect our lives. Sharpen your understanding
of international developments, including wars, economic
globalization, wealth and poverty, the spread of democracy,
environmental degradation, and global pandemics. This course offers
an introduction to the study of world affairs that gives you the
conceptual tools to deepen your understanding of how major
historical and current trends in the world affect your life and
that of others around the globe. Readings include historical
documents, classic texts in the study of international relations,
and current perspectives on the state of the world from multiple
disciplinary perspectives.
World Performances
Theater 0852, 0952
Dance, puppetry, theater, opera; these are
performance forms that are part of the cultures of the world. From
the earliest religious rituals to modern interpretations of ancient
traditions, performances are as varied and diverse as the cultures
from which they arise. You are probably familiar with performances
arising from western cultures, but the Noh Drama of Japan, the
Water Puppetry of Viet Nam, the Koothu Patari folk performances of
India, the Bejing Opera in China, the Caoperia Martial Arts
performances of Brazil--these might be new to you. Explore world
performances through live class presentations, lectures, video and
attendance at international performances in Philadelphia. You might
also have the chance to perform yourself!
World Regions and Cultures: Diversity
& Interconnections [I/II/III/IV]
Anthropology 0867, Geography & Urban Studies 0867,
Sociology 0867
How does the process of globalization impact
people in different culture regions? Explore this central question
through readings, discussions, mapping exercises, field trips to
Philadelphia sites and special events that celebrate the
international flavor of the city. Focusing on four regions, we will
learn how people cope with environmental problems like
desertification, population growth, rapid migration to cities, and
ethnic and religious clashes. We will investigate why some areas
are mired in poverty and violence while others experience a growing
economy and peaceful politics. For each region we will read case
studies illustrating both cultural continuity and change.
OPTION: Connecting GLOBALIZATION across GenEd
areas.
Within GenEd, students can take courses that
relate to connecting themes:
- Globalization
- The Philadelphia Experience
- Sustainability
- Community-Based Learning
Students have the option of choosing courses in
any of these themes, giving them a sense of how different courses
are inter-related, asking similar central questions and covering
material that overlaps and reinforces understanding. By selecting
courses along thematic lines in each area of GenEd, students can
build their own connections, creating pathways that reach across
the entire program.
At present, the courses outside the World Society
area connecting to the theme of GLOBALIZATION are
(by area):
Arts
Art in Cultural Context
The Art of Sacred Space
Theater & Society in Ancient Greece
Transnational Cinema (Honors)
World Musics & Cultures
Human Behavior
Language in Society
Asian Behavior & Thought
Human Ecology
Race and Diversity
Immigration and the American Dream
Dimensions of Diversity: What's Brewing in the
Melting Pot?
Ethnicity & the Immigrant Experience
Politics of Identity in America
Race in the Ancient Mediterranean
Race & Poverty in the Americas
Science & Technology
Sustainable Design
Sustainable Environments
Powering the Future
The Environment
U.S. Society
Education in the Global City
Urban Dynamics: Global, Regional, and Local Connections
People, Places & the Environment
