Courses

Penn Courses

AFRICAN STUDIES
AFRC-158-401, Music of Latin America, Timothy Rommen

This survey course considers Latin American musics within a broad cultural and historical framework. Latin American musical practices are explored by illustrating the many ways that aesthetics, ritual, communication, religion, and social structure are embodied in and contested through performance. These initial inquires open onto an investigation of a range of theorectical concepts that become particularly pertinent in Latin American contexts–concepts such as post-colonialism, migration, ethnicity, and globalization. Throughout the course, we will listen to many different styles and repertoires of music and then work to understand them not only in relation to the readings that frame our discussions but also in relation to our own, North American contexts of music consumption and production.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
COML 395, Globalization and the Fate of Literature, James English

EDUCATION

  • EDUC 505-001, Globalization & the University, Alan R. Ruby

This course examines some of the interactions between globalization and the university including increased student mobility and the rise of higher education as a trade good.

  • EDUC 514, Human development and basic education in developing countries
  • EDUC 602 (ANTH 606), Youth Cultural Formations, Ritty Lukose

This course explores anthropological perspectives on peer-based youth cultures. It explores how educational institutions, media (fashion, music, magazines), and states shape youth cultures in cross-cultural contexts through social processes such as capitalism, nationalism, and increasing globalization. The course emphasizes ethnographies and histories which explore the relationship of these wider social processes to the lived realities of young people, situated in class, gender, national and race-specific contexts.

  • EDUC 605-001, Sustainability in Schools, Earl J. Ball, Judy L. Brody, Priscilla Dawson, Warren F. Mata

This course looks at the issue of sustainability across three dimensions: financial,environmental and programmatic. 1. The issue of financial sustainability focuses on the need of schools to carefully manage funding sources and expenditures and raise supplemental dollars to underwrite aspects of the mission of the school. Included in this focus will be the topics of marketing, communications, and development. 2. Environmental sustainability is increasingly emphasized by schools as an educational goal and an operating principal. This topic will include incorporating sustainability practices into school wide decision making to build campuses which are increasingly green and less wasteful. 3. The third and final focus of the course, programmatic sustainability, brings together many of the themes of the entire leadership program as it reviews the ways schools must think about new models of educating children including the implications of such issues as emerging research on learning, environmental sustainability, globalization, and equity and access. The course utilizes the conceptual framework for sustainability developed by the National Association of Independent Schools.

  • EDUC 611, Education, Development and Globalization, Ritty Lukose

This course will explore contemporary issues in international education. The emphasis will be on exploring an emergent body of literature on contemporary processes of globalization in the field of education. The course has a double goal: 1) to provide theoretical frameworks and historical perspectives in order to develop an adequate understanding of ‘globalization’, and 2) to explore the relevance and impact of globalization as a framework for understanding educational processes in comparative and international contexts.

  • EDUC 661, Language Diversity and Education, Hornberger

Exploration of issues affecting educational policy and classroom practice in multilingual, multicultural settings, with an emphasis on ethnographic research. Selected U.S. and international cases illustrate concerns relating to learners’ bilingual/bicultural/biliterate development in formal educational settings. Topics include policy contexts, program structures, teaching and learning in the multilingual classroom, discourses and identities in multilingual education policy and practice, and the role of teachers, researchers, and communities in implementing change in schools.

  • EDUC 677, New technologies for education and development in global perspective, Wagner

The importance of the relationshp between education, technology, and social-economic development is increasing in the U.S. and around the world. What are new information and communications technologies (ICTs), how are they being deployed, and for what reasons? Are new ICTs a means for delivering skill-based or distance education information, and in what ways are they becoming a part of societies today? What constitute, then, ICTs for Development (ICT4D), and what role do they play in societies that are ‘industrialized’ and ‘developing’.

LAW

  • LAW 521, Globalization and Public Law, Anne Rudden
  • LAW 606, Refugee Law
  • LAW 660, Public International Law
  • LAW 759, International Human Rights
  • LAW 762, Human Rights and National Security

ANTHROPOLOGY

  • ANTH 004, The Modern World and Its Cultural Background

An introduction to the diversity of cultures in the world. This course is divided into two parts. The first briefly examines different models of understanding human diversity: ethnicities, religions, languages, political forms, economic structures, cultures, and “civilizations”. Students will learn to think about the world as an interconnected whole, and know the significance of culture on a global scale. The second part is an introduction to area studies, in which we undertake a survey of the diffrent regions of the world. This semester (2009A) we focus on Asia, specifically East Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia. We conduct the survey paying attention to the different aspects of human diversities, which we examine in the first part of this course. Students will acquire a greater appreciation and understanding of cultural differences in the more comprehensive social context.

Globalization is one of the most comprehensive topics of our time, and also one of the most controversial. By studying it in an introductory course we are able to contrast and compare the approaches and concepts of different social sciences to events and processes of global significance, as they unfold, and to place them in a larger historical context. The course is taught collaboratively by an anthropologist, a historian and a sociologist, and offers the opportunity to compare and contrast three distinct disciplinary approaches to the analysis of change in the modern world. As we take you further into the subject matter we will offer you a choice of theoretical understandings of globalization in its various dimensions: economic, political, social, and cultural. The overall approach will be historical and comparative: we want you to understand not only what is happening in the present but in what ways the present is qualitatively different from—or similar to— other processes we can extrapolate from the past. We will investigate the processes of economic, political and cultural development in various parts of the world on the larger stage of global change.

  • ANTH 018, Popular Culture in Africa, Sandra Barnes

This course concentrates on popular culture in sub-Saharan Africa. It examines the way people reflect on and represent various aspects and issues in their daily lives, in public media, and through a diverse range of performative and creative outlets. It explores the way cultural traditions are created, promulgated, and perpetuated. It looks at the way popular culture deals with pleasure and pain; identity difference, and diversity; wealth and power; modernity and history; gender relations; suppression, resistance, and violence; and local versus global processes. In short, popular culture will serve as a window through which to observe contemporary life.

  • ANTH 086-301, Desire and Demand, Marilynne Diggs-Thompson

The goal of this seminar is to understand and to investigate both historical and contemporary issues related to a culture of consumption. What cultural and socio-economic factors have led present day patterns of cunsumerism? When, why, how did issues of consumer confidence, and measures of consumer spending become critical and integral to the health of global economies? What are some of the characteristics of mass and conspicuous consumption in the Americas and abroad? And, during periods of national and household austerity can and will contemporary patterns of consumption change? Course readings are interdisciplinary anthropological, historical, soical, economic and political – and require a critical examination of global/local linkages. Discussions and research assignments incorporate topics such as popular culture, consumer culture, globalization, off-shore production, economics, marketing, consumer finance and the real estate market. In order to better understand the link between consumption and production factors an overarching question is what is the relationship between outsourcing and/or offshore production and modern consumption? Group and individual projects will investigate issues pertaining to gender and consumption, class/race/ethnicity and consumption, urban re-gentrification and – after decades of flight to the (mall dominated) suburbs – the continuation of return urban migration to major cities in the United States and throughout the world. We will use as our laboratory the city of Philadelphia, observing and analyzing the consumer desires of its diverse population.

  • ANTH 218, East Asian Culture and Globalization, Jaesok Kim

This course explores the changing culture and society of the three East Asian countries, China, South Korea, and Japan and examines how ordinary people such as peasants and workers have reacted to the changes. Students will learn how the traditional societies based on patriarchy, Confusian ethics, and subsistence agriculture have changed since their initial encounters with the expanding Western global capitalism. This course will also investigate how the recently intensified transnational movements of capital, commodities, people, and “cultures” have created particular forms of “globalized culture” in the three countries. Drawing on ethnographic, historical, and political literature about the three East Asian countries, students can understand how the particular culture and economy of the three countries contribute to different paths of their historical and cultural transformations. Our topics include: changes in traditional families and gender roles, massive “modernization” movements and their impact on people’s everyday life, domestic and international migration and issues of migrant workers, international marriages, food crisis, commodification of childhood, and emerging consumerism.

  • ANTH 253 (URBS-546-401), Global Citizenship: Global Citizenship and Social Engagement, Kathleen D. Hall

Many have argued that in the age of globalization we need to find ways to imagine our connections to, solidarity and responsibilities toward people in other parts of the world. This course will examine the notion of global citizenship and the possibilities and limitations of engaging globally. We will consider both debates about the normative basis of global citizenship as well as practical issues that emerge in projects that engage people in transnational efforts to address social problems. We will discuss case studies of specific initiatives as well as efforts that students themselves are involved with or have participated in.

  • ANTH 273-401, Globalization & Health, Adriana Petryna

In some parts of the world spending on pharmaceuticals is astronomical. In others, people struggle for survival amid new and reemerging epidemics and have little of no access to basic or life-saving therapies. Treatments for infectious diseases that disproportionately affect the world’s poor, remain under-researched and global health disparities are increasing. This interdisciplinary seminar integrates perspectives from the social sciences and the biomedical sciences to explore 1) the development and global flows of medical technologies; 2) how the health of individuals and groups is affected by medical technologies, public policy, and the forces of globalization as each of these impacts local worlds. The seminar is structured to allow us to examine specific case material from around the world (Haiti, South Africa, Brazil, Russia, China, India, for example), and to address the ways in which social, political-economic, and technological factors — which are increasingly global in nature — influence basic biological mechanisms and disease outcomes and distribution. As we analyze each case and gain familiarity with ethnographic methods, we will ask how more effective interventions can be formulated. The course draws from historical and ethnographic accounts, medical journals, ethical analyses, and films, and familiarizes students with critical debates on globalization and with local responses to globalizing processes.

  • ANTH 320, Globalization and its East Asian Expressions, Jaesok Kim

This course explores the experiences of ordinary people who go through rapid social changes caused by the intensifying world-wide flow of capital, commodities, and labor. Located at different nodes in the chain of global production and consumption, people have their varied experiences conditioned largely by the relocating global capital. At the same time, however, the people set certain limits on the relocation and local realization of the capital. Drawing on ethnographic, historical, and political literature about China and South Korea, this course shows how the particular historical compositions of ecomomy and culture in the two countries affect the people’s everyday experiences of rapidly changing society. We will also analyze how the transnational movement of capital, commodities, and labor created particular forms of “global” culture in the two countries.

  • ANTH 4xx, Urban poverty and violence: ethnographic perspectives
  • ANTH 626, Medical anthropology: case studies and methods
  • ANTH 615, Afghanistan & Pakistan: Afghanistan and Pakistan: Islamism, Terrorism, and Globalization, Brian Spooner

CINEMA

  • CINE 202, Topics in Film Practice: Cinema & Globalization, Rita Barnard
  • CINE 232, Topics Brazilian Cinema: Contemp Brazilian Cinema, Mercia Flannery

DEMOGRAPHY/SOCIOLOGY

  • DEMG/SOCI 604, Methodology of Social Research
  • DEMG/SOCI 633, Population Processes I.
  • DEMG/SOCI 634, Population Processes II.
  • SOCI 008, Introduction to Political Sociology, Zuberi

This course will introduce students to sociological approaches to politics, broadly understood. The class will begin by discussing the nature of power and authority, the rise of the nation-state and the significance of nationalism. Later topics will include social movements, urban political regimes, globalization and transnationalism, citizenship, revolutions, and the rise (and fall?) of welfare states.

  • SOCI 011 (AFRC 011, URBS 112), Urban Sociology

A comprehensive introduction to the sociological study of cities. Topics will include theories of urbanism, methods of research, migration, history of cities, gentrification, poverty, urban politics, surburanization and globalization. Philadelphia will be used as a recurring example, though the course will devote attention to cities around the U.S. and the world.

  • SOCI 137 (FOLK 137), The Sociology of Media and Popular Culture

This course relies on a variety of sociological approaches to media and popular, with a particular emphasis on the importance of the organization of the culture industries, the relationship between cultural consumption and status, and the social significance of leisure activities from sports to shopping. Specific course topics include the branding of Disney, Nike and Starbucks; the glovalization of popular culture; the blurring of entertainment and politics; and the rise of new media technologies in the digital age.

  • SOCI 640, Health Care and Social Policy

Health and Social Policy is an interdisciplinary course examining health care and social policy from domestic and international perspectives. The course is designed to engage students in critical thinking about social determinants of health, the organization and outcomes of health care systems and institutions, global health priorities and challenges, and the implications for public policy. Topics include the social inequalities and health; how organizational context of health care impacts outcomes; management of human resources in health nationally and globally; analysis of medical error, its causes, and consequences; review and critique of public policies in U.S. health care; and global health priorities and international health policy. Issues of current public debate in health and health care will provide a context for learning. There are no prerequisites. The course is intended for generalists as well as for those planning careers in health care.

ENGLISH

  • ENGL102, Literature and Film in the Age of Globalization, Ania Loomba

An introductory course about literature and cinema in our increasingly global world. We will look at some of the most exciting and acclaimed fiction and film produced in Europe, the United States, Asia and Africa. We will learn about globalization, its histories, and the forms it is now taking.

EARTH & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

  • ENVS 404, The Urban Environment

An independent study where Penn undergraduates can explore the health, environmental, and natural resource issues of Philadelphia,with a focus on the specific needs of West Philadelphia. Current public health concerns impacting vulnerable populations such as children, especially lead poisoning and asthma, are potential topics. Environmental issues such as water supply, air quality, radon, brownfields, and sprawl would also be good areas of study. Community service can be a component of the study. Permission from the instructor is required.

  • ENVS 407, Prevention of Tobacco Addiction among Pre-Adolescent Children in Philadelphia

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Control reports that more than 80% of current adult tobacco users started smoking before age 18. The National Youth Tobacco Survey indicated that 12.8% of middle school students and 34.8% of high school students in their study used some form of tobacco products. In ENVS 407, Penn undergraduates learn about the short and long term physiological consequences of smoking, social influences and peer norms regarding tobacco use, the effectiveness of cessation programs, tobacco advocacy and the impact of the tobacco settlement. Penn students will collaborate with teachers in West Philadelphia to prepare and deliver lessons to middle school students.

  • ENVS 409, The Urban Asthma Epidemic

Penn students will collaborate with the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) on a clinical research study entitled the Community Asthma Prevention Program. The Penn undergraduates will co-teach with CHOP parent educators asthma classes offered at community centers in Southwest, West, and North Philadelphia. The CHOP study gives the Penn students the opportunity to apply their study of the urban asthma epidemic to real world situations.

  • ENVS 637, Global Water Issues

Water-related illnesses are estimated by some to kill up to 5000 people per day worldwide and many of these casualties are children. This course will explore the causes of this global crisis and what is being done to address the issue. It will provide an overview of international agreements, wastewater and water supply issues, technological advances, political/financial/cultural and other barriers to success, and what students can do to become involved in resolving the issues. Guest lecturers and case studies will provide insights to problems in problem areas around the world. Students will be asked to evaluate specific problems and suggest improved approaches to improving access to clean water.

  • ENVS 638, Topics in Global Water Management, Governance, and Finance

This course will focus on the governance and finance issues surrounding the efforts to meet the UN Millennium Goal [MDG] for water supply and sanitation. Every twenty seconds someone in the world, usually a child, dies from a water-related problem. The MDG aims to halve the percentage of the world’s population without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation”. Inadequate organization, corruption, poor educational systems are some of the critical barriers relating to good governance.

HISTORY

  • HIST xxx, Islam in Global Perspective, David Ludden and Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet

This introductory course covers the history of Muslim societies and polities from their inception to the present, focusing on their increasing geographic and cultural diversity and their modern transformations. We stress three themes: (1) the historical expansion of Islam inside diverse, changing, cultural environments, (2) the interaction of Islamic thought and politics with imperialism and nationalism, and (3) the complexity of contemporary Muslim worlds.

HISTORY AND SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENCE

  • HSOC 018, Medicine in Africa, Prof. Feierman

The story of health, healing and disease on the African continent in its historical context. What is the relationship between the growth of cities and the spread of AIDS, or between globalization and malnutrition? Is biomedicine practiced on the African continent the same way it is in the U.S., or are there important differences? What are the major African healing traditions, and how do they work? What are the forces, in our world today, that lead to malnutrition and disease in Africa, or to health and well-being?

  • HSOC 206, Health and Disease in the Developing World

This course will explore the current context of health policy, health reform, and health service delivery in the developing world. After examining global economic and political context of health care, students will analyze the role that economic development plays in promoting or undermining health. Students will examine key disease challenges such as tuberculosis, malnutrition, and HIV/AIDS.

  • HSOC 269, Computers, Ethics, and Social Values, Prof. Ensmenger

This course will explore the various social implication of information technology: social, cultural, political and economic. Topics will include technology policy, organizational change, globalism and the digital divide, intellectual property rights, Linux and the free software movement, cyber libertarianims, and the rise and fallof the dot.com economy.

  • HSOC 421, Medicine and development

This course is devoted to readings and research about medicine and development in resource-poor countries. The focus is on medical instiutions and practices as seen within the broader context of development. We try to understand changing interpretations of how development takes place–of its relationship to technical knowledge, power and inequality. The course give students the opportunity to do intensive original research.

ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS

  • DYNM 612, Globalization: World Politics, Social Order and Economic Impacts, (Henry J. Teune)

The purpose of this seminar is to provide analytical frameworks for understanding change in the world seen as a total system. The challenging question of our time is whether this and the next decades will be dominated by a backlash against globalization, including new forms of global war and local closure to trade and exchange, or the world, despite setbacks, will continue to develop a new political, social, and economic world order radically different from the traditional one of relations among nations. In either case, turbulence and volatility from the forces and counter-forces of globalization can be expected. The contradictions of our era of globalization (beginning around 1975) are that at the same time globalization appears to lead to uniformities everywhere (McDonaldization) and yet old and new differences and identities intensify. Also, globalization makes it nearly impossible to explain a particular change, for example decline in voting in elections in the U.S. in American political terms, when the same phenomenon happens in all established democracies. Regions separate, Europe and NAFTA, among them, while at the same time globalization proceeds to include all markets everywhere. Topics that will be covered, after discussions of the main issues of globalization and its consequences, include economic integration, the future of the nation-state, a New Europe, a world of regions, global democracy, doing business globally, nationalism and religious fundamentalism, the global environment, global security, and human rights in a global society.

  • DYNM 676-001, Human Rts & Global Order: Human Rights and Global Order, Henry J. Teune

Human rights have assumed dominance as the ideology of globalization with aspirations to embrace principles and beliefs that can be shared by all people everywhere. Although challenged by a variety of traditions and religions, human rights remains a pillar of global order along with institutions of global governance. Since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights over 50 years ago and especially since the Helsinki Accords nearly 25 years ago, human rights continue to spread throughout the world, superseding national civil rights and extending to everyday conduct of respect of others and the rights to a life of dignity, safe working conditions, and a good environment. This seminar will discuss the origins and contested justifications of global human rights. It will look at group rights for women, minorities, and migrants; economic, social and political rights; and the new citizenships not only of individuals but also of business organizations (the Global Compact). The evolution of human rights law, the emergence of global courts of human rights, and the imperatives of humanitarian interventions to enforce human rights will receive special attention.

  • DYNM 770, Global Communications, Peter Steiner

Says an Indian businessman to his American counterpart: “In your country you give money to politicians before they pass legislation and you call it lobbying. In my country we do so afterwards, and you call it corruption.” This anecdote illustrates well the cultural relativity of all concepts; what one society considers a legitimate “profit” is elsewhere “usury” or “exploitation.” This is the problem faced by American companies considering expansion into any new foreign market. National identities expressed through subtle customs, laws, institutions, and behaviors are not always obvious, even when there are no apparent language problems. Understanding the complex regional influences of geography, history, religion, and culture is key to anticipating how local norms are reflected in market preferences, social, political, and economic institutions, and work attitudes. This seminar will explore various topics of cultural studies and how they affect values and behavior. Participants will be encouraged to focus on a specific foreign culture and, through assigned readings, film, and literature, analyze its various aspects. Alternatively they may develop, either in teams or individually, a questionnaire about cultural attitudes and carry out a pilot survey in their own organizations.

POLITICAL SCIENCE

  • PSCI 009, Globalization and Citizenship, Keally McBride

When do you feel like the citizen of a particular country? Most theories of citizenship weredeveloped at a time of relative geographical stability. Most people were born in thecountry in which they died. Some people moved, and they were outsiders. The guiding question of this course is how should we think about and experience citizenship given themobile nature of our society? In this course we will be looking at citizenship as generated by several different sources:shared physical space and borders, economic status and markets, shared language or discourse, and affect—a feeling of belonging. It seems clear that writing and reading areprimary ways we connect with people outside of our immediate communities and acquirea sense of political identity. It is also a way to develop our own views, and express themto others. For this reason, I see the writing that we will do in the course as an integralelement of our exploration of citizenship in a global age.

  • PSCI 298, Leadership & Democracy, John Diiulio
  • PSCI 2xx, Conservative Regimes, Ellen Lee Kennedy
  • PSCI 211-001, Politics in the Contemporary Middle East, Robert Vitalis

This course is an introduction to the most prominent historical, cultural, institutional, and ideological features of Middle Eastern politics. Typical of the questions we shall address are why processes of modernization and economic change have not produced liberal democracies, why Islamic movements have gained enormous strength in some countries and not others, why conflicts in the region–between Israel and the Arabs, Iran and Iraq, or inside of Lebanon–have been so bitter and protracted; why the era of military coups was brought to an end but transitions to democracy have been difficult to achieve; why Arab unity has been so elusive and yet so insistent a theme; and why oil wealth in the Gulf, in the Arabian Peninsula, and in North Africa, has not produced industrialized or self-sustaining economic growth.

  • PSCI 418-401, Evolution, Politics and Computer Simulation, Ian Steven Lustick

In this course we shall explore how recent developments in evolutionary theory relate to larger questions raised by students of complexity and complex adaptive systems. We shall study how they together provide a basis for important critiques of standard approaches in political science and enable fascinating and powerful understandings of politics and political phenomena — including national identity and identity change, state formation, revolution, globalization, and leadership. An important vehicle for the application of these insights for understanding politics is computer simulations featuring agent-based modeling. Students will use “PS-I” an agent based computer simulation platform, to develop their own models, conduct experiments, test hypotheses, or produce existence proofs in relation to popular theoretical positions in contemporary political science. No knowledge of computer programming is required.

  • PSCI 498-301, Selected Topics: Financial Manias & Panics, Jennifer A. Amyx

Recent topics include: Globalization; Race & Criminal Justice; Democracy & Markets in Postcommunist Europe.

  • PSCI 498-303, Politics of Globalization and Development, David Steinberg

Recent topics include: Globalization; Race & Criminal Justice; Democracy & Markets in Postcommunist Europe.

  • PSCI 498-304, Politics of Oil, Robert Vitalis

Recent topics include: Globalization; Race & Criminal Justice; Democracy & Markets in Postcommunist Europe.

  • PSCI 514-401, Political Economy of East Asia, Jennifer A. Amyx

This course begins by exploring the causes and consequences of the rise of industrial Asia, paying particular attention to the role played by political institutions. It then examines the political economic challenges faced in recenyears by many countries in this region. What explanations may be given for the rapid growth experienced in the region? And, how can we reconcile the success of the past with the difficulties experienced in more recent years? The role of national financial systems in supporting or undermining growth and the politics of financial crisis management and financial system reform will be explored in depth.

SOUTH ASIA STUDIES

  • SAST 002-401 (ANTH-107-401; URBS-122-401), The City in South Asia, Lisa A. Mitchell

This interdisciplinary social science course examines key topics, themes, and analytic methods in the study of South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal) by focusing on significant South Asian cities. With one-fifth of the world population, South Asia and its urban centers are playing an increasingly important role in recent global economic transformations, resulting in fundamental changes within both the subcontinent and the larger world. Drawing primarily on ethnographic studies of South Asia in the context of rapid historical change, the course also incorporates research urban studies, architecture, political science, and history, as well as fiction and film. Cities of particular focus may include Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Colombo, Delhi, Dhaka, Hyderabad, Kathmandu, Karachi, Kolkata, Lahore, and Mumbai. Topics include globalization and new economic dynamics in South Asia; the formation of a new urban middle class; consumption and consumer culture; urban political formations, democratic institutions, and practices; criminality and the underworld; population growth, changes in the built environment, and demographic shifts; everyday life in South Asia and ethnic, cultural and linguistic identities, differences and violence in South Asia’s urban environments. This course is appropriate for students with no background in South Asia, or for those seeking to better understand South Asia’s urban environments in the context of recent globalization and rapid historical changes.

  • SAST 295-601, Women Social Movements in South Asia, Raili Roy

This is an introduction to studying gender systems and women’s situations across cultures and countries with a special emphasis on South-Asia. The class focuses on “globalization,” the flows of people and culture that are increasing around the world. The class begins with the historical background for understanding the current period of globalization. We will look at the specific case of colonization in South-Asia and emphasize on its role in the rise of factories in both the colonized and colonizing nations. We then consider the role of these factories in today’s world as they employ women from the third world (sweatshops), and explore other issues related to gender and globalization and discuss scholarly responses to the changing world system. This class approach stresses that in order to understand women’s lives in the non-western world, it is important to understand the on-going connections between the “first world” and between the United States and the rest of the world. The larger objectives of the course are: 1.To learn about the history and current conditions of South Asia, , particularly as they affect women and gender. 2.To be able to identify relations between the “first world” and the “third wo rld through an understanding of elements of globalization (such as mass media and cultural productions). 3.To understand ways that colonialism, Westernization affects gender systems systems and the formation of women’s social movements that respond to these forces in the South Asian context. 4.4.To offer through the lens of gender, a framework to understand the the connected effects of globalization on national politics, economics and social issues in contemporary South Asia.

SPANISH

  • SPAN 690-301, Studies in Spanish American Literature: Literature and the Arts in the Age of Globalization, Reinaldo C. Laddaga

Topics vary. Previous topics have included Latin American Narrative and Art in Times of Globalization, Modernismo / fin de siglo, Art, Literature, and Society in Latin America at the End of the 20th Century.

URBAN STUDIES

  • URBS-112-401, Urban Sociology, Chenoa A. Flippen

This course is a comprehensive introduction to the sociological study of urban areas. This includes more general topics as the rise of cities and theories urbanism, as well as more specific areas of inquiry, including American urbanism, segregation, urban poverty, suburbanization and sprawl, neighborhoods and crime, and immigrant ghettos. The course will also devote significant attention to globalization and the process of urbanization in less developed counties.

  • URBS-255-910, Urban Neighborhoods, Juris Milestone

The last several decades have witnessed a dramatic acceleration in the interconnection of cities around the world. The globalization of the economy, the spread of communications technology, major migrations between urban locations, increasing disparities between rich and poor, the dramatic growth of the “culture industries”, and the increasingly popular quest for “place making” through urban design have all contributed to this process. This course will examine urban neighborhoods in the United States and elsewhere in the world. In particular, class readings and discussions will explore the wide range of ways (political, social, cultural; organized and informal) that individuals and institutions in urban neighborhoods have reacted to global transformations and what effects and consequences those reactions have precipitated.

  • URBS 457(SOCI-435), Globalization and the City, Matthew J. Hill

This course aims to introduce students to basic concepts in the study of globalization and the city, examining how the new geographies of marginality and centrality that characterize global cities cut across former north-south divides. The course begins with the assumption that transnational movements or ‘flows’ of trade, finance, migration and culture operate in and through a network of linked ‘global’ cities, and that the changes produced by these flows disconnects these cities from the nation-states in which they are embedded. It then seeks to analyze the changes in technology, communication, and business activities since the early 1970sthat have contributed to this accelerated process of circulation, while also exploring its social, cultural, and political implications for urban life. Some dimensions of global cities that are explored in particular include the notion that cities are strategic spaces for the production of the global economy; the emergence of new forms of class and spatial polarization through the linked development of high-income gentrification and low-wage/informal labor; the cultural forms of urban-image making (heritage, museums, film, entertainment) that shape the way in which “the global” is imagined and lived on a daily basis; and the growth of social movements on the part of the urban poor. Theoretical readings will be combined with case studies that compare and contrast North American and European cities such as New York, London, Tokyo with cities in Latin America, Africa and Asia. (Syllabus, PDF)

  • URBS 291/ANTH 290, Multiculturalism: Politics, Theory and Practice, Peggy R Sanday

“The challenge in renewing the ethnographic and anthropological voice in the 21st century is not the disappearance of difference, of different cultures, or of ways of organizing society any more than it is not the disappearance of class, capital, unequal exchange, power, or gender relations. On the contrary, the challenge is that the interactions of various kinds of cultures are becoming more complex and differentiated at the same time as new forms of globalization and modernization are bringing all parts of the earth into greater, uneven, polycentric interaction.” – Michael Fischer, Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice, 2003 This course introduces anthropological theories of culture and multiculturalism and the method of ethnography as these apply to understanding diversity in contemporary life. After learning the basic concepts through reading key texts and writing response papers, students will apply the concepts by (1) writing an ethnic autobiography; (2) critiquing a film or novel with a multicultural theme; and (3) conducting a mini-ethnography of a multicultural site of their choice. These projects are designed to encourage students to reflect on the meaning of multiculturaliam from three different angles: personal experience, media representation, and participant observation of diversity in a multicultural site (which could be at Penn). The goal is to learn about the role and the impacts of diversity in the US vis-a-vis constitutionally guaranteed rights to liberty, equality, and democratic justice.

  • URBS 457, Globalization and the Welfare State, Jürgen von Mahs

In this seminar, we will explore whether this assertion is correct by looking at the impact of economic globalization on welfare states in North America and Europe. Specifically, this course will provide a systematic account of how different welfare regimes respond differently to global economic restructuring processes and thereby produce different outcomes in the protection of their citizens against social risks. We will focus on the issue of urban homelessness to explore the impact of different policies on a particularly vulnerable population. This comparative analysis of social policy in the context of economic globalization will enable students to reassess the function, opportunities, and limitations of different types of welfare regimes in order to find ways to rethink current social policy approaches in the U.S. and to envision more productive alternatives.

  • URBS xxx, Globalization, Cities, and Public Policy, Mark P. Gaige

It is hardly possible to pick up a newspaper, newsmagazine or turn on the television without being bombarded with the word globalization. One important element of globalization is the increasingly important role that cities and city-regions are playing in political and economic spheres. But the word globalization means different things to different people. Some definitions are neutral, such as “the movement of people, ideas, culture, and products around the world.” Others are more emotionally charged, both from the perspective of supporters, e.g., “a high-speed elevator to universal peace and prosperity,” as well as critics: “a mechanism for further impoverishing the world’s poor and enriching the rich, while destroying the environment and eroding endemic cultures.” We will utilize these various perspectives to look at which of the characteristics of globalization affect cities, how those characteristics operate, and whom they help and hurt. In short, this course will examine the public policy implications of globalization for cities and their citizens.

COMMUNICATION

  • COMM 304-301, Chinese Media, Advertising and Consumer Culture, Hongmei Li

This course introduces media, advertising and consumer culture in contemporary China in the context of globalization. Topics examined in this course include: (1) the current state of Chinese society, its search for modernity and historical relationship with the West; (2) Chinese media transformation in the past three decades, including the print media and broadcast, and the emergence of new communication technologies; (3) the development of foreign and Chinese advertising in China, the branding strategies of Chinese and foreign marketers, and various factors that influence the marketing tactics in China; (4) some prominent values in marketing campaigns, including but not limited to to nationalism, transnationalism, and sexuality. Various advertising campaigns will be analyzed throughout the semester. This course examines not only theoretical concepts such as cultural globalization, modernity, and branding, but also practical knowledge about marketing in China. It also helps students to understand complexities, paradoxes and contradictions in Chinese society that struggles between an of complete Westernization and xenophobia, and between dogmatic following of European modernity and the creation of a Chinese development path.

  • COMM 485-301, Globalization and the Music Video, Marwan M. Kraidy

This seminar focuses on the music video genre to explore topical and conceptual the heart of the globalization of the media and cultural industries. After a formative period largely grounded in North America and Western Europe, the music video migrated to other parts of the world in the 1990s as a wave of privatization and liberalization engulfed national media systems worldwide. Based on a variety of scholarly and trade readings about the globalization of media and culture, the changing media and creative industries, and the music video genre itself, questions to be tackled include: What changes when a media form migrates from its original context? What does the content of music videos reveal about socio-economic and cultural change worldwide? How do music videos rearticulate gender and sexuality, and nationalism? What transnational circuits of ideas, images and ideologies are enabled or constrained by music video?

  • COMM 490, Transnational Communication and the Global Media, Kate Coyer

Power today is tied more closely then ever to control of communication media. The increasing dominance of global media institutions has given rise to new forms of resistance, from alternative media and culture jamming, to transnational broadcasting, and institutional and regulatory responses. A complex relationship between global, local, and national media spaces has emerged.Do today’s flows of images, products and people lead to a global culture dominated by Nike, McDonalds, CNN and Disney? How important are global media compared with regional or local products? What is the role of the state with regards to global media industries? What kind of media is being produced in different parts of the world that offer challenges to global media? This course explores these and other questions related to international communication, transnational media, and globalization.

  • COMM 575, Social psychology of communication
  • COMM 577, Attitude and behavioral prediction
  • COMM 637, Public health communication
  • COMM 644, Communication and Space, Carolyn A. Marvin

Physicalized space is said to be crucial to public life. Perhaps so. But it is also critical to urbanization, globalization, modernity, mobility, social hierarchy, flow, scale, imperialism (what Said called the geography of violence), revolution, intimacy, shopping malls, simulacra, and being-in-the-world. Space is not only mediated and dialectical; it is a privileged strategy of post-modernity, “the everywhere of modern thought.” So far as media go, the analytic of space implies a shift away from narrative and toward process and practice as ways of structuring experience. What are the theories that get at this? How can we use theories of space to think about media and culture, to rediscover the richness of the world? And what about the explosive iteration of screen culture that logically ought to imperil lived space but seem to offer new modes for grounding it. We will explore these themes in the relevant literatures for the purpose of developing fabulously interesting research projets, including some in visual format.

  • COMM 702-301, Global & Comparative Media Systems, Marwan M. Kraidy

Designed to explore the comparative approach to global media systems, this seminar pivots on several broad theoretical and epistemological questions: To what extent are taxonomies developed in and about North American and European media helpful to understand media systems and institutions in other parts of the world? What problems arise from using nation-states as units of analysis? How does the emergence of regional, multi-national, sometimes language-based media spheres (Latin American, pan-Arab, pan-Chinese, etc) challenge the comparative systems approach? To what extent does the advent of of regionalization and globalization compel a rethinking of the comparative systems approach? Readings cover conceptual and epistemological issues in comparative research, , in addition to media systems in America, Europe, and Asia.

  • COMM 806, Gender, Global & Media: Gender, Globalization and Media, Radhika E. Parameswaran

This seminar creates a forum for debate over the ways in which the cultural politics of gender structure the historical, economic and social landscapes of media globalization Media culture, as the course readings seek to show, provides a fertile site to examine how globalized media practices articulate gendered imaginations. Adopting a transnational feminist perspective, the seminar specifically address between and among media technologies, representations, and institutions and the complex scripting of gendered meanings and subject positions in multiple locations in the global public sphere. Course topics include globalization and transnational and postcolonial feminist theories; gender, sexuality, and media; gender and labor in globalized media industries; femininity, consumerism, and global advertising; gender, global media, and morality; tourism, gender, and media economies; and gender, religion, and popular culture. For the major assignment, students will be expected to produce a research paper that focuses on one of the following: a critical review of a set of theories or a body of empirical work in a specific region; textual analysis of media with special attention to influences of globalization; political-economic analysis of media institutions and corporate practices.

DENTAL MEDICINE

  • SDM 612, Local and Global Public Health

ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE

  • EAS 501, Energy and Its Impacts
  • EAS 502 (tentative), Sustainable technology and engineering
  • EAS 503 (tentative), Design of technologies for development
  • EAS 504 (tentative), Engineering and the Environment
  • ESE 502, Introduction to spatial analysis
  • ESE 567, Risk Analysis and Environmental Management

BIOETHICS

  • BIOE 550, Bioethics and Society

This set of courses will deal with bioethical issues in popular culture addressed from a social science perspective. Courses to be offered include: “Sociology of Bioethics,” and “Media and the Doctor-Patient Relationship.”

  • BIOE 552, Anthropological Topics in Bioethics

This set of courses provides an introduction to the use of anthropological methods and approaches to address bioethical issues. Courses might include cross-cultural studies of medicine and doctoring, diversity and the culture of medicine, cross-cultural bioethics.

  • BIOE 570, Bioethics Goes to Washington
  • BIOE 580, Research Ethics
  • BIOE 590, What a shot! The Ethical Challenges of Vaccines

PUBLIC HEALTH (INCLUDING EPIDEMIOLOGY)

  • PUBH 509, Injury epidemiology
  • PUBH 517, Epidemiologic Study of Geography and Health

This course will provide an introduction to GIS in public health research and practice. Through a series of lectures and labs students will explore theories linking health and the environment, spatial analysis and spatial epidemiology, and applications of GIS-related data collection and analysis.

  • PUBH 519, Introduction to Global Health

This course presents an overview of issues in global health from the viewpoint of many different disciplines, with emphasis on economically less developed countries. Subjects include: millennium goals; measures of disease burden; population projections and control; environmental health and safe water; demography of disease and mortality; zoonotic infectious diseases; AIDS and HIV prevention; vaccine utilization and impact; eradication of polio virus; chronic diseases;tobacco-associated disease and its control; nutritional challenges; social determinants of global health; harm reduction and behavioral modifications; women’s reproductive rights; health economics and cost-effective interventions; health manpower and capacity development; bioethical issues in a global context.

  • PUBH 598, International Immersion Experience in Public Health

This independent educational experience seeks to provide motivated students with the opportunity to expand their knowledge in global health through focusedexperiential learning at international sites that provide direct public health services. Such learning will allow students to gain real-world experience concerning the core competencies of public health (health policy, behavior/ social sciences, environmental health, epidemiology, or biostatistics).

  • EPID 656, Research Methodology in Infectious Diseases Epidemiology

NURSING

  • NURS 516, International Nutrition: Political Economy World Hunger

A detailed consideration of the nature, consequences, and causes of hunger and undernutrition internationally. Approaches are explored to bringing about change, and to formulating and implementing policies and programs at international, national, and local levels, designed to alleviate hunger and under-nutrition.

  • NURS 535, Comparing Health Care Systems in an Intercultural Context: Study Abroad
  • NURS 545, Maternal & Infant Care in the Americas
  • NURS 562, Case Study in Complementary & Alternative Medicine

This course will examine the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in health promotion and disease prevention, as well as in acute and chronic health conditions, through evidence-based research and practice. Implications of CAM on culture, health disparities, society, economics, safety, legal, ethical, and health policy issues will be explored and discussed.

  • NURS 688, Complementary / Alternative Therapies in Women’s Health

The dramatic rise in the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) by the American public requires that the contemporary health care practitioner have an awareness of CAM therapies and modalities currently available. The end result of this is course will not be proficiency in the practice of any of these modalities in particular, but rather a basic understanding of each approach to common conditions and their potential contribution to health and well being. The focus of the CAM modalities discussed in this course will center on their use in women’s health care provision.

SOCIAL WORK

  • SWRK 735, Policy for Social and Economic Development

Social Policy reflects the dominant political and economic ideologies of societies at distinctive moments in their social histories. This course focuses on the evolving nature of the socio-economic policy development process in economically advanced countries, but especially that of the United States. The course helps students draw on their current practice experiences to identify the unique contributions made by social workers to social and economic development (SED) policy development. Particular attention will be given to the range of SED policy “actors” and the dominant sectors of SED activity in development-oriented social work practice (e.g.housing, health care, income security, community development, etc.)

  • SWRK 750, Comparative Studies in Social Welfare

Social Work and social welfare are major institutional vehicles through which societies assure a minimal level of living for all their citizens. The content of this course focuses on achieving a fuller understanding of the social, political, and economic dynamics of contemporary welfare development in the United States and other countries. The multi-faceted contributions of social work, the social services, and social welfare to national and international social development within rich and poor countries will receive special attention. Students will be expected to demonstrate beginning skill in the use of comparative methods to analyze cross-national welfare dilemmas of particular interest to them.

VETERINARY MEDICINE

  • VCSN 631, Ecological Epidemiology
  • VMED 607, Veterinary Public Health

BUSINESS & MANAGEMENT ; LEGAL STUDIES ; HEALTH CARE MANAGEMENT

  • HCMG 850, Health Policy Analysis
  • HCMG 859, Comparative Health Care Systems, Danzon

This course examines the structure of health care systems in different countries, focusing on financing, reimbursement, delivery systems and adoption of new technologies. We study the relative roles of private sector and public sector insurance and providers, and the effect of system design on cost, quality, efficiency and equity of medical services. Some issues we address are normative: Which systems and which public/private sector mixes are better at achieving efficiency and equity? Other issues are positive: How do these different systems deal with tough choices, such as decisions about new technoligies? Our main focus is on the systems in four large OECD countries–Germany, Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom–but we also look at other countries with interesting systems- including Italy, Chile, and Singapore. We will draw lessons for the U.S. from foreign experience and vice versa.

  • HCMG 868, Global Health Development
  • MGMT 208, Globalization and International Political Economy, Stephen J. Kobrin

Globalization and International Political Economy is an upper level undergraduate course focusing on globalization and the international political-economy. The course objective is to help students develop a framework that will provide an understanding of the current international environment and provide a basis for thinking about the fundamental changes which are now taking place. The course does not deal with the problems faced by multinational corporations directly, but rather is intended to provide an in-depth understanding of the political-economic environment in which they operate. The course focuses on globalization and its implications, with some emphasis on the roles played by multinational corporations. We begin with an exploration of the nature of the process of globalization and its impact on culture, the international (or interstate) political system, trade and investment. We will then turn to a broad review of some of the impacts and implications of globalization including issue areas such as the multinational corporation and human rights, poverty and inequality, democracy, the and global governance.

  • MGMT 212/810, Social Wealth Generation Venturing

The basic thesis of this elective half-semester course is that many social problems, if engaged entrepreneurially, create opportunities for launching businesses that simultaneously generate profits and alleviate the social problem. This approach generates social wealth as well as entrepreneurial wealth. The courseis distinguished from public sector initiatives to address social problems, andalso from “social entrepreneurship” programs where social wealth creation is a by-product rather than the target of the entrepreneurial effort. Students are expected to begin the course with already conceived ideas for entrepreneurial solutions to social problems.

  • MGMT 234, International Comparative Management: The Challenge of Diversity and Integration, Adrian E. Tschoegl (Link to PDF syllabus)

This is essentially a course in comparative national environments for business and how aspects of these environments impact on the firm. The course examines a number of institutions and phenomena in various countries. Issues range from language, religion, gender and ethnicity to legal systems, financial markets and corporate governance. The lectures draw on ideas from history, geography, sociology, political science and economics to inform our analyses. The lectures and cases range over both developed market economies and emerging economies.

  • MGMT 288/788, Governance and Management of Chinese Firms, Marshall W. Meyer (Link to PDF syllabus)

The course provides an intensive examination of the governance and management of some of the largest business firms in the Peoples Republic of China. From 1949 to 1988, business firms as we know them did not exist in the PRC. In 1988, independent legal status was granted to state-owned enterprises, which were made responsible for profits and losses; in 1993, state enterprises were redefined as business corporations, and private businesses were allowed to incorporate as limited liability or stockholding companies. China’s economy has grown rapidly since, but the development of Chinese firms has been uneven. A few have large domestic market share and are global competitors, but most outside of state-controlled monopoly or quasi-monopoly industries like electrical power, petroleum, and telecommunications remain regional competitors at best and are small by Western standards. The governance of Chinese firms remains work in progress. Repeated reforms aimed at corporatizing firms while preserving state ownership have created extremely complicated ownership structures and governance practices, which differ from industry to industry and from region to region.

This project-oriented course focuses on Indian business. There are several themes underlying the course: the nature of the economic reforms of 1991, and how established Indian firms, particularly Indian conglomerates adapted during the 1990’s to the changed competitive landscape; software services and the remarkable global success of several firms, and their contemporary globalization challenges; the experience of MNC’s in India, with a particular emphasis on innovative business models (including the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ models); telecommunications; and a comparison of China and India, and the convergences and divergences between them. The emphasis is integrative, and the course spans several subfields of Management: Organization Behavior and Theory, International Management, Human Resources, Technology and Strategy.

  • LGST 220/820, International Business Ethics, Dunfee & Hsieh

This course is a multidisciplinary, interactive study of business ethics within a global economy. A central aim of the course is to enable students to develop a framework to address ethical challenges as they arise within and across different countries. Alternative theories about acting ethically in global environments are presented, and critical current issues are introduced and analyzed. Examples include bribery, global sourcing, environmental sustainability, social reports, intellectual property, e-commerce, and dealing with conflicting standards and values across cultures. As part of this study, the course considers non-Western ethical traditions and practices as they relate to business.

  • LGST 224-001, Human Rights and Globalization, Janice R. Bellace

The 2000 UN Global Compact and the 2003 UN Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights have confirmed the role of TNCs as central actors in the field of international human rights law. This course introduces students to how international human rights law is currently being expanded to capture the operations of TNCs and why this development is controversial. The course examines competing perspectives on the pros and cons of imposing human rights responsibilities on businesses based in capital-exporting countries that are operate in emerging economies. Perspectives of various governments, businesses, international institutions, academics, and NGOs on issues of human rights and globalization will be considered, and a variety of case studies will be analyzed.

  • OPIM 653-001, Mathematical Modeling and its Application in Finance, Ziv Z. Katalan (Link to PDF syllabus)

Quantitative methods have become fundamental tools in the analysis and planning of financial operations. There are many reasons for this development: the emergence of a whole range of new complex financial instruments, innovations in securitization, the volatility of fixed-income markets since interest rate deregulation, the increased globalization of the financial markets, the proliferation of information technolgy, and so on. In this course, models for hedging, asset allocation, and multi-period portfolio planning are developed, implemented, and tested. In addition, pricing models for options, bonds, mortgage-backed securities, and swaps are discussed. The models typically require the tools of statistics, optimization, and/or simulation, and they are implemented in spreadsheets or a high-level modeling environment, MATLAB. This course is quantitative and will require extensive computer use. The course is intended for students who have a strong interest in finance. Prospective students of this course should be comfortable with quantitative methods, such as basic statistics and the methodologies (mathematical programming and simulation) taught in OPIM 621 Management Science.

  • OPIM-673-001, Global Supply Chain Management, Marshall L. Fisher

COURSES AT NON-PENN INSTITUTIONS

  • Anthropology and Development, Prof. Marianne Schmink, Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida (Syllabus, PDF)
  • Anthropological Perspectives on Global Issues, Prof. Richard Robbins, State University of New York at Plattsburgh (Syllabus, PDF)
  • Culture and Citizenship, Prof. Ajantha Subramanian, Harvard University (Link to syllabus)
  • Gender and Globalization in Asia, Prof. Ann Marie Leshkowich, College of the Holy Cross (Link to syllabus)
  • Global Consumer Culture, Prof. Richard Wilk, Indiana University (Syllabus, PDF)
  • Globalization & Applied Anthropology, Dr. W. Penn Handwerker, University of Connecticut (Syllabus, PDF)
  • Globalization & Transnational Culture, Dr. Carla Freeman, Emory University (Syllabus, DOC)
  • Globalization, Culture and Environment, Dr. Heatherington, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (Syllabus, PDF)
  • The Anthropology of Globalization, Dr. Benedict J. Colombi, University of Arizona (Syllabus, PDF)
  • Urban Anthropology: Anthropology of Cities, City Anthropology, Prof. Seth D. Messinger, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (Syllabus, PDF)