Global Studies

How and why do gender, race and class disparities in health emerge in the US and Canada? This course will critique policy in the US and Canada historically and in the contemporary period, including attention to the local area. Keeping in mind students' positionalities, we will explore policy impacts of states on markets, households and voluntary sectors shaping health and health care in these neighboring countries, both white settler systems categorized as 'liberal' welfare states.

Examination of their own identities and social locations leads students to an understanding of how those identities exist in a global matrix of cultural, economic and political relationships. Students are introduced to various theoretical and political positions on identity, with a focus on gender, race, ethnicity, class, spirituality and sexuality.

This course explores the global significance of the modern colonization of Palestine and the resulting Palestinian struggle for national liberation. Moving beyond conventional interpretations of the conflict between Israel/Zionism and the Palestinians, the course emphasizes Palestine’s location within a set of broader global structures and processes including settler colonialism, militarization, social acceleration, solidarity movements, and the relationship between state and non-state forms of terrorism.

This class uses healing traditions as the lens with which to examine culture. During the semester students will have the opportunity to meet healers from around the world. In a typical semester presenters include a Traditional Chinese Medical practitioner, an Ayurvedic physician (from India), a shaman from Peru, an exorcist, a native American Healer an allopathic physician, new age healers, a Christian Scientist and others. This course cannot be used to fulfill the requirements for the biology major. Also offered as REL 412 and GS 412.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is the use of computers to manage, display and analyze spatial or geographical information. This course introduces students to the basic concepts, functions, and applications of GIS. We discuss maps, data sources and management, and geographic techniques, including global positioning systems, aerial photography and satellite imagery. Through a series of lab exercises students explore the analytical functions of GIS, such as proximity, overlay and three dimensional modeling.

This course explores the complex relationship between states and economies at the global level. Its primary purpose is to provide a critical understanding of the major theoretical and analytical issues that constitute the crucial challenge to the study of global political economy today.