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International Studies [clear]
| Title | Offering | Standing | Credits | Credits | When | F | W | S | Su | Description | Preparatory | Faculty | Days of Week | Multiple Standings | Start Quarters |
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Robert Smurr
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Program | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 13 Fall | Eco-tourism and adventure travel are frequently proclaimed to be two of the fastest growing sectors of the tourism industry, and both are promoted as more environmentally friendly options than traditional tourism models. Are they really? This program will examine the history, development, and business policies of the adventure travel and eco-tourism industries. Ever since the first adventure travel company emerged in 1969, opportunities for exploring distinct landscapes, species, and human cultures boomed worldwide. What, however, are some of the consequences related to this new type of tourism? Are these industries truly more interested in protecting the environment than they are making money? Why are adventure travelers actually more interested in experiencing traditional landscapes, cultures and beliefs than traditional tourists? Is one truly an eco-tourist if he flies in a airplane half way around the globe to view threatened birds?Physically demanding activities, such as trekking, rafting, and climbing – most often in foreign countries – all became hallmarks of this new type of tourism. In addition to learning the history, economic and cultural power of this "new" tourism, we will also examine specific business models in the program. As such, we will investigate clients, their desires, and how numerous companies strive to meet their demands. Several guest speakers with long histories in adventure travel and eco-tourism will give us added insight, as will numerous field trips. | Robert Smurr | Tue Tue Wed Fri Fri | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | ||||
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Steven Niva and Peter Bohmer
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Program | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 13 Fall | W 14Winter | It is easier to criticize contemporary capitalism for its failures than to develop feasible alternatives and a strategy to get there. We will explore and critically analyze diverse social movements and visions that seek to create more just global and national societies. International institutions such as the WTO, IMF and World Bank promote “free market” and “free trade” capitalist globalization which open up countries to multinational corporations and impose Western development models. In the past few decades, many alternative visions have developed within the global justice movement and have been renewed through more recent “occupy” and anti-austerity movements in Europe (Greece and Spain), the United States and the Global South. They draw upon historical precedents and alternatives to capitalism, from anti-colonial and socialist movements to the new left, situationist and anarchist movements after 1968.We will analyze existing capitalist globalization and current U.S. capitalism and then look at how diverse social movements and thinkers have formulated alternative visions for creating just, liberatory, democratic and sustainable societies. We will explore different and sometimes clashing alternatives to national and global capitalism that have developed around the world. These will include those influenced by socialist, Marxist, anarchist, anti-authoritarian, ecological, feminist and perspectives emanating from the Global South. We will research and evaluate case studies of existing and possible alternatives from Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, and those derived from cooperatives, intentional communities, participatory socialism and eco-feminist alternatives in the U.S. and elsewhere. We will analyze alternatives to NAFTA and other “free trade” agreements such as ALBA, and global visions of equity and justice, including climate justice. We will also look at strategies, ideologies and visions of alternative societies in the “occupy” and other current movements.The program will include a focus on theoretical debates over strategies and goals of movements, including debates about the role of states, the limitations of reforms, insurrectionist visions and the role of pre-figurative strategies and of creating alternative communities that bypass political institutions. We will pay special attention to the conditions facing women in their changing roles in the global system of production and consumption, ecological concerns and the struggles of indigenous peoples for survival and self-determination.Students will engage these topics and case studies through lectures, seminar discussion, group projects, films and guest speakers. Our activities will include theoretical reading, analytic and critical thinking about the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches, and imagining and formulating fresh views of the facts and possible futures of capitalist globalization. | Steven Niva Peter Bohmer | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | ||||
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Zoltan Grossman and Kristina Ackley
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Program | FR–SOFreshmen - Sophomore | 16 | 16 | Day | F 13 Fall | W 14Winter | Students will explore the juxtaposed themes of Frontier and Homeland, Empire and Periphery and the Indigenous and Immigrant experience. We will use historical analysis (changes in time) and geographic analysis (changes in place) to critique these themes, and will turn toward cultural analysis for a deeper understanding of race, nation, class and gender. We will take as our starting point a critique of Frederick Jackson Turner’s “Frontier Thesis”—that the frontier is "the meeting point between savagery and civilization"—as a racist rationale for the colonization of Native American homelands. We will consider alternative histories of Anglo-American expansion and settlement in North America, with interaction, change, and persistence as our unifying themes.We will study how place and connection is nurtured, re-imagined and interpreted, particularly in Indigenous and recent immigrant communities. We will connect between the ongoing process of "Manifest Destiny" in North America and subsequent overseas imperial expansion into Latin America, the Pacific and beyond. The colonial control of domestic homelands and imperial control of foreign homelands are both highlighted in recent patterns of recent immigration. These patterns involve many "immigrants" who are in fact indigenous to the Americas, as well as immigrants from countries once conquered by the U.S. military. The American Empire, it seems, began at home and its effects are coming back home and will be contested again.In fall quarter, we will track the historical progression of the frontier across North America and overseas and the territorial and cultural clashes of immigrant and colonized peoples. We will hear firsthand the life stories of local individuals and communities to understand their narratives of conflict, assimilation, resistance and survival. In the winter quarter, we will look at contemporary case studies that show the imprint of the past in the present and how 21st-century North American communities (particularly in the Pacific Northwest) are wrestling with the legacies of colonization, imperialism and migration. In particular, we will examine the overlapping experiences of Native Americans and recent immigrants, and Indigenous territories and migrations that transgress or straddle the international border as defined by "Homeland Security. This program offers ideal opportunities for students to develop skills in writing, research, and analysis. | Zoltan Grossman Kristina Ackley | Tue Wed Fri | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO | Fall | |||
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Rachel Hastings and Steven Scheuerell
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Program | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 12, 16 | 12 16 | Day | F 13 Fall | W 14Winter | S 14Spring | This is a yearlong interdisciplinary program that incorporates sociolinguistics, geography, history, cultural ecology, global change, biocultural diversity conservation, food systems and sustainable development studies to explore how societies evolve and survive in relation to their environment and a globalizing world. Our studies are based on the belief that many cultures have developed rich linguistic and ecological traditions that have provided the means for communication, food, clothing and shelter based on a sustainable relationship with the land. More recently, cultural and economic globalization are increasingly impacting local knowledge systems worldwide, in particular when measured by changes to language, land-use and food systems. These changes, together with such factors as increasing human population, environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity and climate change, compel us to explore the ways in which knowledge systems are preserved or lost. In particular, we recognize the urgent need to preserve cultural knowledge that allows a society to be rooted in place, recognize ecological limits and provide for its needs. The Andean region of South America is an ideal region to study these issues.The academic program consists of two phases. The first phase over fall quarter will focus on program themes using texts, lectures, workshops, film, writing and local field trips. Fall quarter the program will be offered for 12 credits to provide students with the option to separately register for an appropriate Spanish language course. Selection for the second phase over winter and spring quarters will be based upon criteria including successful completion of fall quarter work, demonstrated readiness for study abroad and Spanish language ability. In winter and spring, students will be full time in the program, which will be offered for 16 credits per quarter. Winter quarter will begin with 5 weeks of travel preparations and intensive study on Peru, followed by a 15-week study abroad experience in the Cusco region of the Peruvian Andes that incorporates intensive Spanish or Quechua language study, regional travel, seminars, urban and rural home stays and independent research or service learning with local organizations. At the end of the independent project period, we will reconvene for final student presentations and evaluation conferences in the Sacred Valley near Cusco.As the former Incan capital, and home to vibrant cultures and immense biodiversity, the Cusco region of Peru offers immersion in the study of biocultural diversity and how the preservation of linguistic diversity is related to the preservation of traditional ecological knowledge, biodiversity and local food systems. While in Peru, we will continue language and cultural studies while experiencing regional initiatives to preserve cultural landscapes and indigenous knowledge systems in the midst of development pressure. Given the region's rich history, knowledge systems, architecture, agriculture, weaving, ceramics and music, we will ask how is knowledge transferred across generations and between communities, and how can traditional knowledge be maximized in sustainable development projects? As we address these academic questions, our own experiences will also lead us on to consider on a more individual level how learning another language and traveling abroad can increase our understanding of culture and what it means to fit into place. | Rachel Hastings Steven Scheuerell | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | |||
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Thuy Vu
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Course | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 4 | 04 | Evening | S 14Spring | Success in international business and community development requires a certain level of proficiency in international trade, globalization, and intercultural communication. This course provides basic knowledge and skill training for potential entrepreneurs and managers in the areas of international business, communications, and finance. This course focuses on the international and community development aspect of business management, namely international trade, marketing, intercultural communication, globalization, and international organizations.Students in this course are expected to complete 10 hours of community service or in-service learning with a local business or community-based organization. | Thuy Vu | Tue Thu | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | ||||
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Thuy Vu
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Course | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 4 | 04 | Evening | W 14Winter | Success in business and community development requires a certain level of proficiency in economics, finance, and management. This course provides basic knowledge and skill training for potential entrepreneurs and managers in the areas of government public policies, business cycles, and community development. This course focuses on the macro aspect of business economics and management, namely macroeconomics, fiscal and monetary policies, national accounting, money and banking systems, and business organizational development.Students in this course are expected to complete 10 hours of community service or in-service learning with a local business or community-based organization. | Thuy Vu | Tue Thu | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Winter | ||||
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Tom Womeldorff and Alice Nelson
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 13 Fall | In the late 1700s, Europeans saw the Caribbean as one vast sugar plantation controlled by French, English, Spanish and Dutch colonial powers. The insatiable need for labor decimated local populations who were replaced by millions of African slaves and, after emancipation, indentured labor from East India and China. Historically, this represents the largest forced mixing of cultures in the world; the result was a host of new Caribbean identities, all developing in the context of the political, economic and ideological structures imposed by Europeans. Today, the identities and cultural expressions of all Caribbean peoples continue to be shaped by the colonial legacy and the rise of post-colonial consciousness. Thinkers like José Martí (" América"), Aimé Césaire ( ), and Frantz Fanon ( ) exposed the negative effects of colonial subjugation and envisioned liberatory processes of social change. Despite the region's shared colonial and post-colonial legacies, a sense of a common Caribbean identity should not be exaggerated. As Jean Casimir writes, the Caribbean is simultaneously united and divided. A Guadeloupian may be more connected psychologically and physically to Dakar, or even Paris, than she is to Puerto Rico. Out of this intense forced mixing of cultures, what forms of identity emerged and continue to emerge? Is there such a thing as a Caribbean culture, or are identities complex amalgams that defy easy categorizations such as Caribbean, Dominican American, creole Martinican, Afro-Cuban, East-Indian Trinidadian? What are the factors that make the identities of each island's peoples similar and in what ways do they defy categorization--even on a single island? How have cultural movements such as and the "New World baroque" contributed to the construction of Caribbean identities and post-colonial consciousness? These will be the questions at the center of this program. We will begin with an exploration of the colonial legacy with close attention to the political and economic forms central to extracting sugar profits from land and laborers. We will explore the impact of diverse political statuses such as independence (e.g., Jamaica), complete incorporation with the motherland (Martinique) and more nebulous forms in between (Puerto Rico). We will explore the symbioses and tensions between these political and economic issues and cultural movements. Finally, we will investigate how migration and globalization continue to play a major role in shaping local realities. Throughout the quarter, we will examine our own positionality with relation to these questions, asking: How can we study about, learn from, and engage across cultural differences in non-dominating ways? Readings will range from fiction and poetry to history and political-economic analysis. In addition to shared readings, lectures and films, each student will engage in synthesis work and a small project. The latter will be on a topic of the student's choosing, such as cultural expression through music and art, political status, religious syncretism, post-colonial literature, globalization, or migrant identities abroad. | Tom Womeldorff Alice Nelson | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | |||||
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David Shaw
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | W 14Winter | S 14Spring | This China studies program will take an in-depth look at modern China through the perspective of the social sciences, building on readings and issues discussed in the lower-division fall program China: A Success Story? However, any student with an interest in China or East Asian studies should be able to join the program in winter or spring quarter and succeed in their studies. Our overriding goals are to understand today's China as a vital global power, while critically exploring the lingering influence of its rich yet strife-torn cultural past on behavior and decisions made at the national, institutional and individual levels. Building on our shared texts and themes, students will do independent research individually or in small groups, becoming experts in a particular facet of Chinese business, economy. society and/or sustainability. Our work will also extend beyond uniquely Chinese experiences into topics on which the future of Asia, the global economy and our small planet depend, including the natural environment, paths to ecological, social and economic sustainability and strategies to redress economic inequalities and social dislocations. China's environmental history, its rural-urban dynamic and its economic development will also serve as core threads through both quarters of study. During winter quarter, we will study ancient Chinese texts (in translation), as well as popular and academic articles, books, films and documentaries on China, particularly those exploring and reinterpreting ancient themes. Chinese philosophy, comprised of the primary "Three Teachings" of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism, will inform our study of Chinese culture. Sun Tzu's will introduce us to one of the world's oldest sources of strategic thought and Chinese concepts of leadership. Other topics likely to be covered include China’s trade and travel with the outside world, the Chinese diaspora, China's contact and interactions with foreign powers and its industrialization and political transformations from an imperial dynasty to a republic to a Communist state. Spring quarter we will focus on present-day China. We will examine China's current image as a dynamic economic powerhouse and “global factory” and as an enigmatic political player internationally. We will also look at its internal, problematic quests for domestic harmony, a well-functioning legal system and a truly civil society.In both quarters, we will meet in seminar, workshop and lecture settings. Weekly readings from books, popular media (newspapers, magazines) and academic journal articles should be expected for seminar and workshop. A peer-review approach will be taken in a Writing and Research Workshop to complement individual or small-group efforts on their research projects. Regular meetings for tai chi are also highly likely, alternating with film and documentary viewings to build a closer familiarity with Chinese culture and society. Finally, in spring quarter, students will make an individual presentation on a book they have read and critically reviewed on their own. Another student completing the same reading will provide feedback on the presentation based on their reading of the book. This should expand the range of perspectives covered beyond the readings assigned to the entire class.Separate enrollment in Chinese language courses is strongly encouraged as a complement to this program. This program would also serve as good preparation for students who plan to travel to China via independent learning contracts or subsequent study abroad programs. | David Shaw | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Winter | ||||
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Therese Saliba and Naima Lowe
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Program | FR–SOFreshmen - Sophomore | 16 | 16 | Day | F 13 Fall | W 14Winter | S 14Spring | "Dangerous creations" emerge out of adverse political conditions and embody new creative strategies and possibilities. This program will explore how writers, media makers, artists and community activists use experimental modes of address to challenge dominant narratives and formal structures, and to confound notions of "the real." With an emphasis on multiculturalism, identity and especially African and Arab Diasporas, this program will examine the histories of slavery, colonialism and Empire and how art, media and literature have been used as tools of both conquest and resistance. We will draw on theoretical tools to analyze the "politics of representation" in popular media, including critiques of Orientalism, the Africanist presence and the gaze. And we will explore how diasporic communities, particularly feminists of color, "talk back" to these representations—by creating dangerously. That is, how do these artists use experimental forms to challenge fixed notions of individual and communal identity, as well as the consumerist system of media and literary production?Through the study of diasporic cultural production, African and Arab American literature and film, Third World Cinema and queer and feminist film theory, we intend to foster critical thinking about race, class and gender identities, and how they are negotiated. We will also explore how certain models of cultural-mixing, hybridity, and border-crossing have created a dispersal of identities and strategic possibilities for solidarities and connections across community struggles.In fall and winter quarters, students will learn to read cultural texts, including film, visual art and literature, to understand the relationships of people and communities, their sense of identity and possibilities for solidarity across differences. Students will develop skills in visual and media literacy, creative and expository writing, analytical reading and viewing, literary analysis, and the terminologies and methodologies of cultural and gender studies, film history and theory. Through workshops, students will also learn a range of community documentation skills, including photography, video, interviewing and oral history. In spring, students will have the opportunity to work on in-depth independent projects in autobiographical representations either through moving image or narrative writing. With faculty guidance and small group workshops, students will write proposals, conduct research and engage in critique groups to produce a major individual or colloborative creation. | visual studies, film studies, cultural studies, literary studies, African-American studies, Arab/Middle East studies, gender studies, community organizing and advocacy, and education. | Therese Saliba Naima Lowe | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO | Fall | ||
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Marianne Bailey, Shaw Osha (Flores), Bob Haft, Judith Gabriele and Stacey Davis
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Program | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 13 Fall | W 14Winter | S 14Spring | ... ...—Hölderlin, "Bread and Wine" We will study art history, literature, philosophy and music in their social and historical contexts in order to understand the Romantic avant-garde thinkers and artists, outsiders in 19th- and early 20th-century Europe, and their tenuous but fruitful dialogue with mainstream culture and the emerging popular culture of the laboring class. We will emphasize French Romanticism, but will also consider the pan-European nature of the phenomenon. This era offers a figurative battlefield where concepts of art, nature and self, order and chaos, locked swords, testing the limits of rational thought. French language study will be an important component of our weekly work; students will study French at one of four levels, from beginning to advanced.The 19th century was an era of immense political change spanning revolutions, empires and finally the establishment of democracy at home, just as European imperialism spread across Africa and Asia. We will study ways in which average women and men crafted their own identities and responded to the larger social forces of industrialization, the creation of a new working class, the solidification of gender and class roles, the rise of modern cities and the redefinition of the criminal, the socially-acceptable and the outsider.In fall, our work will begin with the paintings, poems and ideas of the early Romantics. The Romantics privileged feeling, intuition and empathy. Like adepts in an ancient mystery cult, they sought to commune with Nature. Romantic philosophers, from Schopenhauer to Nietzsche, spoke of Becoming rather than Being. Rejecting Classical order, clarity and restraint, they envisioned a pure art, beyond language and depiction, which speaks musically through color, passion, suggestion, enigmatically, as do dreams.In winter, focus will turn to the late Romantics. Decadents pushed the Romantic temperament and aesthetic to extremes through self parody and the aesthetic of fragmentation. Symbolists attempted to express the inexpressible through their art. Yet Mallarmé, Wilde and Yeats, Moreau and Gauguin, among others, helped prepare the “rites of spring” of the dawning 20th century, the arising vanguard of modernist and postmodern movements.In spring quarter, students may pursue individual research/creative projects on campus or may travel to France for 10 weeks. There they will study in a Rennes, Brittany, language school, do cultural and historical study in Paris and Lyon, as well as make side trips for research of their own.In this program, students will gain a significant grasp of key ideas in art, history and thought within their context, and will have the opportunity to specialize, creating advanced work in their choice of history, art history or writing and literature. We expect strong interest and background in humanities, and considerable self-discipline and motivation. The workload, including French language study, will be substantial and rigorous. Students will work in interdisciplinary all-program sessions and assignments, as well as choose one of three possible seminar groups. These emphasize: 1) literature and philosophy, 2) history, and 3) photography and visual arts, practice and theory. | Marianne Bailey Shaw Osha (Flores) Bob Haft Judith Gabriele Stacey Davis | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | |||
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Martha Rosemeyer and Thomas Johnson
Signature Required:
Winter Spring
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Program | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 13 Fall | W 14Winter | S 14Spring | Spring emphasis: We will study agroecology, traditional agriculture and permaculture in a tropical context. Seminar will focus on international “sustainable development” and its contradictions, successes and challenges. As a final project, students will apply their knowledge of tropical crops and soils to create a farm plan in a geographic area of their choice. This would be excellent preparation for an internship abroad and/or Peace Corps. | Martha Rosemeyer Thomas Johnson | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | |||
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Jeanne Hahn
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Program | JR–SRJunior - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 13 Fall | This program will examine the movement of the North American colonies in their separation from Britain to the emergence of the United States through the election of 1800. It will investigate the conflict, including social, racial and class divisions, and the distinctly different visions of the proper social, economic, and political system that should predominate in the new nation. Much conflict surrounded the separation of the settler colonies from Britain, including a transatlantic revolutionary movement, development of slave-based plantations and the birth of capitalism. Capitalism was not a foregone conclusion. We will study this process and pay close attention to the Articles of Confederation and the framing of the Constitution; in addition, we will investigate the federalist and anti-federalist debates surrounding the new framework, its ratification, and the political-economic relations accompanying the move from one governing structure to the other. This program will require close and careful reading, engaged seminar participation and considered, well-grounded writing. Enrolling students are expected to have completed some college-level work in the social sciences and history. | Jeanne Hahn | Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | |||||
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Harumi Moruzzi
Signature Required:
Spring
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Contract | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | S 14Spring | This Individual Study offers two options for students: (1) to continue their studies of Japanese literature, culture and society, in the form of Individual Learning Contracts, and (2) to continue their Japanese language and culture studies by studying abroad in Japan. This Individual Study also offers opportunities for students who are interested in creating their own courses of study and research, including study abroad. Possible areas of study are Japanese studies, cultural studies, literature, art and film. Interested students should first contact the faculty via email ( at least 2 weeks before the Academic Fair for spring quarter. | Harumi Moruzzi | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | |||||
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Lawrence Mosqueda
Signature Required:
Fall
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Contract | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 13 Fall | This Individual Learning Contract can be a specific in-depth topic or an internship that the student has already researched and begun to get approval from an outside agency. A group of students can also work together and develop a reading list and timetable for completion of a group project. Students can also contact Evergreen's Center for Community-Based Learning and Action for projects that may fit into the parameters of this description. Students should contact the faculty before the fall of 2013. The best time to contact the faculty is at the Academic Fair in spring 2013. Students interested in a self-directed project, research or internship in political economy or political science should contact the faculty by email at . | Lawrence Mosqueda | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | |||||
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Harumi Moruzzi and Tomoko Hirai Ulmer
Signature Required:
Winter
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day and Evening | F 13 Fall | W 14Winter | Japan is a vital, energetic and dynamic country which has been constantly reinventing and revitalizing itself even in the midst of gargantuan natural disasters, while struggling to maintain a sense of cultural and social continuity from the long lost past. Meanwhile, the conception and image of Japan, both in Japan and throughout the West, has varied widely over time, mostly due to Japan’s changing political and economic situation in the world. In the late 19th century, when Japan re-emerged into Western consciousness, Lafcadio Hearn, the Greek-Irish-American writer who later became Japanese, thought of Japanese society and its people as quaintly charming and adorable. In contrast, Americans in the 1940s viewed Japan as frighteningly militaristic and irrational. The French philosopher/semiotician Roland Barthes was bewitched and liberated by Japan’s charmingly mystifying otherness during his visit in 1966, when Japan began to show its first sign of recovery from the devastation of the WWII. The Dutch journalist Karel Van Wolferen was disturbed by the intractable and irresponsible system of Japanese power in 1989, when the Japanese economy was viewed as threatening to existing international power relations. These examples show how Japan has been viewed by Westerners in the past. The idea and image of Japan is highly dependent on the point of view that an observer assumes and that history makes possible.This full-time interdisciplinary program is devoted to understanding contemporary Japan, its culture and its people, from a historical point of view. We will study Japanese history, literature, cinema, culture and society through lectures, books, films, seminars and workshops, including study of Japanese language embedded in the program. Three levels of language study (1st-, 2nd- and 3rd-year Japanese) will be offered for 4 credits each during the fall and winter quarters.In the fall quarter, we will explore the cultural roots of Japan in its history. In the winter quarter, we will examine Japan after 1952, when the Allied occupation ended. Special emphasis will be placed on the examination of contemporary Japanese popular culture and its position in economic and cultural globalization. Students who are interested in experiencing Japan in person can take Japanese language classes in Tokyo through Harumi Moruzzi’s Individual Study: Japanese Culture, Literature, Film, Society, and Study Abroad in spring quarter. | Harumi Moruzzi Tomoko Hirai Ulmer | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | ||||
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Lawrence Mosqueda and Michael Vavrus
Signature Required:
Spring
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Program | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | W 14Winter | S 14Spring | In this program students will investigate how political events are constructed and reported in the media, compared to actual political and economic realities. By media we mean mainstream periodicals, television, radio and films and emerging social media. We also include the growth of Internet blogs, websites, independent media and other media outlets in the 21st century. We will take a historical approach that focuses on U.S. history from the colonial era to contemporary globalization. We will compare corporate media concentration of ownership to community-controlled media and social media. We will examine how issues surrounding race, class and gender are perceived by the media and subsequently by the public. During winter quarter, students will receive a theoretical and historical grounding in the political economy of the media. We will explore the question of who owns the media and what difference this makes to how stories are reported, framed, sourced or just ignored. Films, lectures and readings, along with text-based seminars, will compose the primary structures used by this learning community. Students will regularly engage in a critical reading of and other media outlets. Also during the winter quarter, students will create a research proposal that includes an annotated bibliography. Research projects may either be traditional research papers or equivalent projects determined in collaboration with the faculty, such as an independent media blog or website. During spring quarter, students will devote approximately half of the program time to completing their proposed projects and presenting the results of their research. The remaining program time will focus more in-depth on program themes as we examine contemporary issues through a variety of sources. | Lawrence Mosqueda Michael Vavrus | Tue Wed Fri | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Winter | |||
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Peter Dorman
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Program | JR–SRJunior - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 13 Fall | W 14Winter | S 14Spring | There are of poor people in the world today, and even more who have limited access to health care, education and political and cultural opportunities. The word commonly used to refer to the process of economic growth and the expansion of opportunity is development—but there is enormous disagreement over how this word should be understood or even whether it should be used at all. This program will examine development on multiple levels: historical, philosophical, political and economic. It will place the quest for development in the context of European colonial expansion, military conflict and the tension between competing cultural frameworks. In doing this, it will combine “outside” views of development, as seen by administrators and experts, with the “inside” views of people who are most directly affected by development and its absence. At the same time, there will be a strong push toward usable knowledge: learning the skills that are essential for people who work in the field of development and want to make a dent in this radically unequal world. Economics will be an important contributor to our knowledge base; the program will offer introductory-level micro- and macroeconomics, with examples drawn from the development experience. Just as important is statistics, since quantitative methods have become indispensable in development work. We will learn about survey methodology and techniques used to analyze data. Another basis for this program is the belief that economics, politics and lived experience are inseparable. Just as quantitative techniques are used to shed light on people’s experiences, their own voices are essential for making sense of the numbers and can sometimes overrule them altogether. We will read literature that expresses the perspective of writers from non-Western countries, view films and consider other forms of testimony. The goal is to see the world, as much as possible, through their eyes as well as ours.Spring quarter will be devoted primarily to research. It will begin with a short, intensive training in research methods, based on the strategy of deeply analyzing a few papers to see how their authors researched and wrote them. After this, depending on the skills and interests of students, an effort will be made to place them as assistants to professional researchers or, if they prefer, they can pursue their own projects. We will meet as a group periodically to discuss emerging trends in development research and practice, as well as to help each other cope with the difficulties in our own work. By the end of three quarters, students should be prepared for internships or further professional studies in this field. | Peter Dorman | Mon Mon Wed Thu Thu | Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | ||
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Anthony Zaragoza and Savvina Chowdhury
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Program | FR ONLYFreshmen Only | 16 | 16 | Day | F 13 Fall | W 14Winter | S 14Spring | Political economy asks basic but often overlooked questions: who has what, who does what work, why, how it got to be that way and how to change it. Given this starting point, what do some of the most basic and everyday things around us look like through the lens of political economy? How could we better understand our food system, popular culture and social movements using this interdisciplinary set of questions and perspectives? For example, we'll look at how apples are grown and harvested, , and what's grown out of the Occupy Movement, each as its own window into the way the economic system we were born into works, and how people just like us are responding to it and trying to remake the world. Through these explorations of food systems, popular culture and social movements, we will get a better understanding of the ways in which society itself becomes hierarchical and divided by race, class, gender and sexuality. In fall quarter, our guiding question will ask how capitalism evolved and came to be the way it is. How did relationships based on food, popular culture and social movements influence and become influenced by the emergence, development and concrete workings of U.S. political economy in the 20 century? In tandem with the evolution of the capitalist system, we will examine competing historical visions of political economy put forth by indigenous struggles, immigrant struggles, anti-slavery struggles, the feminist movement, the labor movement. At the same time, we will emphasize the lives of exploited and marginalized people as they encountered capitalism as an economic system. Through this work we will work to become better readers of our texts and of the world. In winter quarter, we will examine the interrelationship between the U.S. political economy and the changing global system, as well as U.S. foreign policy. We will study the causes and consequences of the globalization of capital and its effects on our daily lives, international migration, the role of multilateral institutions and the meaning of various trade agreements and regional organizations and alliances. We will look at the impact of the global order on our food system and explore the politics of culture, as people negotiate and contest new emerging regimes of labor, property and citizenship. Through protests, revolutions and riots, social movements continue to raise core questions regarding democracy, power, equality and the relationship between citizens, the state and the global economy, providing fruitful alternative analytical perspectives for the study of capitalist globalization and transnational networks. This quarter's work will allow us to deepen and strengthen our analytical skills.In spring, we will focus our efforts to learn from diverse, community-based institutions that offer us alternative visions of how to organize social and economic activity, in accordance with the basic principles of human rights, ethical labor practices and cooperative work and decision-making, through processes that respect the integrity of our environment and ecology. Working in conjunction with Evergreen's Center for Community-Based Learning and Action, schools, advocacy groups, veteran's rights groups and other nonprofit organizations, students are invited to examine strategies put forward by popular education models, immigrant rights advocates, gay/lesbian/transgender advocates and community-based economic models. In our last quarter, we will work to further develop our communication skills, organization and accountability. | Anthony Zaragoza Savvina Chowdhury | Freshmen FR | Fall |