What does it mean to be educated? (3) There are economic, philosophical, sociological, cultural, and political perspectives surrounding the purpose of education and the pedagogical constructs that guide education. Yet, what it means to be an educated individual varies among […]
This course will explore one enduring question: Why and how has hip-hop become equally a tool for revolution and capitalist expansion across the world? As hip-hop has attained the interest of corporate America, it has gone from being vilified by […]
This course provides an overview of the history and modern issues of peace and war with an emphasis on the institutions in Washington, D.C. (ie. Pentagon, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Amnesty International, State Department, CIA). Through reading ethnographic and historical case studies, […]
Few ideas have stirred the human imagination as has the question of the end of life. This course examines visions of the process of dying and accounts of a possible second life from Judaism to Hinduism, Dante to Milarepa, The […]
The turmoil and traumas of modernity have transformed urban spaces into architectural and commemorative battlegrounds. This seminar introduces theories of memory and nationalism alongside controversies over architecture and planning with special case examples from twentieth-century European urban transformations. The dynamic […]
Borders, migration, and globalization are terms invoked by the media and in everyday conversations; but it is important to dig deeply to understand what these terms mean. This course studies policies and the discourse around border security; the cause and […]
While nation states and regional political groupings complete and sometimes clash, no one seeks conflict per se. Common objectives, however, often imply different approaches toward an endpoint of peace, security, and prosperity. Human and natural disasters bring disruption to human […]
Religion can mean different things to different people. While modern secular thought has permeated religious and communal life, traditional understandings of religion are still vibrant while fundamentalist and religion-based nationalisms have surged despite globalization. Wars of culture and power based […]
While there is agreement that education is key to individual and community well-being, much controversy exists over education’s goals and how to achieve them. Issues include identifying education challenges and effective solutions, recognizing how social or economic status interacts with […]
The World Wildlife Fund recently reported that total wildlife populations declined over 50% between 1970 and 2010. Our class will explore the primary causes of habitat and wildlife loss including consumption, pollution, and climate change. We will then engage with […]
Complex problems challenge your generation. Some persist from prior generations, and others have recently emerged or intensified from rapid social, environmental, technological, economic, and geopolitical changes. The exact solutions to these problems may be uncertain, but they will certainly require […]
So much of our lives today takes place in the virtual world of the internet that it is easy to forget or ignore the ways in which our physical environment affects our behavior and our self-understanding. This class will explore […]
Social justice activists and libertarians are two of the most familiar social types in our polarized political climate. But how can such different perspectives speak to each other in a productive and respectful way? Is it possible for us to […]
Inherent within criminal law and justice is the power to make discretionary decisions that greatly impact the accused, victims, and society. This course exposes students to historical and contemporary issues that generate interaction between ethics and criminal justice. It will […]
The United States leads the Western world in the use of harsh punishments: life sentences, death sentences, and extended solitary confinement. Each of these punishments is a type of death penalty: life sentence prisoners are sentenced to die in prison, […]
This course focuses on the extent to which inequality and public policy affect a child’s experience of childhood. The course draws on historical, sociological and legal perspectives to examine what rights children have (and when they might lose them), the […]
Juvenile delinquency poses difficult and interesting problems for youth policy and criminal justice policy. This course looks at the misconduct of youths that brings them within the jurisdiction of the juvenile courts, and focuses on the complex problem of whether […]
Political and social leaders accuse each other of it, and are accused by a media that itself is then condemned for it. It is tweeted, re-tweeted, articles are written, journals published, and blogs devoted to it – but what is […]
This Complex Problems course will introduce students to the complex problem: How we can create and support social entrepreneurs? Social entrepreneurs are individuals who create businesses to address social problems or needs that are unmet by governments and current markets. […]
This course examines the question: What does it mean to be an American? We ask questions about race and ethnicity, as well as about ideology and beliefs. While we explore our own identities – whether American or not – we […]
This course will examine military, humanitarian, and post-conflict peacebuilding interventions to explore how the international community has worked to support victims of mass violence, injustice, brutal dictatorships, and poverty around the world. Students will first survey interventions in contexts of […]
With the recent rise of populism across the Western world, this course will help students with international aspirations to critically examine the emerging issues related to “being a global person.” Course readings and team projects explore global citizenry and cover […]
Happiness is considered by many to be the ultimate goal in life; indeed, virtually everyone wants to be happy. The American Colonies Declaration of Independence takes it as a self-evident truth that the pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right […]
For a problem of intriguing complexity, look no further than the contemporary city. Home to two-thirds of the worlds population, modern cities — gloriously diverse cultural, innovation, and artistic hubs, and often refuges for those who seek opportunity or escape from […]
According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), there are over 65 million displaced people in the world, a significant portion of who are classified as refugees. Who are these people? Where are they coming from? What are […]
Prejudice is an attitude (usually negative) about members of another social group. The concept of prejudice has strong negative connotations such that most people do not freely admit to having such feelings and assume those who do are small-minded, evil, […]
Decision making is one of our most important activities in both our professional and personal lives. In this course, decision-making processes will be unpacked and thoroughly analyzed. They will be viewed through the lenses of psychology, business, economics as well as […]
How will the revival of the Silk Road via the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative increase the connectivity between nations and facilitate trade to the benefit of all parties when each country has their own political, cultural and economic […]
Universities teach about the past and the present in depth, but what about the future? This course’s dual goals are to develop an anticipatory future consciousness and to equip each student with practical methods and first-hand experience in a futures study. Future […]
Although it might seem that the law provides rules for personal and business conduct that are definitive and clear, in reality the law more often balances complex interests that involve many shades of gray. This course examines a series of […]
This class adopts a less Western-centric way of framing knowledge by focusing on a U.S. ethno-racial minority group within the U.S. Latinxs are shifting the economic, political, cultural, and social landscape of US American society. Latinx communities bring forth questions […]
Surveillance has become a commonplace term, yet it is often dismissed as only the concern of those who have something to hide. This suggests that only criminals/criminal activity is watched and having a public persona online means we agree to […]
The United States is often referred to as a nation of immigrants. As in centuries past, immigration continues to transform U.S. society. Today, the foreign-born population in the U.S. is the biggest in the world and is more diverse than […]
One of the challenges to advancing the debate over immigration in the U.S. is the tension between those who are apprehensive and those who are optimistic about the impact of newcomers on the receiving society. This course explores from multiple […]
This course introduces students to health inequities and will use political, economic, historical, and sociological analyses of differences in power and privilege as it relates to quality of life, disease burden, and mortality in Washington, DC. Through local texts, site […]
This course explores food justice issues in the twenty-first century. Students think critically about topics such as whether food marketing to children should be restricted, whether agricultural subsidies should be eliminated, and how stakeholders incorporate healthful eating practices into health […]
How can individuals grow their own resilience to prevent mood disorders? What are society-based systems and policies that minimize mental health risks and promote the prevention of mental illness? This course will explore the complexity of preventing mental illness, specifically […]
Research and development efforts in the field of chemistry have significantly enhanced the quality of human life. However, they also pose threats to global security, since highly toxic chemicals can be employed by States and terrorists to develop deadly weapons, […]
This course explores not only the scientific basis for mental illness and treatment, but also how cultural, political, and economic forces impact mental health policy. Students consider issues such as whether patients have rights to refuse treatment, how socio-cultural perspectives […]
Sequencing the entire human genome has advanced from a 13 year, multi-institutional project, completed in 2001, to a simple automated procedure taking less than 24 hours to complete. Over the past 15 years, costs of sequencing the human genome have […]
Food, energy, and water resources are interconnected, so addressing one resource will cause scarcities in others. This complex problem requires innovative, cooperative, and interdisciplinary solutions utilizing the skills from multiple disciplines. The next generation must be equipped with sustainability and […]
As of 2017, 7.5 billion people inhabit the planet Earth. This is more than double the population of just 50 years ago when Paul Ehrlich published his dire warning (The Population Bomb) of famines and societal collapse due to population […]
Today, contaminants enter our water, air, and land through many routes. This course is broken into these three sections (water, air, and land) as students pursue issues surrounding pollution in the environment including how and why pollution occurs. The course […]
This course explores the matter that has mattered to humans, from stone and bronze through semiconductors and nanostructures. Cultures, economies, and nation-states flourish and decline based in part on the material resources and technology they can access and control. This […]
What is real, how do we know, and what does it mean? These simple sounding questions, as old as humankind, have no simple answers. The questions, however, have become only more interesting as science, and particularly physics, continues to reveal […]
How do we learn about sex? It’s a complicated question with unique answers based on our families, friends, schools, and identities. It’s also a question that continually plagues students, parents, teachers, administrators, and policymakers. And despite these enduring disputes, U.S. […]
Mostly we make our lives up as we go along, and although we might sometimes find it hard to imagine doing anything else, we may also sometimes wish that there was a narrative or organizational principle that we could point […]
This course examines how dominant understandings of LGBT identity came into being in the Western world at the turn of the twentieth century and alternative paradigms for sexual and gender difference that have been offered by racial minorities, transgender communities, […]
This seminar examines questions of contemporary world cinema from multiple perspectives by working back and forth between concepts of examining single, individual texts and broader, globally relevant contexts. As part of that project, each student studies in detail a single […]
From Ovid’s Metamorphoses to the Mahabharata, the Popol-Vuh to the Norse Eddas, myth gave people ways to understand the world, to develop cultural identity, to share values. But what is the role of myth in modern cultures? We now tend to use the wordmythto mean a […]
From William Shakespeare to Beyonce, much of what we consider original art depends on borrowed text, recycled images, and familiar melodies. But where do we draw the line between influence and plagiarism? In this course, we consider questions of creative […]
Diseases, colloquially, are caught, transmitted, and contracted in many different ways: miasmas, bugs, germs, and vectors–to name just a few. How does the language people use to describe illness indicate beliefs about illness? This class studies historical, scientific, and popular […]
Have you ever thought about how podcasts influence your knowledge and opinions? Any topic or theme you can imagine has a podcast covering it; they are modern, flexible modes of storytelling. But, the sense of shared experience and bond between […]
Great minds of every generation have struggled to explain why bad things happen to good people, why humans are cruel to one another, and, especially for the followers of the Abrahamic faiths, how a world can have evil in it […]
This course examines the distinction between “normal” and “abnormal” bodies and investigates the complex ways in which abnormal bodies become “problems” for medicine. Looking at historical examples, e.g. pathologization of slaves’ desires to flee captivity, nineteenth century diagnosis and treatment […]
This course uses literature, philosophy and the social sciences to understand the complex phenomenon of punishment. Students examine why parents punish their children, why we punish ourselves as well as why the state punishes individuals. The course considers whether there […]
Obesity is a public health emergency; a majority of Americans are currently overweight and a significant fraction are likely to suffer adverse health impacts including diabetes, heart attack, stroke, and even cancer. This course investigates the ways lifestyle, culture, socioeconomic […]
For many individuals, gender and sex mean the same thing. If you are born with male reproductive organs, you are a male and vice versa for females. For others, sex assignment and gender have a complex relationship. Students will be […]
Establishing one’s identitie(s) is both real and invented. How one reads other’s projected identitie(s) in a multi-platform culture is complicated, not only by how people adorn themselves, but by our media choices. From avatars on social media (Instagram, YouTube, Tinder) […]
Central for the three Abrahamic traditions, Jerusalem has been a locus of worship and dispute for over two-thousand years. The course proceeds thematically, beginning with the role of Jerusalem in the mythic imagination of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Students then […]
Slavery, or human trafficking in contemporary language, is one of the most puzzling, controversial, and enduring questions in history. This course explores changes and continuities in the institution of slavery from antiquity to the 21st century. It approaches this complex […]
It does not take long traveling across Washington, DC to encounter people experiencing homelessness. As these encounters have become so common, fewer people ask how homelessness has become such an entrenched aspect of life in the city. Why and how […]
How has social media changed how people communicate, collaborate and mobilize? This course will examine whether online tools lead to offline action and how digital advocacy has impacted American culture, fundraising and politics. Students will also explore the role of information literacy, how to engage those without […]
This course examines the search for and performance of ideal models of American manhood on theatrical, political, and social stages. Through investigating gender theory and masculinity studies, reading and analyzing plays, viewing theatrical productions and films, unpacking political posturing, and […]
From early amorphous blobs of computer generated sounds, to the pulsating beats of contemporary hip hop, we are experiencing electronic music in both conscious and unconscious ways. This course will explore the impact that electronics have had on music since […]
Drawing on museum collections in D.C., this course explores how visual images constructed, claimed, and sometimes contested identities across the geohistorical spectrum. Students consider how images convey identities tied to cultural conceptions about politics, religions, race, gender, disability, and sexuality […]
When a New York resident sued the Metropolitan Museum in 2015 for displaying allegedly ‘racist’ paintings of a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus, it was simply the latest iteration of an enduring philosophical debate. What does God look like? Is the divine […]