Walking can be the ultimate act of freedom. But walking while black, while trans, or without papers, for example, can often risk a violent loss of freedom. Historically, however, marginalized groups have used walking (i.e. the protest march) to fight […]
How do we, as individuals and societies, determine the value of things, services, and experiences? Questions like the value of a national park, a child well-educated, or a life prematurely lost are central to both government policy and individual commitments. […]
Embedded in the fabric of every national narrative is the attempt to understand past violence. Words like reconciliation, reckoning, justice, impunity, accountability, and forgiveness all have distinct connotations depending on their specific national context and the actors who employ them. […]
Every year more people die from unsafe drinking water than from all forms of violence, including war. Global demand continues to rise, with a large part of humanity, some 25 percent, living with water scarcity. It is a crisis that […]
Obesity and cognitive dementia are currently among the most pernicious threats to human health and quality of life. Despite many years of research at enormous financial cost, understanding of the causes of both disorders is limited and preventative and treatment […]
Course type: Community Based Learning. As a part of this course, students will actively serve with a nonprofit agency or school in the DC area to apply their course knowledge. This course examines the conversation on poverty in Washington, DC […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 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, […]
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 […]
This course addresses one of the most pressing challenges of our time: poverty and inequality. The course is an interdisciplinary critical analysis of the causes and consequences of, as well as solutions for, poverty from politically and philosophically diverse perspectives. […]
This course introduces students to an on-going dialogue at the core of Western intellectual history about how to think about justice. The course examines how the attempt to achieve clarity about the fundamental problems of justice gives rise to new […]
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 […]
As consumers, we generally only purchase the things we want: PC or Mac; private or public college; pizza or salad. The concept of choice is a powerful motivator for many Americans, whether it means the right to spend our money […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Our practices of holding one another responsible for wrongdoing depend on the attribution of moral agency, and the view that, as human beings, we are not simply causes in the world, but authors of our actions. Contemporary psychological research increasingly […]
Why do interstate conflicts occur? What causes them to become intractable or to escalate in intensity such that they threaten regional or international security? To what extent could, or should the U.S. play a role in helping to defuse or […]
This course would bring together AU students across a diverse set of disciplinary foci and from a diverse set of educational and cultural backgrounds in the study of a truly complex problem for all of humanity: piracy. Piracy, in this […]
This course on how the public understood and understand the Great Recession and specifically the financial collapse of 2007-2009 will expose students to different choices in storytelling about major and complex events, and also to different disciplinary approaches to analyzing […]
Outsiders often miss the vibrant neighborhoods of DC, which have deep histories and distinctive cultures. Today, DC neighborhoods face intense pressure to change. Through 3-5 field trips, interviews with residents and local politicians, and our own picture-based maps, students in […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Yes, we invariably nod in the affirmative to the statement that we, humans, are a part of nature and whatever harms the rest of nature harms ourselves and future generations. This tautology and premise of environmentalism has become widely accepted. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
Drugs remain a complex problem, despite the investment of billions of dollars and many years into potential solutions. After over 50 years of scientific research, we have extensive knowledge of how drugs work on the brain, but little progress has […]
How does art help to advance the work of activists and how do artists enable activists to think more creatively? Social justice movements often use the tools of artwork to support and further their aims; students in this course explore […]
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 […]
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 […]
This course helps students understand and apply a powerful new approach to solving complex problems through human-centered thinking. Design thinking is a problem-solving framework that is transforming fields from entertainment to international development. Students will learn critical thinking, empathy, how […]
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 […]
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 […]
What if the whole world went vegan? A vegan lifestyle claims to be the solution to diverse worldwide complex problems such as (1) diseases of affluence (such as heart diseases, diabetes and cancer) (2) malnutrition (3) animal rights and (4) […]
Societies expect students to shape the future by initiating change and transforming the world. But educators and policymakers relegate students to schools that structure inequalities and restrict learning opportunities. Students struggle to assert agency under social constructs that influence their […]
This course seeks to: dismantle the ideologies which reproduce social inequality and prevent inclusiveness in our schools and society; develop a collective vision for an inclusive future; and identify the role schools and other social institutions must play in an […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Addiction is an extremely common human experience–an experience that highlights the particular joys and pains of being alive. Addictions to such varied things as alcohol, drugs, the internet, video games, pornography, sex, and shopping address and treat a universal pain […]
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 […]
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 […]
One of the enduring ideals of America is “the American Dream,” or the promise that any who work hard will be rewarded with economic mobility. But this premise presents a problem, in that poverty in the United States has too often been explained […]
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 […]