41 courses with the subject INTL, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
INTL 102Global Geography: People, Places, and Regions
1 1 unit(s) (Same as GEOG 102 ) Places and spatial relations are central to human experience and to the discipline of geography. From our hometowns to the campus, the United States, and the wider world, we both inherit and continually reshape our geographies through everyday practices, movements, and the meanings we attach to spaces. This course examines how people shape cultural landscapes and produce spatial divisions that reflect global power relations, ideologies, and inequalities. Through case studies from the Hudson Valley and beyond, we explore the making of the modern world across local, national, and global scales. Key themes include mapping and spatial representation, population and sustainable development, culture and colonial and postcolonial transformations of place, urban geographies, and the political organization of global space. Yu Zhou. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
INTL 105The Self and the Western Other in Modern Arabic Literature
1 1 unit(s) (Same as AFRS 105 ) The cultural “encounter with the West” is a major theme in modern Arabic literature and culture. In this course, we read and discuss an array of novels, novellas, and short stories that depict personal and collective histories of encounters between Arab and African postcolonial subjects and the West, both at home and in the diaspora. We analyze a selection of documentary and feature films by North African and Middle East directors that dramatize this encounter and explore its consequences. The course familiarizes students with persistent orientalist and colonialist representations of Arab and Islamic otherness in Western literary and cultural discourses. Students develop a better understanding of the region’s cultural complexity and its unresolved relationship to a Western global modernity that it contests and admires simultaneously. The readings include critical excerpts from Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, and literary works by such authors as Assia Djebar and Tayeb Salih, among others. This course is one of three prerequisite pathway courses for AFRS 200 . Mootacem Mhiri. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
An introduction to the varied perspectives from which an interdependent world can be approached. Themes which the course may address are nationalism and the formation of national identity, state violence and war, immigration, religion, modernization, imperialism, colonialism and postcolonialism, indigenous groups, cultural relativism, and human rights. These themes are explored by examining the experiences of different geographic areas. This multidisciplinary course uses texts from the social sciences and the humanities. The particular themes and geographic areas selected, and the disciplinary approaches employed, vary with the faculty teaching the course. Mariam Rashid. This course is required for all International Studies majors. Sophomores and first-year students should take this course if they are interested in pursuing an International Studies major. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
INTL 108Voices of Justice: Writing on International Studies and Human Rights1
This first-year writing seminar introduces students to the craft of academic writing through the interdisciplinary lens of international studies and human rights. With a particular emphasis on Latin America, the course explores pressing global issues using the foundational categories of human rights: civil, political, economic, social, and cultural. Through engagement with scholarly texts, case studies, legal frameworks, and multimedia sources, students develop the ability to analyze, interpret, and write critically about real-world challenges such as inequality, political repression, migration, women’s rights, and environmental justice. In addition to developing their analytical writing and thinking, students develop research strategies, learn to navigate academic databases, and practice citing sources responsibly. This course is particularly valuable for students interested in international studies, Latin American studies, feminist studies, and human rights. Tracey Holland. Open only to first-year students; satisfies the college requirement for a First-Year Writing Seminar. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Every minute, 20 people are forced to leave their homes due to conflict or persecution, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Given the unresolved (and interrelated) challenges of climate change, global inequality, technological innovation, and war, forced migration will continue to increase. This course will help us prepare for the implications of these challenges, which will dominate global politics and domestic discussion for years to come. This process demands that we interrogate our terms, conscious of how much is at stake in excavating the underground meanings of the words we use to describe political realities. Global in scope and interdisciplinary in methodology, the course will be focused around the four thematic anchors of time, space, and movement ; home, belonging and hospitality ; discourse, representation, and memory ; and law, ethics, and policy . Students should be ready to work collaboratively and creatively on a digital Lexicon of Forced Migration. Mariam Rashid. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
INTL 225Prison Literature and Political Dissidence in the MENA Region1
(Same as AFRS 225 ) Prison literature is a well-developed subgenre of modern Arabic letters. The earliest works depicting the suffering of political prisoners in the MENA region date back to the 1940s. In this course, we read novels, memoirs, short stories, and poetry that portray the horrors of the imprisonment experience and the denial of personal and political freedoms to political dissidents and freethinking intellectuals. Throughout this expansive literary corpus, we discover how the prison experience itself becomes an overarching metaphor for the usurpation of individual and human rights under brutal dictatorial regimes and police states emerging from the failure of postcolonial nationalist projects in the second half of the twentieth Century until the present. The course readings help students to understand some of the root causes of instability and the seemingly interminable cycles of violence that plague the region. Authors include Tahar Ben Jellloun (Morocco) Sonallah Ibrahim, Nawal Sadaawi and Zaynab Al-Ghazali (Egypt), Faraj Bayrakdar and Moustafa Khalifa (Syria), Hashem Gharaibeh (Jordan) Mahmoud Saeed and Sinan Antoon (Iraq). All readings are in English translation. Mootacem Mhiri. The course fulfills the requirements of the Prison Studies Correlate. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
(Same as HIST 235 ) This course uses historical case studies to identify practical ways to end conflict and build sustainable peace. It is concerned with the vulnerability of the weak, failed and collapsed states, with post conflict periods that have reignited into violence, and problems of mediating conflicts that are unusually resistant to resolution. Of particular interest will be the role that third party intermediaries and global governance institutions have played in bringing about a negotiated end to violence. Major topics may include: the Paris Peace Accords, South Africa’s truth and reconciliation commissions, the Good Friday Agreement, Israel-Palestine negotiations, the Dayton Peace Accords ending the Balkans wars, and negotiations to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Robert Brigham. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
INTL 238Environmental China: Nature, Culture, and Development1
(Same as ASIA 238 , ENST 238 , and GEOG 238 ) In recent decades, China has become the world’s largest manufacturing and export nation, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, a global leader in green technology, and both a key rival and major trading partner of the United States. How did China come to occupy these seemingly contradictory roles, and what do they reveal about its position in the global environment? This course examines China as a vast and diverse land where one of the world’s oldest civilizations continues to evolve. As the most populous nation on earth, China has long adapted to and transformed its environment, developing enduring cultural traditions regarding nature—some reemerging amid rapid modernization. Employing a political-ecological approach, the course investigates the roots of China’s environmental challenges as shaped by historical, cultural, political, economic, and social forces, both internal and external to the country, and by the global movements of socialism and capitalism over the past 150 years. It also explores emerging solutions and the broader lessons China’s experience offers for a more sustainable world. Yu Zhou. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
INTL 240Italy and its Migrations: Multimedia Cultural History1
(Same as ANST 240 , ITAL 240 , and MEDS 240 ) This course follows the waves that shape and change Italian culture from the time of Unification, in 1861, up through today. We learn about the experiences, dreams, memories and politics of Italian emigration and immigration through a careful study of novels, poetry, cinema, and theater, as well as letters and media coverage. We consider the ways different narrative styles reflect the historical realities of the times, and take a critical analysis approach to the question of how public attitudes towards immigrants have shaped Italian national and diasporic sentiment. Beginning with the first major waves of emigration to the United States in the 1880s, this course provides a unique look at a moment of significant transition in Italian history and the makings of Italian-American Culture; we read literary texts, personal letters detailing the immigrant experience of cross the Atlantic at the turn of the century and of crossing the Mediterranean today, news coverage of significant events like the trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, and cinematic renditions of past and current migrant experiences. We look at this cultural material in relation to the specific historical context in which it was produced, reflecting on the impact and legacy of things like the U.S. Emergency Quota Act of 1921, and the Italian Race Laws of 1938. As we read and discuss narratives of migration, we also examine the ways gender, sexuality and social roles determine and are determined by movement through space and time, reflecting critically on the exclusion of women’s voices from early accounts of migration. Sole Anatrone. This course is offered in English; Italian majors please see ITAL 340 . Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
(Same as AFRS 242 , GEOG 242 and LALS 242 ) The vast Amazon Basin lies mainly in Brazil, the giant of Latin America. Along with the bordering Andean countries, Brazil’s regional development programs have aggressively expanded transportation, in-migration, agribusiness, and resource extraction into Amazonia. Related deforestation has increasingly transformed the Amazon into soy plantations and savanna grasslands. Besides putting local environments and populations at risk, including native and migrant residents, the regional transformation has changed climates near and far. This course investigates the interrelated political ecologies of Amazonia, Brazil, South America, and world systems. Specific topics for study include the legacies of colonial Brazil; race relations, Afro-Brazilian cultures, and Indigenous peoples; urban-industrial growth and national integration; environmental devastation and sustainability; and long-run prospects for more equitable development in Brazil. Brian Godfrey.
A previous course in social sciences. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
INTL 248International Trade and the World Financial System1
(Same as ECON 248 ) This course covers both the theoretical and practical aspects of international trade, exchange rates, balance of payments, and the international financial and monetary system. We will explore common problems and crises that countries on the international stage encounter. Topics include the creation of the Eurozone, currency and sovereign debt crises, the role of global policy institutions (the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, and the BIS), and the global financial system. The course is designed to give students a better understanding of complex international finance and macroeconomic issues, as well as discuss the current policy debates countries face on the global stage. Harrison Shieh.
ECON 102 . Not open to students who have completed ECON 345 or ECON 346 . Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
INTL 249National Model United Nations1
Prepares students to participate in the National Model United Nations in New York City. Students represent a country, research its history, its political, economic and social systems, and its foreign policy. There is also a comprehensive evaluation of the UN system, and the role of states and non-state actors, such as NGOs. Participation in the Model United Nations simulation occurs in the spring. Matthew Murray. Matthew Murray.
Permission of the instructor. Application is required early in the fall term. One 4-hour period.
Offered
Spring
INTL 251Global Feminism1
(Same as ASIA 251 and WFQS 251 ) Women have long been the silent figure at the center of debates on nation-building; the object to be saved in the event of catastrophe, pillaged in the event of war, exalted in the efforts to populate and nourish the nation. This course takes as its premise the intersections between key terms “migration,” “citizenship” and “feminism” and looks at ways women and gender nonconforming people work against this objectification to make themselves heard and form community in new spaces. Through a study of literature, film and theoretical texts, we explore the ways communities and activist groups are shaped and influenced by feminist networks across the globe, and the ways individuals define themselves in relation to concepts of feminism and nationhood. Close readings of personal and fictional narratives that center on gender and migration are paired with material on the relevant socio-political and historical contexts, in an effort to encourage critical reflection on how certain discourses surrounding both migration and feminism are racialized and gendered. We look at the consequences of repeating or ignoring those ideological underpinnings, as well as ways people are working against these norms. We consider fictional narratives, testimonials and media coverage as we follow the journeys of people traveling through Africa and Central America, across the Mediterranean through the Middle East and Asia in no small part because of current rising tensions and real peril surrounding these highly trafficked migratory thoroughfares. We pair analysis of cultural material with a body of theoretical work aimed at providing students with a toolbox of global feminist scholarship. Seungsook Moon.
One prior course in WFQS or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
INTL 252Cities of the Global South: Urbanization and Social Change in the Developing World1
(Same as GEOG 252 and URBS 252 ) The largest and fastest wave of urbanization in human history is now underway in the Global South—the developing countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Most of the world’s urban population already resides here, where mega-cities now reach massive proportions. Despite widespread economic dynamism, high rates of urbanization and deprivation often coincide, so many of the 21st century’s greatest challenges will arise in the Global South. This course examines postcolonial urbanism, global-city and ordinary-city theories, informal settlements and slums, social and environmental justice, and urban design, planning, and governance. We study scholarly, journalistic, and film depictions of Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro in Latin America; Algiers and Lagos in Africa; Cairo and Istanbul in the Middle East; and Beijing and Mumbai in Asia. Brian Godfrey. John Stehlin.
A previous Geography or Urban Studies course. Two 75-minute periods.
Offered
Spring
INTL 255Global Political Economy1
(Same as LALS 255 ) This course explores competing visions of economic globalization, and uses these distinct frameworks to analyze the meaning, causes, extent, and consequences of globalization, with a particular focus on the relationships among global, national and local economic phenomena. What do we mean by globalization? What are the effects of globalization on growth, inequality, and the environment? How might international economic policy and the particular form(s) of globalization that it promotes help to explain the pace and form of urbanization? Who benefits from globalization, and who might be hurt? Why do economists and others disagree about the answers to these and related questions? This course explores some of the ways that interdisciplinary analysis might enrich our understanding of economic globalization. Timothy Koechlin. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27.
(Same as ANTH 257 and LALS 257 ) How have early global (colonial) and late global (post- or neo-colonial) states formulated language policies, and to what degree have their subjects conformed to or resisted these attempts? How does language use relate to the notion of belonging to colonial, national, local and/or globalized domains? This course offers a survey of anthropological, historical, and linguistic approaches to these questions through a consideration of language contact in colonial and neo-colonial situations, a comparison of linguistic policies upheld by empires, nation-states and transnational processes, and the conflict between language policy and local linguistic ideologies. The course addresses case studies from the Americas, Europe, and Asia that cover the range between institutional language reform and individual strategies of accommodation and resistance as they relate to early and contemporary forms of global expansion from the sixteenth century onwards. David Tavárez. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
INTL 261“The Nuclear Cage”: Environmental Theory and Nuclear Power1
(Same as ENST 261 and SOCI 261 ) The central aim of this course is to explore debates about the interaction between beings, including humans, animals, plants, and the earth within the context of advanced capitalism by concentrating on the production, distribution, consumption, and disposal of nuclear power. The first question concerning the class is how does Environmental Theory approach nuclear power and its impact on the environment. The second question deals with how this construction interacts with other forms of debate regarding nuclear power, especially concentrating on the relation between science, market and the state in dealing with nature, and how citizens formulate and articulate their understanding of nuclear power through social movements. Pinar Batur. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
Permission of the instructor. One 2-hour period. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: INT
INTL 264Population, Environment, and Sustainable Development1
(Same as ENST 264 and GEOG 264 ) Concerns about human population are integral to debates about matters of political stability, socio-economic equity, ecological sustainability, and human wellbeing. This course engages these debates via an examination of environmental change, power and inequality, and technology and development. Case studies include: water supplies, fishing and agriculture and the production of foodstuffs. Being a geography course, it highlights human-nature relations, spatial distribution and difference, and the dynamic connections between places and regions. Joseph Nevins. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
INTL 271Hello, Dear Enemy: Mounting an Exhibition on Children’s Experiences of War and Displacement1
(Same as EDUC 271 , LALS 271 , MEDS 271 and WFQS 271 ) At a time when the world is witnessing the largest displacement of people since WWII, due in significant measure to armed conflict, this course examines select case studies (both past and present) of armed conflict and their consequences for children. Journalists, photographers, and writers of children’s literature have done much to raise awareness about children and armed conflict, and to treat them in such a way that audiences develop understanding, empathy, and solidarity with children affected by armed conflict. A principal aim of the course is to study the topics of armed conflict and displacement through photography, photojournalism, and children’s literature, and then to mount exhibitions both on campus and a traveling exhibition in the Vassar Collaboratory. Our work is enriched by the study of human rights and humanitarian laws and policies concerning children affected by armed conflict, as well as by interaction with visiting artists, educators, and children’s rights experts from the United Nations and other international organizations. The course focuses on the impact of armed conflict on girls, and includes such topics as displacement, education, child soldiers, child labor, birth registration, and sexual violence. Tracey Holland. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
(Same as GEOG 272 ) Violence has been an integral part of the making of landscapes, places, and the world political map. This course examines theories of violence, explanations of why it happens where it does, and how mass violence has come to shape local, national, and international geographies. In doing so, it analyzes how violence becomes embedded in geographical space and informs social relations. The course draws upon various case studies, including incidents of mass violence in Cambodia, Indonesia, Mexico, Rwanda and the United States. Joseph Nevins. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
(Same as ECON 273 ) A survey of central issues in the field of development economics. Topics include economic growth, the role of institutions, trade, poverty, inequality, education, child labor, health, the environment, conflict and impact evaluation. Examples and case studies from Africa, Asia and Latin America provide the context for these topics. Nusrat Abedin Jimi.
(Same as ASIA 275 and EDUC 275 ) This course provides an overview of comparative education theory, practice, and research methodology. We examine educational issues and systems in a variety of cultural contexts. Particular attention is paid to educational practices in Asia and Europe, as compared to the United States. The course focuses on educational concerns that transcend national boundaries. Among the topics explored are international development, democratization, social stratification, the cultural transmission of knowledge, and the place of education in the global economy. These issues are examined from multiple disciplinary vantage points. Leonise Ardizzone.
EDUC 235 or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods.
Offered
Spring
INTL 276Economic Geography: Spaces of Global Capitalism1
(Same as GEOG 276 ) We live in turbulent times. Over the past decades, global capitalism has profoundly reorganized the spatial patterns of production, distribution, and consumption. Geography—particularly economic geography—is uniquely positioned to analyze the spatial dynamics of the global economy. Unlike other disciplines concerned with economics, economic geography examines the relationships between economy, space, and place. Economic geographers emphasize that accessibility, proximity, and spatial agglomeration shape the location, organization, and performance of economic activities. The resulting spatial inequalities and uneven development are defining features of capitalism’s emergence, evolution, and transformation. This course focuses on two major themes: the globalization of the world economy and regional development across the Global North and South. Through these lenses, we trace the historical formation of the capitalist world system and explore topics such as the commodification of nature, the transformation of agriculture, the global spread of manufacturing, and the restructuring of transnational corporations, technology and works, and their regional impacts. Yu Zhou. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
INTL 278Education for Peace, Justice and Human Rights1
(Same as EDUC 278 ) The aim of this course is to introduce students to the field of peace education and provide an overview of the history, central concepts, scholarship, and practices within the field. The overarching questions explored are: What does it mean to educate for peace, justice and human rights? What and where are the possibilities and the barriers? How do identity, representation and context influence the ways in which these constructs are conceptualized and defined and what are the implications of these definitions? How can we move towards an authentic culture of peace, justice, and human rights in a pluralistic world? In order to address these questions, we survey the human and social dimensions of peace education, including its philosophical foundations, the role of gender, race, religion and ethnicity in peace and human rights education, and the function and influence of both formal and non-formal schooling on a culture of peace and justice. Significant time is spent on profiling key thinkers, theories, and movements in the field, with a particular focus on case-studies of peace education in practice nationally and worldwide. We examine these case studies with a critical eye, exploring how power operates and circulates in these contexts and consider ways in which to address larger structural inequities and micro-asymmetries. Since peace education is not only about the content of education, but also the process, the course endeavors to model peace pedagogy by promoting inquiry, collaboration and dialogue and give students the opportunity to practice these skills through presentations on the course readings and topics. Maria Hantzopoulos. Not offered in 2026/27.
A 1-unit thesis written in the fall or spring semester. Students may elect to write their theses in one semester only in exceptional circumstances. Usually students will adopt INTL 301 - INTL 302 . Course Format: INT
(Same as ECON 346 ) This class presents advanced treatment of issues related to international macroeconomics with more of an international finance flavor. The purpose is to provide students with a better modeling toolkit for evaluating common macroeconomic challenges policymakers in both developing and developed economies face on the international stage. We emphasize the usage of more sophisticated structural and statistical macro models to guide our analysis of the following topics: balance of payments and foreign exchange markets; the international monetary system; global implications of monetary policy; international capital and financial markets; sovereign debt crises; financial crises; push and pull factors. Harrison Shieh.
ECON 200 and ECON 203 ; or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
INTL 360Fascism in Twentieth Century Europe1
(Same as HIST 360 ) Today, understanding fascism has never seemed more urgent. However, there is little consensus about what constitutes fascist ideologies , when fascist movements emerge, and how fascist regimes operate once in power. In this course, we will trace the emergence of these debates by grappling with several theoretical and historiographic questions, including: What is the conceptual relationship of fascism to totalitarianism and authoritarianism? How and why did fascist movements emerge in interwar Europe? How do fascist regimes use misinformation to consolidate power? And in what ways are fascism and liberal democracy interrelated? To anchor our analysis, we engage a number of case studies including in Italy, Austria, Germany, Spain, Hungary, and Romania. Our course concludes by reflecting on European attempts to grapple with the legacy of fascism, as well as discussions about the place of fascism in our contemporary world. Anna Solovy. One 2-hour period. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
INTL 363Anthropology of Displacement, Migration, and Transnationalism1
(Same as ANTH 363 ) It has become a basic truism to say that we are living in an age of “migration crisis.” But what exactly does it mean to be displaced? How have certain forms of migration come to be labeled “illegal”? Why are some forms of migration deemed “voluntary” in contrast to others? Where do these distinctions come from and how do they matter in everyday life? This advanced seminar sets out to address such questions, among many others, by introducing students to the anthropological study of displacement, migration, and transnationalism. Through scholarly texts, film, and literature across a wide range of regional contexts, we pursue two interrelated tracks of inquiry, as students develop semester-long independent writing projects. One track is historical : we examine imperial legacies of the native-migrant divide, the postcolonial partition of nation-states, the uneven development of a globalized division of labor across the world, and how these fraught histories endure within the present. Our second line of inquiry is primarily ethnographic : it concerns the paradoxes of displacement in everyday human experiences, such as waiting in transit, making a home in exile, and the striking capacity of borders to appear invisible or real to the point of being deadly, depending on who or what crosses them, and how. Taken together, the course offers advanced students a multidisciplinary and multidimensional understanding of how human (im)mobilities are governed, contested, and experienced across the world – and how these conditions shape the possibilities and limits of transnational solidarity today. China Sajadian. Recommended Previous coursework in Anthropology or International Studies. One 3-hour period. Course Format: CLS
INTL 368Toxic Futures: From Social Theory to Environmental Theory1
(Same as ENST 368 and SOCI 368 ) The central aim of this class is to examine the foundations of the discourse on society and nature in social theory and environmental theory to explore two questions. The first question is how does social theory approach the construction of the future, and the second question is how has this construction informed the present debates on the impact of industrialization, urbanization, state-building and collective movements on the environment? In this context, the class focuses on how social theory informs different articulations of Environmental Thought and its political and epistemological fragmentation and the limits of praxis, as well as its contemporary construction of alternative futures. Pinar Batur.
INTL 376Critical Inquiries into Refugee Resettlement and Education1
(Same as EDUC 376 ) A goal of this course is for students to critically analyze notions of refugee resettlement and resettlement education in relation to the colonial and historical processes that re/produce and re/construct refugees. The course offers opportunities to explore refugee governance in both countries of protection and third countries of resettlement. Drawing on diasporic feminisms, black studies, and black feminist thought, students analyze and critique existing gendered and racialized resettlement policies and practices and move towards possibilities for reimagining resettlement anew. The course utilizes resettlement policy texts, documentaries, and primary documents to investigate resettlement educational programming in the US and in selected countries. The course seeks to explore these questions and more: How can refugee resettlement and education draw on refugees’ forms of knowing and legibility? What pedagogical possibilities open up when resettlement policies and practices are interrogated through the lenses of diasporic feminisms, Black studies, and Black feminist thought? How might the long-standing gendered and racialized policies and practices of the global refugee regime be ruptured? Mariam Rashid. One 2-hour period. Course Format: CLS
INTL 382White Nationalism and Greco-Roman Antiquity1
(Same as ANST 382 and GRST 382 ) Ever since a mob chanted “Jews will not replace us” at the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the resurgence of white nationalist politics in the United States has become increasingly difficult to ignore. This course investigates the intellectual foundations of this phenomenon by examining the inspiration this movement takes from the texts and symbols of ancient Greece and Rome. References that a casual observer might assume amount to nothing more than abuse of history turn out to be symptomatic of the long-standing and wide-ranging entanglement of white supremacy, the nation state, and the study of history. Beginning with a survey of examples of white nationalist classicism and the core tenets of white nationalist ideologies in the twenty-first century, the course then turns to an investigation of the rhetorical utility of Greco-Roman antiquity for white nationalist activists; the relationship between overt and mainstream white nationalism; the racial politics of the Enlightenment ideals that underpin modern concepts of nationhood; and the links between political theory and real-world violence. Curtis Dozier.
One course in GRST or INTL 360 / HIST 360 , or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
INTL 386Central Asia and the Caucasus: Nation Building and Human Rights1
(Same as HIST 386 ) The Muslim regions between Russia and China are becoming more populated, prosperous, and connected. The Caspian Sea region is booming with new oil and gas wealth. A wave of democracy movements swept newly independent states but oligarchs and long-term autocratic presidents dominate politics and business. An Islamic revival after the fall of communism has brought a crisis of political Islam, including problems like terrorism, re-veiling campaigns, and bride-kidnappings. Chechnya and the North Caucasus became magnets for violence, while Tatarstan has seen a quiet renaissance of liberal Russian Islam. This cross-listed seminar explores nation building, human rights, and spiritual life in Central Asia and the Caucasus from a historical perspective. Topics include the legacies of Mongol and Tatar power verticals, the impact of communism on Central Asia, the war in Chechnya and its effect on human rights in the region, the history of Kazakhstan’s new capital, Astana, and daily life and politics since independence in 1991. Michaela Pohl. One 2-hour period. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
