General Education: Transcultural & Global Awareness Courses

GIS 102

International Studies is an interdisciplinary field drawing from disciplines such as anthropology, economics, geography, history, political science, and sociology. This first part of the course addresses questions regarding modernity and state sovereignty, along with the struggle of critical social theory to make sense of historical changes in the mode of capitalist societies–particularly modernization theories focus on development and its counter argument of underdevelopment. Other questions raised by critical theory concern relationships between time, space and capital/class formations and ideology, along with heightened concerns over how ideology figures in the reproductions of power relations and how science and technology contribute to emancipation or domination.

Transcultural & Global Awareness
AFS 105
Also Known As: HIS 105

This course will offer a broad survey of African peoples and the African Diaspora in the world, beginning with their African origins. Special attention will be paid to the enslavement of Africans, colonization, and the resultant freedom struggles undertaken by Africans and the African Diaspora.

Transcultural & Global Awareness
HIS 105
Also Known As: AFS 105

(Also AFS 105) This course will offer a broad survey of African peoples and the African Diaspora in the world, beginning with their African origins. Special attendtion will be paid to the elslavement of Africans, colonization and the resultant freedom struggles undertaken by Africans and the African Diaspora.

Transcultural & Global Awareness
HIS 106

This course will introduce students to the myriad forms of geography: physical, cultural, social, religious, and economic, around the globe at various points in time. Of particular concern will be the various movements leading to modern globalization.

Transcultural & Global Awareness
APG 111
Also Known As: LAC 111

(Also LAC 111) An analysis of the theory and universality of culture from the historical, functional and structural approaches. Emphasis on cross-cultural comparisons as a basis for understanding contemporary society.

Transcultural & Global Awareness
LAC 111
Also Known As: APG 111

(Also APG 111) An analysis of the theory and universality of culture from the historical, functional and structural approaches. Emphasis on cross-cultural comparisons as a basis for understanding contemporary society.

Transcultural & Global Awareness
AFS 113
Also Known As: CAT 113

(Also CAT 113) Hand, heart and spirit have been an intrinsic part of the process of creativity, survival and enthusiasm in the African-American community. This studio course will draw inspiration from the rich artistic traditions in the African-American visual arts. We will engage in creative processes such as improvisation, quilting, and collage –concepts and techniques used by Betye Saar, Faith Ringgold, and Romare Bearden. We will study narrative in the works of Ringgold, Jacob Lawrence and others. With this foundation,students will create their own personal narratives.

Transcultural & Global Awareness
CAT 113
Also Known As: AFS 113

(Also AFS 113) Hand, heart and spirit have been an intrinsic part of the process of creativity, survival and enthusiasm in the African-American community. This studio course will draw inspiration from the rich artistic traditions in the African-American visual arts. We will engage in creative processes such as improvisation, quilting, and collage –concepts and techniques used by Betye Saar, Faith Ringgold, and Romare Bearden. We will study narrative in the works of Ringgold, Jacob Lawrence and others. With this foundation, students will create their own personal narratives.

Transcultural & Global Awareness
REL 115

This course introduces students to the academic study of religion. Various theories and methodologies are studied to understand the role of religion in society. This class focuses on theology, philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, liberationist theory, feminist/womanist theological ethics, and queer theory as a way to study religion critically.

Prerequisites: WRT 102 Enhanced Argumentative and Analytic Writing , WRT 105 Argumentative and Analytic Writing , WRT 106 Accelerated Argumentative and Analytic Writing
With a final grade of C- or better
Transcultural & Global Awareness
LAC 116

(Also HIS 116) This course will offer a broad overview of historical and contemporary issues in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Special attention will be paid to the experiences of Latin American and Caribbean peoples; national, ethnic, and racial identities; waves of migration within the region and beyond; and US-Latin American and Caribbean relations. The course will draw on interdisciplinary materials, including scholarly articles, and fiction.

Transcultural & Global Awareness
HIS 116

(Also LAC 116) This course will offer a broad overview of historical and contemporary issues in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Special attention will be paid to the experiences of Latin American and Caribbean peoples; national, ethnic, and racial identities; waves of migration within the region and beyond; and US-Latin American and Caribbean relations. The course will draw on interdisciplinary materials, including scholarly articles, and fiction.

Transcultural & Global Awareness
ENG 125

An introduction to the various literary genres: poetry, drama and fiction. Specific syllabus at the discretion of the instructor, but texts will come from the continents of Africa, Asia, Central and South America and from the Pacific Islands.

Prerequisites: WRT 105 Argumentative and Analytic Writing , WRT 106 Accelerated Argumentative and Analytic Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing
Minimum grade of C- or better required
Education Co-Concentration, Transcultural & Global Awareness
REL 201

A study of the Old Testament against the background of the ancient Near East emphasizing the history and religion of the Hebrew people.

Prerequisites: WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing
With a minimum grade of C- or better.
Transcultural & Global Awareness
GIS 202

The course is a continuance of the issues presented in International Studies I but can be taken without previously taking that course. In this course we contend with how critical theorists look anew at how social power reproduces itself. This course examines historically how different ideas regarding development, modernity, modernization and progress evolved in Europe and in the United States and how these ideas guided economic and social policies around the world. Additional topics covered include postmodernism, post-Fordism, post-colonialism, and post-structuralism. One of a the major theoretical shifts of this century has been the calling into question of the authoritativeness of knowledge. This course will delve into a critical analysis of such key concepts as the ‘world-system’, ‘hegemony’, and ‘empire’. The purpose of the course is gaining literacy, devising critiques and deriving inspiration in some areas of overlap among political economy, geopolitics and studies of representations of inferiorized otherness .

Transcultural & Global Awareness
CAT 203

Great works of art give clues to the meanings and values of a culture. We will explore and compare the obvious and the hidden meanings of the art and architecture of the world’s great cultures, from prehistoric time to the Gothic (12th century) period of European art. Special attention to the ancient cultures of Egypt, Greece, Rome, India, China, Africa, Mexico, and Peru.

Prerequisites: WRT 105 Argumentative and Analytic Writing , WRT 106 Accelerated Argumentative and Analytic Writing
Transcultural & Global Awareness
GIS 203
Also Known As: LAC 203

(Also LAC 203) General problems of comparative analysis. Political communication, political culture, modernization and nation-building, conflict and revolution.

Transcultural & Global Awareness
LAC 203
Also Known As: GIS 203

(Also GIS 203) General problems of comparative analysis. Political communication, political culture, modernization and nation-building, conflict and revolution.

Transcultural & Global Awareness
CAT 204

A survey course designed to stimulate the interest in and understanding of the music of representative world cultures including: Native American, Sub-Sahara Africa, India and China. The focus will be on the comparison and contrast of both classic fold forms and more the contemporary forms as they continue to evolve and function in their individual cultures. The student is responsible for outside listening, research projects and field trips.  

Corequisites: WRT 105 Argumentative and Analytic Writing , WRT 106 Accelerated Argumentative and Analytic Writing
Transcultural & Global Awareness
REL 204

The writings of the New Testament will be studied in terms of their historical context, literary style, purpose, authorship, and religious teachings. A variety of approaches to the reading and understanding of this literature will be considered.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Transcultural & Global Awareness
AFS 207
Also Known As: HIS 207

(Also HIS 207) (Writing Intensive) This course begins with the history of Africans in continental Africa and their forced removal and enslavement in North America and continues through the Abolition movement, Emancipation, and Reconstruction. This course will examine the creolization of Africans in what became the United States, and the resultant religious, cultural, and political traditions. This is the first course in the African-American History sequence.

Prerequisites: WRT 102 Enhanced Argumentative and Analytic Writing , WRT 105 Argumentative and Analytic Writing , WRT 106 Accelerated Argumentative and Analytic Writing
With a final grade of C or better.
Transcultural & Global Awareness, Writing Intensive
HIS 207
Also Known As: AFS 207

(Also AFS 207) This course begins with the history of Africans in continental Africa and their forced removal and enslavement in North America and continues through the Abolition movement, Emancipation, and Reconstruction. This course will examine the creolization of Africans in what became the United States, and the resultant religious, cultural, and political traditions. This is the first course in the African American History sequence.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Transcultural & Global Awareness, Writing Intensive
REL 208

The history of religion in the United States from the colonial period to the present day. Topics will include: the religious situation in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries; immigration patterns of the colonists; frontier expansion and the industrial revolution; the growth of denominationalism; religion and science; liberal and conservative ends; civil religion; "cults'' and other contemporary issues.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better
Transcultural & Global Awareness
GIS 208

This course aims to introduce you to several of the more prominent IR theories that now pervade the discipline: Realism, Liberalism, Marxism, Critical Theory, Normative Theory, Feminism, Historical Sociology, Post-Modernism, Social Constructivism, Green Political Theory, and Evolutionary Biology. In this sense, IR theory is the language that you need to learn in order to make sense of much, if not all, of the wide range of discourse and debate that transpire in IR circles. The course operates primarily in the ‘system’ level and gives special attention to political realism (Realpolitik)–the oldest and, arguably, the most popular theoretical perspective in the field–and recent ‘constructivist’ work. In the broadest terms, the course explores the place(s) of power, institutions, and values in international relations.

Transcultural & Global Awareness
GIS 210

This course provides a theoretical and historical introduction to human rights, on the premise that a sound understanding of contemporary practice and debates requires grounding in their historical and theoretical roots and foundations. We will focus especially on the practical and political implications of human rights in an attempt to understand how and why they matter for what actually happens in world politics as opposed to what one might wish would happen. We will ask questions such as: What obligations do states have to defend and guarantee human rights at home? How are those obligations enforced, if at all? To what degree do such obligations extend internationally? Who decides when international intervention is justified and what are the pitfalls associated with humanitarian action? Is religion compatible to secular views of universal rights? Did the industrial revolution and socialist tradition contribute to human rights? And, are there tensions between security and universal rights?.

Transcultural & Global Awareness
REL 211

This course seeks to develop in the student an awareness of sociological approaches to the study and understanding of religion. It will consider the various ways of defining and articulating the sociological dimensions of religion. Included will be an exploration of how American and other societies have been influenced by religious factors as well as an investigation of how society itself can shape religion. The relationship of religion to politics, economics, class structures, sexual roles and other vital areas of human life will be examined.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Transcultural & Global Awareness

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