Global Leadership Seminars
Fall 2024 Courses
Telling True Stories: Global Perspectives on Settler Colonialism
Andi Hoelzel
How can an honest exploration of settler colonialism and its impacts help us situate our own identities within complex global issues and enable us to begin addressing these issues? In this course, students will engage with the multidisciplinary field of Settler Colonial Studies through various media. Students will explore theories of settler colonialism; examine current and historical settler colonial projects through specific case studies; analyze various aspects of their own identities and positionality in relation to settler colonialism; explore what is meant by resistance, decolonization, and re-indigenization; and imagine possibilities across disciplines for a more just and equitable future.
The Challenge of Citizenship
Scott Arcenas
Who is (or should be) considered a citizen? What rights and responsibilities does citizenship entail? How do citizens come together to address important issues? How do they resolve (potential) disagreements? Finally, what happens when fellow-citizens start to believe that they no longer have enough in common to justify going on together? In this class, we will explore how a variety of societies across time and space have answered these questions. In so doing, we will learn that citizenship lies at the heart of many contemporary crises, and that citizenship also holds the key to addressing them.
Global Change and Human Disease Transmission
Brandon Cooper
Global change presents unprecedented challenges for the human population, including increased disease burden inside and outside of the tropics. Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) afflict over one billion of the poorest individuals on the planet, and changing environments are expanding the impacts of NTDs globally. Until recently, many of these diseases have been overlooked by the medical and research communities. This class surveys NTDs and the novel techniques aimed at combating them. Collaborative team and project-based activities, combined with active-learning opportunities and interactions with international researchers, international students, and public-health officials, will enhance student understanding of this problem through multidisciplinary instruction.
Extreme climate events: observations, vulnerability, and preparedness
Jinyang Du
Global society as a whole has become more vulnerable to climate extremes which are intensified under warming climate. Advances in satellite remote sensing and big data analysis provide new opportunities for mapping, analyzing, and predicting the extreme events (e.g., 2017 Montana flash drought, 2023 Beijing and Hebei Floods, and 2023 Canadian wildfires). Students will understand the distribution, severity, trends, and causes of climate extremes and learn cutting-edge information technology for timely detecting, monitoring, and predicting the events. Based on the quantified forecasts and social-economic-environmental impact assessments, students will discuss innovative strategies to improve our preparedness for future climate extremes.
We’re with the Banned: Defending Diverse Books and Humanity’s Right to Read
Dana Fitz Gale
Dr. Rudine Bishop equates books to mirrors in which readers see themselves: “in that reflection, we see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience.” Books can also be windows, she says, granting us insight into other lives so we can “understand the multicultural nature of the world.” This course will explore books both as windows and as mirrors. We’ll examine the sociopolitical factors contributing to book bans, past and present. Together, we’ll read and discuss contemporary banned books by diverse authors and learn to stand up for a fundamental human right: the freedom to read.
Energy Conflict in a Changing Climate
Peter McDonough
Energy Conflict explores the wicked problems of a complex and ubiquitous energy system. Coal towns facing uncertain futures, the lingering promise and risk of nuclear power, expanding oil extraction, and the growing carbon footprint of the Global South all present logistical and ethical dilemmas that challenge traditional systems and leadership. By exploring these conflicts, students will explore ideas of intergenerational justice, energy dependence, cultural trauma, equity, and much more in the context of climate change and globalization. Guiding questions, in-class activities, iterative discussions, and formal debates frame each major issue to paint a picture of informed leadership in situations where there are no “right” answers.
Art Activism (in Eastern Europe and the US)
Ona Renner-Fahey
Through the lens of Art Activism we will compare and analyze varied and urgent responses to global concerns, such as war, colonialism, racial discrimination, and gender inequality. Content that we will explore will cover a wide range of art forms, styles, and periods—from Malevich’s modernist Black Square and contemporary Ukrainian tattoo art to the music of Bob Dylan and the Black Eyed Peas. The second half of the course will involve engaging in project-based group work, which will take us outside the classroom, meeting with local artists to explore media, design, and the execution of an art activist project.