Provides an introduction to the debates over globalization. Focuses on the growth and intensification of global ties. Addresses the resulting inequalities and tensions, as well as the new opportunities for cultural and political exchange. Topics include the impacts on government, finance, labor, culture, the environment, health, and activism. Offered: jointly with GEOG 123.
Where does your food come from? Who makes your clothes? What does your bank do with your money? To whom are you connected through your work? Why was the 'Battle in Seattle' about more than just Seattle? How are people networking and moving around the world in new ways? How do these networks and movements change politics locally and globally? Why does increasing global interconnectedness also seem to lead to greater division and greater inequality? Why is U.S. national security said to depend on the defense of free trade and private property? How are we all connected, and who are "we"? This course aims to help you start answering these sorts of questions by examining globalization in all its diverse forms. Such interconnections include economic, political, cultural, environmental, and media ties. These ties can be analyzed independently, but they also need to be understood in terms of how they operate in conjunction with one another to produce the overall effect that has been given the single label globalization. Globalization often seems overpowering and unstoppable. Learning about each set of ties in turn, however, you will be able to see globalization as something less monolithic, something that is being contested and reworked, that is both constraining and empowering, that is constantly changing and therefore can be changed.
Student learning goals
This course will: • lead you to think more deeply and more actively about how you can work within global ties to change them for the better;
• allow you to develop your literacy in Global Geography, as well as your capacity to read and understand the business and international news sections of mainstream newspapers.
• Strengthen your research skills, developed through researching how, where and why a particular global corporation has globalized;
• enhance your critical thinking and discussion skills, developed in section discussions of readings, videos, and political struggles; and
• improve your writing skills, developed through the preparation of an independent research report on a global corporation.
General method of instruction
Lectures and sections with TAs
Good preparation includes: reading the newspaper daily, and, if possible, taking time to read any of the following books: Naomi Klein, No Logo Michael Hardt and Antonion Negri, Empire James Mittelman, The globalization Syndrome David Held, et al, Global Transformations Jan Art Scholte, Globalization George Soros, On Globalization Aiwha Ong, Flexible Citizenship Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree William Greider, One World Ready or Not Peter Dicken, Global Shift Saskia Sassen, Globalization and Its Discontents Joseph Stieglitz, Globalization and its Discontents
Class assignments and grading
2 exams 1 term paper