These thematic tracks make up the basis of the Global Studies program. You'll take five courses in a major track and three in a minor track. Further information regarding each track can be found via the above thumbnails.
Many courses approved for the Global Studies major will pertain to several thematic tracks. Students, in consultation with the Program Administrator, will decide how these courses fit into their overall program coursework.
This track covers politics, broadly speaking, as a wide range of power relations and mobilized solidarities, claims to authority, and calls to action and responsibility. It occupies a middle ground between two extreme positions: one that privileges the state and powerful extra-state institutions and the other that downplays power in favor of the mundane and/or micro-sites of governance. This track examines diverse political entities: from UN agencies’ affairs to online protests, from environmental governance to neighborhood organizations. Topics in this track include biopolitics, mundane governance, development and humanitarian intervention, post-conflict studies, social protest, sovereignties and solidarities, nongovernmental sector, violence and injury, surveillance, corporate governance, peace-keeping, and policing.
This track investigates and questions the conditions and implications of established ideas and activities. Students will analyze the varied activities that produce, mobilize, and motivate values, claims, and relations. Fields of inquiry are not limited to science and technology but include professionalization and expertise, regulatory standards and regimes as well as the enterprises that are countercultural, quotidian, traditional, reactionary, and activist. Topics that orient student research in this track include everyday life and laboratory life, affects and artifacts, migration and mobility, auctions and authentications, consumer politics and corporate responsibilities, media and technology, and techno-cultures and imagined futures.
Studies in this track focus on the effects and implications of cultures at work and play. The Cultures at Work track invites students to explore the economics, politics, and artistic production of cultures around the world, from hubs of fashion design to sweatshops, from meal preparation to elaborate dining rituals, marketing, and consumption. Potential topics in this track include: everyday life, consumer politics, cultural economies, subjectivities, gender and sexuality, ethnic commodities, production and consumption, work and leisure, art and pop culture, imagination, gaming, branding, upcycling, and green-washing.
This track focuses on bodily natures, both human and nonhuman, and ecological relationships as the basis for modern life. Students pursuing the Bodies and Natures track can draw from a number of sub-disciplines: political ecology, eco-criticism, environmental history, global health, medical anthropology, animal studies and more. Some topics include: global sustainability, ecological crisis, extinction, biodiversity and conservation, blasted landscapes, environmental illnesses, toxicity, pandemics, multi-species, urban and guerrilla gardening, homestead farming and gleaning, ecotourism, super foods and urban deserts, nature walks and beauty retreats, global yoga, local and raw food activisms.