An interdepartmental program in Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence Studies

Last updated: November 4, 2010 at 3:21 p.m.

Objectives

Since the end of World War II, peace, conflict, and coexistence studies has emerged as an interdisciplinary area of inquiry drawing on social science, the humanities, the creative arts, and science in efforts to understand reasons for war and possible ways of resolving conflicts without resorting to violence. In the last few years, for many people the primary focus of inquiry is shifting from the Cold War and the nuclear threat to conflict resolution in small and large contexts. Along with the larger goal of ending war altogether, the Brandeis program reflects this tendency.

This is a time to examine the many meanings of "security," to investigate the nature of power and political participation, and to develop ideas and ways of addressing conflicts that honor the integrity of all parties involved. This is a time, in other words, to learn alternatives to violence and a time to learn the ways of disarmament and ending of war.

How to Become a Minor

Students who wish to take peace, conflict, and coexistence studies (PAX) as a minor in addition to their major can construct an individually tailored minor in consultation with the PAX program advisers.

Committee

Gordon Fellman, Chair
(Sociology)

Steven Burg
(Politics)

Cynthia Cohen
(International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life)

David Cunningham
(Sociology)

Judith Eissenberg
(Music)

Reuven Kimelman
(Near Eastern and Judaic Studies)

Richard Parmentier
(Anthropology)

Andreas Teuber
(Philosophy)

Daniel Terris
(American Studies)

Requirements for the Minor

Students are to take six required courses, configured this way:

A. Two core requirements (comprehensive course or project).

1. SOC 119a (War and Possibilities of Peace).

2. Either PAX 89a or 92a (Internship in Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence Studies) or a senior honors thesis.

The internship consists of at least ten hours a week in a social-change organization in the greater Boston area, elsewhere in the United States, or if the student is abroad, an appropriate equivalent. The intern is supervised by a PAX professor or staff person, keeps a daily journal, presents and does the reading of a bibliography on the topic of the internship and its larger framework, and writes a paper of fifteen to twenty pages at the end of the internship. The student is expected to meet weekly or biweekly with the supervisor and to e-mail weekly or biweekly if doing the work away from Brandeis. Internships are organized around, but not limited to, those we find through the Hiatt Career Center.

Internships in the sociology department (SOC 92a and SOC 89a) with a PAX focus will be evaluated for credit toward the PAX minor on a case-by-case basis.

The senior thesis is undertaken in the student's major, on a topic central to peace, conflict, and coexistence studies. With the department's permission, a member of the PAX faculty committee will serve on and represent the PAX program on the thesis committee.

B. Two or more core electives: at least two courses (and up to four) from this list. Core electives must be taken in at least two different departments.

Core electives include courses that offer critical analyses of violence and nonviolence and that consider information, ideas, and examples of productive ways of resisting violence and working toward peace and justice (what in the peace studies field is called "positive peace," as distinct from "negative peace," which is the absence of war but not of conditions that appear to lead to war). These courses offer perspectives on major institutions and possible alternatives, explore some strategies for change, and encourage students to envision and work toward a world based more on positive peace than on negative peace or war.

C. Maximum of two related electives: No more than two courses from this list can count to meet requirements for the minor, and they must be taken in different departments.

These courses relate directly or indirectly to international, domestic, organizational, intergroup, interpersonal, or personal conflict and also include consideration of perspectives that promote understanding, reconciliation, and transformation. They need not focus on violence and nonviolence, positive peace, or encouraging students to envision positive peace. Students may apply courses from the "core electives" list that they have not taken to fulfill core requirements to this requirement.

D. Students are urged to take at least one course from a school other than social science to fulfill their PAX requirements.

E. Students may petition the PAX committee for special consideration of courses not listed here that the student wishes to propose as appropriate for her/his PAX minor.

Courses of Instruction

Courses of Instruction

PAX 89a Internship in Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence Studies
Prerequisite: Students must complete an eight- to ten-week full-time internship during the summer before the semester in which the student plans to enroll in this course.
Weekly seminar for students who have undertaken a summer internship related to peace, conflict, coexistence, and related international issues. Examples of internship sites include arts organizations, international courts and tribunals, human rights organizations, and democracy organizations. Students write extensively about their internship experience in the context of previous academic work that they have done in PAX, politics, anthropology and other disciplines. Usually offered every semester.
Mr. Fellman

PAX 92a Internship in Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence Studies
Usually offered every year.
Staff

PAX 98a Independent Study
Staff

PAX 120b Inner Peace and Outer Peace
[ ss ]
Examines the relationship between inner state and effective peacemaking at levels ranging from the self within itself to interpersonal, intergroup, and international relations. Addresses concerns about structural change and the relationship between inner state, peace building, and justice seeking. Usually offered every year.
Staff

PAX Core Courses

PAX 89a Internship in Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence Studies
Prerequisite: Students must complete an eight- to ten-week full-time internship during the summer before the semester in which the student plans to enroll in this course.
Weekly seminar for students who have undertaken a summer internship related to peace, conflict, coexistence, and related international issues. Examples of internship sites include arts organizations, international courts and tribunals, human rights organizations, and democracy organizations. Students write extensively about their internship experience in the context of previous academic work that they have done in PAX, politics, anthropology and other disciplines. Usually offered every semester.
Mr. Fellman

PAX 92a Internship in Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence Studies
Usually offered every year.
Staff

SOC 119a War and Possibilities of Peace
[ ss ]
Ponders the possibility of a major "paradigm shift" under way from adversarialism and war to mutuality and peace. Examines war culture and peace culture and points in between, with emphases on the role of imagination in social change, growing global interdependence, and political, economic, gender, social class, and social psychological aspects of war and peace. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Fellman

PAX Core Elective Courses

ANTH 137b Gender and the Sacred in Asia
[ ss ]
Ritual, violence, gender, religion, and cultural creativity in Asia, especially East Asia and South Asia. Religious movements, sacrifice and patriliny, and the ritualization of state power through religious imagery and institutions. Roles of religious leaders and spiritual movements in conflict resolution and peacemaking. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Schattschneider

ANTH 159a Museums and Public Memory
[ ss ]
This is an experiential learning course. Explores the social and political organization of public memory, including museums, cultural villages, and memorial sites. Who has the right to determine the content and form of such institutions? Working with local community members, students will develop a collaborative exhibition project. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Auslander

ENG 128a Alternative Worlds: Modern Utopian Texts
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: ENG 1a or ENG 11a.
British, European, and American works depicting alternate, often "better" worlds, including More's Utopia, Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World, Voltaire's Candide, Casanova's Icosameron, selections from Charles Fourier, Alexander Bogdanov's Red Star, Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis: Dawn, Wolfgang Becker's Goodbye Lenin! Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Campbell

ENVS 15a Reason to Hope: Managing the Global Commons for Peace
[ sn ]
Explores global security arrangements that would tend toward peace within the objective constraints that delimit our options; the laws of physics, energy and food availability, human population, global wealth, geography, weather, and the presence of nuclear weapons. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Tsipis

ENVS 18b International Environmental Conflict and Collaboration
[ ss ]
A study of the development of international environmental law and policy through a historical lens. Examines how early diplomatic initiatives have--and importantly, have not--shaped the contemporary structure of international environmental relations. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Chester

HS 250b The Arts of Building Peace
May not be taken for credit by students who took COEX 250a in prior years.
This is an experiential learning course. How can music, theater, poetry, literature, and visual arts contribute to community development, coexistence, and nonviolent social change? In the aftermath of violence, how can artists help communities reconcile? Students explore these questions through interviews, case studies, and projects. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Cohen

HSSP 102a Global Perspectives on Health
[ ss ]
A primer on major issues in health care in developing nations. Topics include the natural history of disease and levels of prevention; epidemiological transitions; health disparities; and determinants of health including culture, social context, and behavior. Also covers: infectious and chronic disease incidence and prevalence; the role of nutrition, education, reproductive trends, and poverty; demographic transition including aging and urbanization; the structure and financing of health systems; and the globalization of health. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Bhalotra

HSSP 102aj Global Perspectives on Health
[ ss ]
A primer on major issues in health care. Topics include the natural history of disease and levels of prevention; epidemiological transitions; health disparities; and determinants of health including culture, social context and behavior. Also covers infectious and chronic disease incidence and prevalence; the role of nutrition, education, reproductive trends, and poverty; demographic transition including aging and urbanization; the structure and financing of health systems; and the globalization of health. Offered as part of JBS program.
Ms. Bhalotra

LGLS 125b International Law and Organizations
[ ss ]
Introduction to international law, its nature, sources, and application, for example, its role in the management of international conflicts. Topics may include international agreements, international organizations including the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, states and recognition, nationality and alien rights, territorial and maritime jurisdiction, international claims, and the laws of war and human rights. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

LGLS 130a Conflict Analysis and Intervention
[ oc ss ]
Examines alternatives to litigation, including negotiation and mediation. Through simulations and court observations, students assess their own attitudes about and skills in conflict resolution. Analyzes underlying theories in criminal justice system, divorce, adoption, and international arena. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Stimell

PAX 120b Inner Peace and Outer Peace
[ ss ]
Examines the relationship between inner state and effective peacemaking at levels ranging from the self within itself to interpersonal, intergroup, and international relations. Addresses concerns about structural change and the relationship between inner state, peace building, and justice seeking. Usually offered every year.
Staff

PHIL 19a Human Rights
[ hum wi ]
Examines international human rights policies and the moral and political issues to which they give rise. Includes civilians' wartime rights, the role of human rights in foreign policy, and the responsibility of individuals and states to alleviate world hunger and famine. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Teuber

PHIL 111a What Is Justice?
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: One course in philosophy or political theory or permission of the instructor.
What is justice and what does justice require? The course examines theories of justice, both classical and contemporary. Topics include liberty and equality, "who gets what and how much," welfare- and resource-based principles of justice, justice as a virtue, liberalism, multiculturalism, and globalization. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Smiley

POL 127a Ending Deadly Conflict
[ ss wi ]
Prerequisite: POL 127b or permission of the instructor.
Examines strategies for ending violent internal (primarily ethnic) conflicts, with emphasis on identifying conditions conducive to negotiated settlements. Case studies are examined in light of analytical literature. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Burg

POL 127b Seminar: Managing Ethnic Conflict
[ ss wi ]
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or higher.
Comparative study of the sources and character of interethnic conflict, with emphasis on the processes by which groups become politicized, and the strategies and techniques for managing conflict in a democratic system. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Burg

POL 128a The Politics of Revolution: State Violence and Popular Insurgency in the Third World
[ nw ss ]
Introduction to twentieth-century revolutionary movements in the Third World, focusing on the emergence of peasant-based resistance and revolution in the world beyond the West, and on the role of state violence in provoking popular involvement in protest, rebellion, and insurgency. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Thaxton

POL 163a Seminar: Human Rights and International Relations
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: POL 15a or equivalent.
How human rights issues are affecting and being handled by the nation-state system. Traditional vs. reformist views. Universalism vs. cultural relativism. Contemporary case studies. Usually offered every year.
Staff

SOC 112b Social Class and Social Change
[ ss ]
This is an experiential learning course. Presents the role of social class in determining life chances, lifestyles, income, occupation, and power; theories of class, inequality, and globalization; selected social psychological aspects of social class and inequality; and connections of class, race, and gender. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Fellman

SOC 153a The Sociology of Empowerment
[ ss ]
This is an experiential learning course. Course does not participate in early registration. Attendance at first class meeting mandatory. Students selected by essay, interview, and lottery.
This class combines reading, exercises, journal keeping, and retreats (including a weekend one) to address activism and how sociological constructs affect feelings of helplessness, futility, hope, vision, efficacy, hurt, fear, and anger. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Fellman

WMGS 5a Women and Gender in Culture and Society
[ ss ]
This interdisciplinary course introduces central concepts and topics in the field of women's and gender studies. Explores the position of women in diverse settings and the impact of gender as a social, cultural, and intellectual category in the United States and around the globe. Asks how gendered institutions, behaviors, and representations have been configured in the past and function in the present, and also examines the ways in which gender intersects with many other vectors of identity and circumstance in forming human affairs. Usually offered every fall and spring.
Ms. Fox, Ms. Freeze, Ms. Lanser, or Ms. Singh

PAX Related Elective Courses

AAAS 60a Economics of Third World Hunger
[ nw ss ]
Employs the tools of social science, particularly economics, to study causes and potential solutions to problems in production, trade, and consumption of food in the underdeveloped world. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Nyangoni

AAAS 80a Economy and Society in Africa
[ nw ss wi ]
Perspectives on the interaction of economic and other variables in African societies. Topics include the ethical and economic bases of distributive justice; models of social theory, efficiency, and equality in law; the role of economic variables in the theory of history; and world systems analysis. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Nyangoni

AAAS 85a Survey of Southern African History
[ nw ss ]
Explores the roots of segregation and apartheid in South Africa, the development of a regional political economy dominated by South Africa, labor migrancy and land alienation in southern Africa, and the rise of African and Afrikaaner nationalisms. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Sundiata

AAAS 123a Third World Ideologies
[ nw ss wi ]
Analyzes ideological concepts developed by seminal Third World political thinkers and their application to modern political analysis. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Nyangoni

AAAS 126b Political Economy of the Third World
[ nw ss wi ]
Development of capitalism and different roles and functions assigned to all "Third Worlds," in the periphery as well as the center. Special attention will be paid to African and Afro-American peripheries. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Nyangoni

AMST 45b Violence (and Nonviolence) in American Culture
[ ss ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took AMST 175a in prior years.
Studies the use of terror and violence by citizens and governments in the domestic history of the United States. What are the occasions and causes of violence? How is it imagined, portrayed, and explained in literature? Is there anything peculiarly American about violence in America--nonviolence and pacifism? Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Cohen

ANTH 129b Global, Transnational, and Diasporic Communities
[ ss ]
Examines social and cultural dimensions of globalization from an anthropological perspective. Topics include the impact of global capitalism upon indigenous communities, global forms of popular culture and consumerism, transnational migration and diasporas, changing inequalities and gender systems, global sexual cultures, and the AIDS pandemic. Includes a focus on the South Asian diaspora when taught by Ms. Lamb. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Ferry or Ms. Lamb

ANTH 136a Archaeology of Power: Authority, Prestige, and Inequality in the Past
[ ss ]
Anthropological and archaeological research and theory provide a unique, long-term perspective on the development of inequality and rise of hierarchical societies, including the earliest ancient states such as the Moche, Maya, China, Sumerians, Egyptians, and others through 5000 years of human history. A comparative, multidisciplinary seminar examining the dynamics of authority, prestige, and power in the past, and the implications for understanding the present . Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Golden

ANTH 139b Language, Ethnicity, and Nationalism
[ ss ]
It is often assumed that language differences divide people, while a common language unites them. To what extent is this true? Taking cross-cultural and historical approaches, we examine the role of language in creating concepts of tribe, ethnicity, and nation. Explores what kinds of social groupings these terms might label, some ideologies connected with their use, and their relationship with communication systems. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. McIntosh

ANTH 156a Power and Violence: The Anthropology of Political Systems
[ nw ss ]
Political orders are established and maintained by varying combinations of overt violence and the more subtle workings of ideas. The course examines the relationship of coercion and consensus, and forms of resistance, in historical and contemporary settings. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Ferry

BIOL 17b Conservation Biology
[ sn wi ]
First- and second-year students should contact the instructor before enrolling in this writing-intensive course.
Considers the current worldwide loss of biological diversity, causes of this loss, and methods for protecting and conserving biodiversity. Explores biological and social aspects of the problems and their solutions. Usually offered every year.
Mr. D.L. Perlman

BISC 2a Human Reproduction, Population Explosion, Global Consequences
[ sn ]
Does NOT meet requirements for the major in biology.
Appropriate for students interested in a broad range of fields, including biology, environmental studies, and the social sciences. This course progresses from a molecular and cellular biology description of basic facts in human genetics and reproduction, AND an evolutionary description of human origins in Africa and global migration, to a demographic and epidemiological view of human population growth, and a consideration of some of the very complex problems arising from the presence of more than six billion people on Earth today. Readings include scientific papers appropriate to students with high school backgrounds in biology and chemistry, essays in the social sciences, and a wide variety of other texts and media. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Wangh

BUS 70a Business in the Global Economy
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: BUS 10a
Modern firms frequently cross national borders to find new markets and resources. Their strategies are then shaped by the international economy and by the policies of national governments. Using case discussion, students explore why and how U.S., Japanese, and European firms operate outside their home countries. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Zimmerman

COML 130a Poetic Voices of Protest
[ hum ]
Poets are citizens, lovers, artists. Discusses major poems and prose by Whitman, Baudelaire, Rilke, T. S. Eliot, Anna Akhmatova, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and others celebrating American nationhood, and protesting world war, moral chaos, or Soviet dictatorship. Topics include myth, self-assertion, love and intimacy, decadence, ethics, despair and faith, a mother's voice. Students present a poetry slam. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Kaplan

COML 165a Reading, Writing, and Teaching across Cultures
[ hum wi ]
This is an experiential learning course. Contemporary literary representations of literacy, schooling, and language from a cross-cultural perspective. Students also analyze their own educational trajectories and experiences with writing and reading. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Hale

ECON 57a Environmental Economics
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: ECON 2a.
Investigates the theoretical and policy problems posed by the use of renewable and nonrenewable resources. Theoretical topics include the optimal pricing of resources, the optimal use of standards and taxes to correct pollution problems under uncertainty, and the measuring of costs and benefits. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Bui

ECON 175a Introduction to the Economics of Development
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: ECON 2a or permission of the instructor. Does not count toward the upper-level elective requirement for the major in economics.
An introduction to various models of economic growth and development and evaluation of these perspectives from the experience of developing and industrial countries. Usually offered every year.
Staff

ED 158b Looking with the Learner: Practice and Inquiry
This is an experiential learning course. Does not satisfy a school distribution requirement--for education studies core course credit only. Lab fee: $40.
Inquiry and exploration in the visual arts have the capacity to develop the creative problem solving essential to both teaching and learning. Students will work in different media, examine interpretations of art, reflect in journals, and teach children about contemporary art. Students will complete a twelve-hour practicum as part of this course. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Dash

ED 159b Philosophy of Education
[ ss ]
Explores several major issues in philosophy of education through close examination and discussion of recent theoretical texts. Issues include the goals of education; the rights of the state to foster civic virtue; multiculturalism; moral education; the problem of indoctrination; education for autonomy, rationality, critical thinking, and open-mindedness. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Levisohn

ENG 17a The Alternative Press in the United States: 1910-2000
[ hum ]
A critical history of twentieth-century American journalism. Topics include the nature of journalistic objectivity, the style of underground and alternative periodicals, and the impact of new technologies on independent media. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Irr

ENVS 17b Global Warming and Nuclear Winter
[ sn ]
Prerequisite: high school-level math and science course work.
Global climate change is the biggest challenge now facing the planet, equal to the nuclear war threat of the past half-century. This course examines the characteristics of these two major threats and looks for possible responses to climate change. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Tsipis

FREN 137a Literary Responses to Mass Violence
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Studies writers’ responses to humanitarian and political crises of the past hundred years, e.g., Camus’ La peste, Duras’ Hiroshima mon amour, Beckett’s Catastrophe, Diop’s Murambi, Sijie’s Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise, as well as texts written in response to the 2010 Haitian earthquake. Usually offered every fourth year.
Ms. Hale

HIST 139b Fascism East and West
[ ss ]
A comparative analysis of dictatorship in Europe, Japan, and Latin America during the twentieth century. Topical emphasis on the social origins, mass culture, and political organization of authoritarian regimes. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Kelikian

HIST 186b A Global History of the Vietnam Wars
[ ss wi ]
A reading and research seminar on the American involvement in Vietnam. Focuses on teaching the history of America's longest war, as well as improving the student's ability to write a research paper using source materials. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Engerman

LGLS 120a Sex Discrimination and the Law
[ ss ]
Traces the evolution of women's rights in the family, in employment, and in the reproductive process, as well as constitutional doctrines. Examines gender inequalities and assesses if and how the law should address them. Legal cases studied emphasize how law reflects society. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

LGLS 124b International Law and Development
[ nw ss ]
Surveys public and private forms of international law with special application to developing countries, and to political and social development in the global economy. Examines basic legal concepts of property, contract, and rule of law in the context of national and cultural transformations. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

NEJS 137a The Destruction of European Jewry
[ hum ]
Open to all students.
Why did the Jews become the subject of genocidal hatred? A systematic examination of the anti-Jewish genocide planned and executed by Nazi Germany and the Jewish and general responses to it. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Polonsky

NEJS 189a The Arab-Israeli Conflict
[ hum ss ]
Consideration of Arab-Jewish relations, attitudes, and interactions from 1880 to the present. Emphasis on social factors and intellectual currents and their impact on politics. Examines the conflict within its international setting. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

NEJS 190a Describing Cruelty
[ hum wi ]
Grapples with the difficult subject of cruelty. Focus is on political or public cruelty in the non-Western world. The method is comparative and involves critical examination of the intellectual, visual, and literary works that engage in the phenomenon. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Makiya

NEJS 192a War and Peace in Israeli Thought and Praxis
[ hum ]
Despite initial visions of a conflict-free process of settling Palestine, issues of war and peace became central to the Zionist experience. Course examines how Zionism, as an intellectual movement and a polity, has understood the conflict and coped with it. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Troen

PHIL 20a Social and Political Philosophy: Democracy and Disobedience
[ hum wi ]
Focuses on the relation of the individual to the state and, in particular, on the theory and practice of nonviolent resistance, its aims, methods, achievements, and legitimacy. Examines the nature of obligation and the role of civil disobedience in a democratic society. Explores the conflict between authority and autonomy and the grounds for giving one's allegiance to any state at all. Examples include opposition to the nuclear arms race, and disobedience in China and Northern Ireland and at abortion clinics. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Teuber

POL 15a Introduction to International Relations
[ ss ]
General introduction to international politics, emphasizing the essential characteristics of the international system as a basis for understanding the foreign policy of individual countries. Analysis of causes of war, conditions of peace, patterns of influence, the nature of the world's political economy, global environmental issues, human rights, and prospects for international organizations. Open to first-year students. Usually offered every semester.
Mr. Art or Mr. Chase

POL 144a Latin American Politics I
[ nw ss ]
Revolution, order, and regime transition in northern Latin America. Specific examination of the Mexican and Cuban revolutions and their outcomes. POL 144a is independent of POL 144b. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Hindley

POL 144b Latin American Politics II
[ nw ss ]
Emphasis on elite control, the military, the political role of populist politics, and the uncertain process of democratization. Brazil and Argentina are examined specifically. POL 144b is independent of POL 144a. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Hindley

POL 178a The Rise of East Asia and the Pacific in the Global Political Economy
[ ss ]
An introduction to East Asia and the Pacific in the global political economy. The focus is on the major players in East Asia--China, Japan, the two Koreas, and Vietnam--and their relations with India, Oceania, and the United States. Topics include the challenges posed to key global economic actors, including the United States, Japan, Australia, and India, by the rise of authoritarian China--as a global actor. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Thaxton

PSYC 135b Seminar in Social Cognition
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: PSYC 1a, 34b, 51a, 52a, or permission of the instructor.
Considers the general nature of stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination, theoretical explanations for these phenomena, and methods for assessing them. Specific examples of stereotyping are discussed in light of research methods and theoretical issues. Attention is given to stereotype accuracy, self-fulfilling prophecy effects, and mechanisms for coping with stereotypes. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Zebrowitz

SOC 157a Sociology of the Israeli-Palestinian Confrontation
[ ss ]
An introduction to Jewish and Palestinian nationalisms; relevant sociological, political, religious, and resource issues; social psychological dimensions; and the conflict in world politics. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Fellman