Is globalization undermining the nation-state? Does globalization mean that different parts of the world are becoming more alike? What is globalization, anyway, and when did it start? What is the relationship between national, religious, and ethnic identity? How are they constructed? What assumptions do we bring to our understanding of tradition and modernity? How do the different ways in which we understand progress (economic, technological, human rights) affect our understanding of global issues? These are the kinds of questions that we will be exploring in ICS 125. This course is designed to foster critical thinking about global issues, using both comparative and connective approaches, with the goal of providing students with an introduction to the issues and concepts explored in the International Comparative Studies major. The course is comparative in at least two senses: we will think comparatively about the experiences of people in different parts of the world; and, we will examine selected global issues from the perspective of several academic disciplines. Different disciplines will be represented in the course readings and five guest instructors from a variety of departments will each spend one week with the class.
One key characteristic of the International Comparative Studies major is that each student explicitly thinks about the interplay between the global and the local; this is accomplished through the student's selection of courses focusing on a primary geographic area on one hand and courses the explore a variety of global issues on the other. Students in ICS 125 will get a taste of this process by investigating the experiences of one nation in the context of the global issues that we consider in common.