Global and Multicultural Perspectives
Global interdependence is a powerful fact. Through an exploration of societies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Europe, this curricular area opens the doors into varied cultures and issues that challenge a parochial understanding of the world.
You may select courses that focus on the major issues of contemporary world politics, including management of conflict, economic competition, and environmental threats to the quality of life. Other courses emphasize either a comparative or cross-cultural examination of societies, polities, and belief systems and acknowledge the importance of recognizing and overcoming cultural barriers.
Finally, some courses focus on the dilemma of the global majority—the three-quarters of the world’s population who live in countries striving for national identity as well as economic and political development.
All courses in this area encourage a better understanding of the dimensions of experience and belief that distinguish cultures and countries from one another and, conversely, the commonalities that bind human experience together. The courses stimulate awareness of the need for enhanced international and intercultural communication.
Learning Objectives
- explore those habits of thought and feeling that distinguish regions, countries, and cultures from one another
- discuss, in comparative and cross-cultural perspective, the concepts, patterns, and trends that characterize contemporary global politics
- develop your capacity to critically analyze major issues in international and intercultural relations, especially how categories of difference are organized within and across cultures and how they affect political systems
