The concentrations are much more than merely a collection of courses. They are the heart of intellectual engagement and innovation within the program. Each concentration has a committee consisting of interested faculty and students, chaired by a faculty member. The concentrations sponsor invited guest lectures, organize workshops and events, create working groups and serve as the key locus for curricular planning at the concentration level.
Cities and Social Justice (CSJ)
The Cities and Social Justice concentration is a unique interdisciplinary curriculum that provides students with the necessary analytic and practical skills to understand and productively engage with urban processes in a globalizing world. The coursework and practical training enables students to focus on a diversity of topics and issues affecting urban centers, including urban development and infrastructure, urban governance, citizenship and human rights, media and culture, environment, and sustainability.
Courses
Cities and Employment
City in Environment
Climate Change and Cities
Designing Collaborative Development
Economics of Cities: International Perspective
Evaluating Development Impact
GIS for International Crisis, Development, and the Environment
Global Exchange
Global Urban Environmental Policy
Global Urban Futures
Housing and Development Finance: International Perspective
Housing Policy
Political Economy of the City
Sustainable Urban Communities
Urban Development Policy in Africa
Urban Century (Foundation course)
Faculty
Antina von Schnitzler (chair), Robert Buckley, Michael Cohen, Margarita Gutman, Achilles Kallergis, Victoria Marshall, Stephen Metts, Shagun Mehrota, Alberto Minujin
Conflict and Security (CS)
This concentration is designed for students who wish to develop a professional or academic interest in the areas of conflict, conflict prevention, and security. The course offerings, the selection of speakers, the research of associated faculty, and the practical work by students reflect a number of core beliefs. We share a sense that the fields of conflict and security are changing quickly; that it is crucial to explore the relationship of conflict and security to other areas such as socioeconomic development, social welfare, and humanitarianism; and that emerging professionals in this area must combine both conceptual understanding and practical tools.
Courses
Amid Revolution and Wars: Geopolitics of the Middle East and North Africa 1915-2011
Critical Security Studies (Foundation course)
Emergency, Security, and Democracy
Human Rights and Transitional Justice
Humanitarian Intervention
India and China Interactions
Media and the Middle East
Peace Building and Development
South Africa: History, Politics, and Culture
The Resource Curse: Conflict, Governance, and Exclusion
Faculty
Stephen Collier (chair), Anna DiLellio, David Gold, Sean Jacobs, L.H.M. Ling, Erin McCandless, Everita Silina
Development (DEV)
This concentration is designed for students who wish to develop a professional or academic interest in the global challenges of development, inequality, and poverty. The concentration focuses on concepts, measurement tools, and policy alternatives. The course offerings, the research of associated faculty, and the work of students reflect a number of core motivations. We share a commitment to development as a process that is fundamentally about improving human well-being and securing greater social justice. We believe that the challenges of economic growth, social development, political freedoms, cultural diversity, and security are interrelated and that the analysis of development requires an interdisciplinary approach. Courses address issues such as economic globalization, human rights and development ethics, gender, sustainability, human security, and social policy.
Courses
Children, Rights, Poverty, Equality
City in Environment
Designing Collaborative Development
Development Economics (Foundation course)
Economic Crisis and its Global Consequences
Economies of Cities: International Perspectives
Epidemics and International Responses
Evaluating Development Impact
Gender and the Middle East
GIS for International Crises, Development, and the Environment
Global Urban Futures
Peace Building and Development
Rural and Regional Development in the Americas
The Resource Curse: Conflict, Governance, and Exclusion
Urban Development Policy in Africa
Faculty
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr (chair), Ilir Agalliu, Fabiola Berdiel, Sheila Dauer, Katayoun Chamany, Michael Cohen, Sheila Dauer, Anna DiLellio, Goncalo Fonseca, Max Fraad-Wolff, Alec Ian Gershberg, David Gold, Barry Herman, Mark Johnson, David Lamoureux, Terra Lawson-Remer, Christopher London, Manjari Mahajan, Scott Martin, Erin McCandless, Shagun Mehrotra, Alberto Minujin, Usha Nayar, Tom O'Donnell, Fabio Parasecoli, Mila Rosenthal, Antina von Schnitzler, Maxine Weisgrau, Richard Wolff
Governance and Rights (GR)
Government and Rights focuses on the relation between order, freedom, and responsibility in the global political and legal context. Governance is the ensemble of practices and institutions concerned with the formal ordering of society. This includes local and national government, international organizations, and civil society. Rights refers to claims by individuals and groups for specific entitlements that invoke obligations. The concentration explores how governance structures secure, maintain, or constrain rights, and how rights claims serve to construct, create, and challenge practices of government. Within the concentration there is currently special emphasis on human rights, international law and refugee issues, and migration.
Courses
Children, Rights, Poverty, Equality
Epidemics and International Responses
Gender and the Middle East
Global Governance (Foundation course)
Global Youth Media
Human Rights and Transitional Justice
Human Rights Research and Reporting
Humanitarian Intervention
India and China Interactions
International Human Rights Law
South Africa: History, Politics, Culture
Faculty
Everita Silina (chair), Sheila Dauer, Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Alec Gershberg, Eduardo Gonzalez, L.H.M. Ling, Peter Lucas, Manjari Mahajan, Erin McCandless, Usha Nayar, Mona Shomali, Maxine Weisgrau
The Media and Culture concentration explores theory and practice in the intersection of politics, economics, press and entertainment, public and state policy, and international and domestic cultural conditions. In particular, MC focuses on the fascinating and complex relationship between media and democracy around the world, with equal consideration to the roles of state and private institutions and their positive and negative influences on the media in both democratic and non-democratic societies.
Courses
Designing Collaborative Development
Global Youth Media
Global Soccer, Global Politics
Hollywood and the World
Media and the Middle East
Media and Politics of Propaganda
News Media and Culture: Purveyors of International Affairs (Foundation course)
Producing Short-Form Documentaries
South Africa: History, Politics, Culture
The Poetics of Witnessing
The Power to Speak Truth
Video Production and Advocacy for NGOs
Faculty
Sean Jacobs (chair), Glenna Gordon, Omar Karim, Tony Karon, Nina L. Khrushcheva, Peter Lucas, Nerina Penzhorn
