HIS 3550

GLOBALIZATION

This course explores the constitutive elements of globalization and the negative and positive aspects of this phenomenon. Using works of literature and film, supplemented by the principles of business ethics and scientific and environmental matters, this course’s readings, class discussions, and guest lectures will focus on the following issues: land development, trade, and migration patterns; state formation, national identity and everyday culture; transnational, national and local systems of governance; free vs. fair trade, the role of capitalism, and (trans)national corporations; global, national, and local responsibility/accountability; global health and ecology issues, and the effects on the environment and, cultural diversity issues and social justice principles. This course also examines the ways in which globalization has transformed our understanding of geography, space and time through the contradictory and uneven trends of U.S. and Western-led globalization efforts and alternative globalization movements.

Units: 3.0