Curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense

In this seminar, we will explore the various ways that Iran-Iraq, United States-Iraq, and United States-Afghanistan wars have been portrayed in literature, film, and photography. We will deepen and enrich our understanding of war experienced by both veterans and civilians. We will also read articles on war criticism and psychology.

Special topics course. Content will vary each semester.

Overview of the policymaking process and of major public policy issues. Study of policy and political challenges in areas such as economic and tax policy, the social safety net, income support and the minimum wage, health care, education, environment and energy, foreign policy and national security, and homeland security. Honors version available.

Students quantify global depletion of energy resources and accompanying environmental degradation, hence discovering the profound changes in attitudes and behavior required to adjust to diminished fossil fuels and modified climate.

Global issues are challenges whose sources, impacts, and solutions extend beyond the borders of any one country. This course introduces students to some of the most pressing issues facing populations around the globe and to possible policy responses. Previously offered as GLBL 110/GLBL 110H. Honors version available.

We examine one of the most important aspects related to the success and stability of the ancient Roman state-its military. Either as a model for contemporary powers or out of interest in the past, the Roman army has long been the focus of historical and archaeological inquiry. In this introductory course, you will be introduced to the written and material sources of knowledge about the Roman army.

A survey of the geographic structure of human activity in major world regions and nations. Emphasizes current developments related to population, urbanization, and economic activity. (Core)

The history of Southeast Asia from the 19th century to the present. Long-term political, economic, social, and intellectual questions, including the impact of imperialism, the rise of nationalism, the transformation of the economy, the Cold War, and the coherence of Southeast Asia as a region.

Comparative and interdisciplinary introduction to China, Korea, and Japan in the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing on impact of the West, nation building, industrialization, and evolution of mass society.

An introduction to the study of political and economic relations in the international system. Topics covered include international conflict, trade, global finance, international institutions, civil war, and human rights. Honors version available.

This is a class about literature and war and what each might teach us about the other. We will consider a range of texts and center our work around this question: what, if anything, can a work of art help us see or understand about war that might not be shown by other means? Students may not receive credit for both ENGL 73 and ENGL 161.

The history of European international politics from the outbreak of the Thirty Years War to the Congress of Vienna. Considers the sources of national power, the reasons for war, and the changing nature of diplomacy.

The history of international politics from the fall of Napoleon to the end of the Second World War, with special attention to European nationalism, imperialism, the emergence of non-European great powers, the reasons for war, and the search for peace.

A survey of the Cold War from its origins in the aftermath of the Second World War to its conclusion in the late 1980s. Focuses on the geopolitical, military, ideological, and economic aspects of the global superpower conflict.

This course will examine the methods used by archaeologists to study the material and visual sources for the context, meaning, and representation of violence and warfare in ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt and Western Asia. We will consider the material traces of the human history of violence and conflict by examining cultural practices associated with warfare, political and religious violence, and commemoration of conflict in the ancient past.

The influence of sea power on international affairs will be surveyed from ancient times to the present. Emphasis on United States naval history and its interaction with diplomacy, economics, and technology.

Examines air power theory and practice from 1914 to the present. Focuses on the application of air power as an instrument of war and the effectiveness of that application.

Examines approaches to American politics and public policy and analyzes why government responds to problems in predictable ways. Honors version available.

The course explores major periods and trends in Israeli cinema. Focus is given to issues pertaining to gender, ethnicity, and the construction of national identity. Honors version available.

An in-depth history of the American Revolution. Topics include: causes of the split between Britain and 13 of its colonies, the fighting of the Revolutionary War, and the creation of the United States.

This is both a wide-ranging and detailed course that looks at the origins, the evolution, and the termination of the Cold War from 1945 to 1989/90. It also considers the "New Cold War" with Russia that developed in 2014. The course is based on an international and multinational perspective.

This course examines the leftist guerrilla movements that swept Latin America and the Caribbean during the latter half of the 20th century. Students will analyze the origins, trajectories, and legacies of these insurgencies, paying particular attention to the roles of race, class, and gender. Previously offered as HIST/PWAD 528.

Introduction to the problem of war and violent conflict in human experience and the contemporary world, and efforts to prevent, avoid, or ameliorate war and its effects. Content will vary by instructor and disciplinary perspective but will include causes of war, deterrence, irregular war, and the future of war. Previously offered as PWAD 350.

A critical examination of the significance of the Thirty Years' War for 17th-century Europe's social, religious, military, and geopolitical history. The representation of the conflict in art and literature also receives attention.

Examines international organizations and their relationships with and impact upon international politics, international law, and selected global issues. Honors version available.

An examination of selected topics in international relations, such as security and defense, international integration, and north-south relations.

A critical examination, from the Renaissance to the Napoleonic period, of the changes in European land and naval warfare and their impact on society and government.

Draws on historical, political, economic, and sociological perspectives to analyze social, cultural, and institutional change.

Anti-Semitism; the Jews of Europe; the Hitler dictatorship; evolution of Nazi Jewish policy from persecution to the Final Solution; Jewish response; collaborators, bystanders, and rescuers; aftermath.

The history of warfare from its prehistoric origins to the present. The focus is on interactions between peoples around the world and particularly on the problems of innovation and adaptation. Previously offered as HIST/PWAD 351.

This course is designed to introduce students to the use of games and simulations in learning historical events in a more experiential manner and to explore their use in simulating crises for national security planning and training purposes. As an introduction, the course explores different types and styles of gaming, while explaining the history of game development and how certain formats lend themselves to different learning outcomes.

The course explores the dramatic historical changes from 1750 to 1850 and their intersection with and reflection in arts, literature, and music in a trans-Atlantic perspective.

An analysis of ethical issues that arise in peace, war, and defense, e.g., the legitimacy of states, just war theory, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction.

Water has played many pivotal roles in the societies and politics of Middle Eastern peoples. This course will survey the history of water in the region, including its uses in agriculture and ritual, transport, and technology. We will explore water's impact on public health and the effects of water pollution on local societies. Finally, we will focus on the effects of the region's water scarcity in cross-border political conflicts.

Explores the conflict over Palestine during the last 100 years. Surveys the development of competing nationalisms, the contest for resources and political control that led to the partition of the region, the war that established a Jewish state, and the subsequent struggles between conflicting groups for land and independence.

Cross-cultural perspectives on war in its relation to society, including Western and non-Western examples. Surveys political, economic, and cultural approaches to warfare and peacemaking.

An examination of the origins of the Pacific War, the course of this bitter and momentous conflict, and its complex legacy for both Asia and the United States.

This course investigates how philosophical thought motivates, inspires, and generates forms of agency and identity against cultural tendencies that limit or erode freedom. Readings, lecture, and discussion in English.

Introduction to the study of strategic decision making in international relations, with an emphasis on the application of basic game theoretic models. Incorporates in-class simulations of international relations scenarios.

Music's roles in war and revolution within various political, social, and cultural contexts. Part of the cluster "War, Revolution and Culture-Transatlantic Perspectives, 1750-1850."

The course, which will take place in Belfast, Northern Ireland, aims to answer the following question: What does it take for an individual and a group to heal? And what does reconciliation mean and look like? The platform of Northern Ireland's conflict (aka ''The Trouble'') will be used to understand the challenges and successes of healing on an individual and group level. The course will provide a nuanced understanding of apology and forgiveness.

This course covers France's conquest, rule, and loss of Algeria, and the relationship between French and Algerian people in Algeria and France from 1830 to the present. Topics such as modern French and North African history, colonialism, Islam, immigration, terror/torture, and cross-cultural exchange are all featured in this transnational course.

What happened when the British carved Pakistan out of the predominately Muslim corners of India? Readings and films focus on the causes and consequences of this event, the Partition of India. Honors version available.

This course reviews the historic development of intelligence organizations and operations. Primary focus is on the modern world and the correlation between intelligence and national security concerns.

Examines intelligence analysis methodology and products from a variety of settings and customer-types. An overview of the intelligence process and of collection strategies will also be conducted. The primary emphasis will be on conducting actual analysis of raw information to produce an intelligence estimate as a capstone to the course.

The course examines and compares the images of war and gender that movies from different time periods and countries propagate and explores the different factors that influence these images and thereby the perception and recollection of war. Honors version available.

This course is a multi-disciplinary analysis of the phenomena of terrorism and political violence, their history, causes, the threat they pose, and what steps the United States can take in response.

Course investigates policies, issues, key problems, and potential solutions in strategic intelligence and international security. In addition to readings and class simulations, the students will write an issue paper similar to those prepared within the national security community assessing the future environment and suggesting policies and strategies.

This course examines international intelligence services within the context of national and homeland security. Prominent subjects include human intelligence (HUMINT), covert action, and counterintelligence, as well as the organizations, missions, and functions of international intelligence and security services.

Course investigates the concept, framework, and applications of cyber security; analyzes the relevant contextual background and current cyber security issues. Addresses cyber security from the perspective of the relevance of cyber security within national and international security policy formulation and implementation. Not a computer science nor information technology course.

Explores the origins and evolution of national intelligence regimes in various countries throughout the latter half of the 20th century. Includes comparative examples from intelligence services in the United States, the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia, Israel, Great Britain, China, and Iraq. Applies historical knowledge to understanding current intelligence issues, such as telecommunications monitoring, drone warfare, and counterterrorism. Honors version available.

Course studies the evolution of the warning mission and its role in modern intelligence organizations. Primarily but not entirely focused on the American experience. Ancient through modern case studies are used with a particular emphasis on the methodologies developed to improve warning and the problems inherent to the warning mission.

Course examines strategic, operational, and tactical deception in warfare through history. This process entails describing and assessing the objectives, methodologies, and results of specific deception operations. There is a particular emphasis on the role of deception regarding intelligence collection and analysis, as well as the methods utilized to detect deception.

An exploration of the unique ethical and moral challenges that intelligence and national security present for policymakers, intelligence professionals, and citizens. Examples are drawn from a variety of places and times throughout history, with an emphasis on U.S. examples.

This course considers theories of peacebuilding and state-building, investigates the various challenges facing post-conflict states, and assesses the role that international actors play in this process. Case study based.

The American military experience from colonial times to the early 20th century. Major themes include the problem of security, the development of military policies and institutions, and the way in which the country waged and experienced war.

Survey of America's military experience in the 20th century, focusing on national security policy, military institutions, World Wars I and II, the Cold War, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and recent interventions.

A history of the United States in World War II (1941-1945): home front and military front.

This course will introduce undergraduates to Chinese strategic and military thought through the translated writings of some of China's most significant philosophers, intellectuals, and political leaders, from antiquity to the present. Students will explore historical characteristics of Chinese strategy and consider the influence of these ideas in current international relations.

Students are encouraged to undertake unpaid internships with branches of the federal government, international organizations, and selected nongovernment organizations. Pass/Fail only, with the written approval of the department chair. Does not count as a course in the major, but can be combined with an independent study such as PWAD 396.

Permission of the instructor. Independent study and reading. Special reading and research activities in a selected field under the supervision of a faculty member.

Examines the origins, dynamics, and consequences of protest and social movements including historical and contemporary movements from the United States and around the globe. Students may not receive credit for both SOCI 413 and 411.

Analysis of the structure and functions of judicial systems emphasizing the organization, administration, and politics of judicial bureaucracies and roles of judges, juries, counsel, litigants, and interested groups in adjudication processes.

The rise of Macedonia; the careers of Philip II and Alexander (with emphasis on the latter's campaigns); the emerging Hellenistic Age. The course integrates computer (including Web site) and audiovisual materials throughout.

War and the warrior in the archaic and classical Greek world, seventh to the fourth centuries BCE. Honors version available.

Focuses on the various collaborations, exchanges, and mutual enrichment between Israelis and Palestinians in the realm of culture, particularly literature and cinema. These connections include language (Israeli Jewish authors writing in Arabic and Palestinian writers who choose Hebrew as their language of expression), collaborating in filmmaking, and joint educational initiatives.

This course introduces students to the specific contours that the Cold War accrued in East Asia. Focusing on literature and film, it explores what the fall of the Japanese Empire and the emergence of the post-1945 world meant across the region.

Course explores contemporary threats to national security, approaches to national security strategy, policy instruments, the role of military force, and the policy-making process.

Students in this course will examine Christian attitudes toward holy war, crusading, and other forms of coercive violence from the 11th until the 15th centuries, with a focus on the major crusades of the Holy Land.

This course explores the social, cultural, political, and economic contexts in which films are made and exhibited and focuses on shared intra-regional cinematic trends pertaining to discourse, aesthetics, and production.

The role of Congress, the press, public opinion, the president, the secretary and the Department of State, the military, and the intelligence community in making American foreign policy. Emphasizes the impact of the bureaucratic process on the content of foreign policy.

The U.S. 9/11 attack represents the defining terrorist attack to Americans, but in most of the world, terrorism has long been part of politics. We will examine what motivates individuals to consider violence, how individuals organize to protect their political interests, the types of tactics used by violent groups and the state's response, before concluding with a study of collapsed states, the international implications of political violence, and possibilities for conflict resolution.

This course aims to provide students with the tools necessary to most effectively engage in interpersonal conflicts. Students engage with diverse conflict management practitioners--from formally incarcerated individuals to public policy negotiation to international conflict mediators and role-play cross-cultural communication, inter-governmental negotiations, human rights, and workplace negotiations. Students will learn new negotiation and mediation skills, build upon existing ones, and learn to cope with stress, discomfort, and emotions when in conflict. Previously offered as PLCY/PWAD 330.

The purpose of this course is to examine Africa's conflicts using an historical examination and advances in international relations theory. We will examine European colonial intervention, the wars of independence, the Cold War, and the use of proxies, insurgencies, the African World War, the Sudanese War, and the "war of terrorism."

The geography of politics is explored at the global, the nation-state, and the local scale in separate course units, but the interconnections between these geographical scales are emphasized throughout. (GHA)

Analysis of international conflict and the causal mechanisms that drive or prevent conflict. Emphasis is on the conditions and processes of conflict and cooperation between nations.

Examines the management and resolution of international and civil wars. Honors version available.

The course explores the development of Euro-Atlantic security institutions (NATO, EU) and compares security policy in the United States and Europe. Cases include policy toward the Balkans, Afghanistan, Russia, and Ukraine. Includes review of concepts of security and selected international relations approaches to international organizations. Honors version available.

An introduction to international trade, the balance of payments, and related issues of foreign economic policy.

This course is designed to examine Jewish life in Arab lands in the last century by examining culture, language, and the communal life that the Arab-Jews shared with their neighbors.

Historical contexts and connections through artistic representation of the Holocaust and Soviet terror in Eastern Europe and the USSR. Taught in English; some foreign language readings for qualified students.

Focuses on ethnic and political conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and efforts by the international community to end conflict and promote peace and reconstruction. Honors version available.

An exploration of explosive combinations of religion and politics in the Iranian revolution, the Palestinian movement, Hindu nationalism in India, and Christian fundamentalism in America.

The course will examine the drivers and consequences of violent intrastate conflict, including civil war, communal conflict, terrorism and cartel/gang violence. It will consider COVID-19 and climate change as threat multipliers. And the course will explore U.S. interests and strategies for preventing or reducing conflicts and promoting development. It will use case studies to illustrate the effectiveness of various policy instruments and the role of local and international actors, structural factors and institutions.

Introduces major topics in the interdisciplinary field of critical security studies. Critically analyzing the public construction of risk and security in military, technological, informational, and environmental domains, the course explores major theories that attempt to make sense of the transnational proliferation of violence and risk in historical and contemporary contexts.

In the debate on how to efficiently combat terrorism without abandoning the rule-of-law, it is often neglected that this is not a new problem. This course will examine European states' reactions to national and international terrorism since the 1960s. Case studies will include Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Honors version available.

Permission of the instructor. Explores national security policy formation through analyzing the United States national security apparatus, the elements of national power, and historical examples of their application. Also examines the merits of various approaches to national security decision making. A course for senior majors in PWAD.

Examines the history of and contemporary problems associated with nuclear security and counter-proliferation.

Examines the history of the British Empire and the role of peace, war, defense, diplomacy, and letters in shaping Britain's presence on the world stage. Honors version available.

Subject matter will vary with instructor, but will focus on some particular topic or historical approach. Course description available from departmental office.

This course introduces students to new research on the history of gender, the military, and war in a comparative perspective. It explores the interrelations between changing military systems, types of warfare, the gender order, as well as political, social, and cultural currents in modern history.

Focus is on causes, nature, and consequences of the Civil War.

A wide-ranging exploration of America's longest war, from 19th-century origins to 1990s legacies, from village battlegrounds to the Cold War context, from national leadership to popular participation and impact.

Examines American cultural myths about war generally and specifically about the causes of war, enemies, weapons, and warriors, and the way these myths constrain foreign and defense policy, military strategy, and procurement.

The power of the presidency depends in part upon the president's ability to rally public opinion, which depends upon the president's ability to use the "bully pulpit." This course examines the hurdles presidents face and the steps presidents take to shape opinion.

How the United States came to occupy a leading role in world affairs as a diplomatic, military, economic, and cultural power and what that role has meant to Americans and to other peoples, especially during the Cold War.

This course considers transatlantic relations in its security, political, and economic dimensions. The course also analyzes U.S. attempts to construct a more united European continent. It is the main aim of this course to give students a structured overview of transatlantic relations and geo-political developments from 1945 to the present.

Leadership as taught and demonstrated in the military and how it translates to leadership in public service, including the interrelationship of the military and other public service and the transition of veterans to civilian leadership roles.

Permission of curriculum chair and instructor required. Practical problems of international law, including its nature; treaty making, interpretation, enforcement, and termination; recognition; territory; nationality; jurisdiction and immunities; state responsibility and international claims; and the law of war and neutrality.

A study of literary works written in English concerning World War I, or the Spanish Civil War and World War II, or the Vietnam War. Honors version available.

The focus is on Shakespeare's various treatments of war in his plays: all his Roman histories, most of his English histories, all his tragedies, even some of his comedies.

Research-intensive seminar focusing on the barriers preventing peace making from occurring. The course will make a distinction between making peace among individuals and achieving a political solution between governments and organizations.

A research seminar exploring the post-conflict challenges associated with force demobilization, state building, and military and security sector reforms. This course considers theories of post-conflict security and investigates the assorted challenges faced by post-conflict states. Students will conduct a significant independent research project.

Examines historical dimensions of the phenomenon known as covert action, in which states are motivated to conceal their responsibility for foreign intervention. This behavior has important and far-reaching implications for international security, diplomacy, and law that are explored through class discussions and in-depth original research projects.

This course examines the devastation of war and conflict throughout the 19th and 20th centuries; war crimes, genocide, and other atrocities; the creation of the term "Crimes against Humanity" in international law; and the various attempts to use legal trials to bring about peace and justice in a chaotic world. We will explore the challenges of international institutions and international laws in maintaining peace in a world of nation-states and national sovereignty.

This seminar examines themes of good governance and the rule of law in United States history from 1860 to the present. It is targeted at students seeking to acquire graduate level knowledge of national and international security legal and policy issues, and to apply that knowledge to an independent research effort.

Undergraduate research seminar intended to provide an intensive research and writing experience for juniors and seniors in the major. Topic will vary by instructor. This course will emphasize developing research, writing, and presentation skills in topics relevant to the study of the problems of peace and security.

Seminars on aspects of peace, war, and defense that lead to the production of a significant research product. Past topics have included arms control, public opinion and national security, and the Cold War.

Permission of the instructor. Directed research on an independent basis for majors who are preparing an honors thesis and for the oral examination on the thesis.

Directed research on an independent basis for majors who are preparing an honors thesis and for the oral examination on the thesis.