Social Change Courses @ Northeastern

Course Number: GST 6700

Department: Global Studies – CPS (GST)

Examines the linkages between health and development that can only be understood within the broader context of sociopolitical and economic factors. Begins with the recognition that poverty plays a central role in many preventable diseases. With the development of nations have come improvements in health. In the landscape of globalization and international development, there has emerged a vast international health regime. Focuses on these linkages in the context of this international political economy of health. Examines key aspects including the concepts and architecture of global health, the global burden and epidemiology of disease, health and development of nations, and political-economic determinants of health and development. Uses a variety of analytical perspectives including political, legal, economic, and epidemiological.

Course Number: PHIL 5001

Department: Philosophy (PHIL)

Explores the theoretical, political, and philosophical foundations of the obligations that underlie global justice. Theoretical approaches include human rights, human capabilities, cosmopolitanism, particularism, and universalism. Examines nationalism and the particular set of obligations that it generates. Following the theoretical component, the course considers social issues that arise in a global context: (1) the duties to the distant poor, (2) global philanthropy and problems of donee accountability, (3) global health and essential medicines and issues in environmental justice, and (4) issues in international law.

Course Number: MSCR 2325

Department: Media and Screen Studies (MSCR)

Covers global dynamics of media and media systems. Specifically seeks to introduce students to the nuances of globalization and cultural performance through media structures. Introduces a wide variety of topics that fall in the intersection between globalization and media and the ways in which they operate socially and culturally. The course focuses broadly on understanding—in both theoretical and practical ways—how and why global media function as they do and how they contribute to knowledge formation and social justice within various cultural contexts.

Course Number: PHTH 4120

Department: Public Health (PHTH)

Explores how discrimination can lead to population-level health disparities among marginalized groups globally. Topics include constructions of social categories, such as race and gender; differences in patterns of disease across populations, both intra- and internationally; how work from various disciplines, such as anthropology, medicine, and public health, inform understanding about how discrimination relates to health; and theoretical models from different disciplines that explain public health disparities.

Course Number: INTL 3150

Department: International Affairs (INTL)

Analyzes whether transnational philanthropy can solve problems of global poverty, development, and human welfare. Introduces students to relevant normative and empirical scholarship drawn from moral philosophy, postcolonial critical theory, development economics, and comparative politics. Offers students an opportunity to obtain the analytical tools needed to assess the promise and pitfalls of global philanthropy. Invites the application of these skills through a sustained funding simulation.

Course Number: INTL 3520

Department: International Affairs (INTL)

Examines how states, institutions, policy choices, and social forces shape—and are influenced by—the global economy and the world polity. Draws on historical patterns and empirical evidence of societal behavior to evaluate the evolution of global development policy over time and across space. Uses country illustrations and case studies to demonstrate how examining development policy trade-offs can provide guidance for formulating sustainable development policies at the global level. Focuses on global governance and how decisions about global rules related to industrial policy, foreign investment policy, and climate change policy are made at the level of several international institutions.