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About the
Major
The Global Studies major is designed to provide students with a rigorous interdisciplinary education in the major issues confronting today's globalized world, as well as its historical antecedents (most notably in the late-nineteenth century). The major features three thematic pillars that capture the principal dimensions of the unprecedented depth and breadth of interconnections among nation-states, ethnic and religious groups, and individuals. Culture and society courses concentrate on the tensions between local ways of life with deep historical, linguistic, ethnic, and religious roots and today's pressures for transnational cultures and multiple identities, fueled by the communication of ideas and the movement of people all around the world. Governance and conflict courses focus on challenges to the nation-state from forms of governance above (regional and global forms of governance) and below (autonomy and secessionist movements) and from security threats beyond interstate warfare (ethnic conflict, terrorism, civil wars). Markets courses address the interactions among global, regional, national, and subnational economic processes and market dynamics, their effects on different societies with respect to economic growth, poverty, inequality, and the interactions among market forces, political institutions, and public policy.
These themes are central to much scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, but the various disciplines study them from different theoretical starting points, use different modes of inquiry, and frequently talk past each other. It is impossible to come to grips with the multidimensional phenomenon that is globalization if one discipline or perspective is privileged over another. Instead, the Global Studies major uses a multidisciplinary base in the major humanities and social sciences disciplines, and the insights of these disciplines are integrated by a common interest in understanding the myriad and complex interconnections that characterize the contemporary world.
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