15.223 Global Markets, National Policies, and the Competitive Advantages of Firms (MIT)
The world is changing in two fundamental ways. First, the development of a truly global market in products, services, capital, and even certain types of labor is changing the basic terms of competition for an array of different firms and industries. Second, the rules and institutions governing the new international economic order are still in flux. National regulations are no longer adequate yet international accords over trade, intellectual property, labor standards, and a host of other issues
UMB: Agroecology and Food Systems (Course code PAE303)
Autumn parallel. This course has been emerged with the PAE302 Agroecology and Farming Systems. This link is to the official course information site on the UMB web page. For more information, contact geir.lieblein@umb.no.
Can we trust the International Media? - John O Oucho and Fred Mudhai
John O Oucho holds a PhD in Population Geography and was a post-doctoral fellow of the Carolina Population Center in the university of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, U.S.A. in 1982-3. He has taught at the University of Nairobi (2 decades), University of Ghana (3 years) and University of Botswana (8 years). He was elected Fellow of the Kenya National Academy of Sciences (KNAS) in 1989 and the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS) in 2003. He is a well traveled and well published academic and ha
The BBC World Service - Nigel Chapman
Nigel Chapman is Director of BBC World Service. He is responsible for the overall editorial leadership and management of the world’s leading international radio broadcaster and its new media operations. He has worked for the BBC for more than 20 years.
21H.206 American Consumer Culture (MIT)
This class examines how and why twentieth-century Americans came to define the "good life" through consumption, leisure, and material abundance. We will explore how such things as department stores, nationally advertised brand-name goods, mass-produced cars, and suburbs transformed the American economy, society, and politics. The course is organized both thematically and chronologically. Each period deals with a new development in the history of consumer culture. Throughout we explore both celeb
My Journey as an Athlete, Broadcaster and Athletics Administrator - David Moorcroft
David Moorcroft has been involved in athletics for more than 30 years at club, area and international level as a competitor, teacher, coach, broadcaster and from 1997-2006 was chief executive of the sport’s national governing body.
In this Coventry Conversation, David talks about his career.
21L.488 Contemporary Literature: Literature, Development, and Human Rights (MIT)
Central to our era is the gradual movement of all the world's regions toward a uniform standard of economic and political development. In this class we will read a variety of recent narratives that partake of, dissent from, or contribute to this story, ranging from novels and poems to World Bank and IMF statements and National Geographic reports. We will seek to understand the many motives and voices – sometimes congruent, sometimes clashing – that are currently engaged in producing
Why all Governments Need Spin - Nicholas Jones
Nicholas Jones was for many years BBC political correspondent. His books include Sultans of Spin, The Control Freaks, Soundbites and Spin Doctors and Trading Information. He has been involved in the world of politics for more than 30 years as a journalist, most prominently as the BBC’s political correspondent and in uniquely qualified to talk about how politicians can manipulate the media.
In this Coventry Conversation, Nicholas discusses why spin is central to all governments, both Tory and
17.441 International Politics and Climate Change (MIT)
This course examines the interconnections of international politics and climate change. Beginning with an analysis of the strategic and environmental legacies of the 20th Century, it explores the politicization of the natural environment, the role of science in this process, and the gradual shifts in political concerns to incorporate "nature". Two general thrusts of climate-politics connections are pursued, namely those related to (a) conflict – focusing on threats to security due to envir
STS.011 American Science: Ethical Conflicts and Political Choices (MIT)
We will explore the changing political choices and ethical dilemmas of American scientists from the atomic scientists of World War II to biologists in the present wrestling with the questions raised by cloning and other biotechnologies. As well as asking how we would behave if confronted with the same choices, we will try to understand the choices scientists have made by seeing them in their historical and political contexts. Some of the topics covered include: the original development of nuclea
17.486 Japan and East Asian Security (MIT)
This subject is designed for graduate students interested in international politics, national security and comparative political economy in East Asia. It examines the political, military, and economic challenges facing Japan, its neighbors, and the international system under conditions of great uncertainty. Topics range from the history of once "new" world orders to theories that inform our understanding of international affairs and foreign policy decision-making, as each is related to Japan. We
My Journey as an Athlete, Broadcaster and Athletics Administrator - David Moorcroft
David Moorcroft has been involved in athletics for more than 30 years at club, area and international level as a competitor, teacher, coach, broadcaster and from 1997-2006 was chief executive of the sport’s national governing body.
In this Coventry Conversation, David talks about his career.
STS.436 Cold War Science (MIT)
This seminar examines the history and legacy of the Cold War on American science. It explores scientist's new political roles after World War II, ranging from elite policy makers in the nuclear age to victims of domestic anti Communism. It also examines the changing institutions in which the physical sciences and social sciences were conducted during the postwar decades, investigating possible epistemic effects on forms of knowledge. The subject closes by considering the place of science in the
21L.007 World Literatures: Travel Writing (MIT)
This semester, we will read writing about travel and place from Columbus's Diario through the present. Travel writing has some special features that will shape both the content and the work for this subject: reflecting the point of view, narrative choices, and style of individuals, it also responds to the pressures of a real world only marginally under their control. Whether the traveler is a curious tourist, the leader of a national expedition, or a starving, half-naked survivor, the encounter
2.626 Fundamentals of Photovoltaics (MIT)
In this course students will learn how solar cells convert light into electricity, how solar cells are manufactured, how solar cells are evaluated, what technologies are currently on the market, and how to evaluate the risk and potential of existing and emerging solar cell technologies. We examine the potential & drawbacks of currently manufactured technologies (single- and multi-crystalline silicon, micromorph tandem cells, CdTe, CIGS, CPV, PVT), as well as pre-commercial technologies (orga
21A.215 Medical Anthropology: Culture, Society, and Ethics in Disease and Health (MIT)
This course looks at medicine from a cross-cultural perspective, focusing on the human, as opposed to biological, side of things. Students learn how to analyze various kinds of medical practice as cultural systems. Particular emphasis is placed on Western (bio-) medicine; students examine how biomedicine constructs disease, health, body, and mind, and how it articulates with other institutions, national and international.
21A.355J The Anthropology of Biology (MIT)
If the twentieth century was the century of physics, the twenty-first promises to be the century of biology. This subject examines the cultural, political, and economic dimensions of biology in the age of genomics, biotechnological enterprise, biodiversity conservation, pharmaceutical bioprospecting, and synthetic biology. Although we examine such social concerns as bioterrorism, genetic modification, and cloning, this is not a class in bioethics, but rather an anthropological inquiry into how t
14.74 Foundations of Development Policy (MIT)
This course explores the foundations of policy making in developing countries. The goal is to spell out various policy options and to quantify the trade-offs between them. We will study the different facets of human development: education, health, gender, the family, land relations, risk, informal and formal norms and institutions. This is an empirical class. For each topic, we will study several concrete examples chosen from around the world. While studying each of these topics, we will ask: Wh
SP.693 Gender, Race, and the Complexities of Science and Technology: A Problem-Based Learning Experi
What can we learn about science and technology–and what can we do with that knowledge? Who are "we" in these questions?–whose knowledge and expertise gets made into public policy, new medicines, topics of cultural and political discourse, science education, and so on? How can expertise and lay knowledge about science and technology be reconciled in a democratic society? How can we make sense of the interactions of living and non-living, humans and non-humans, individual and
11.947 Urbanization and Development (MIT)
The course examines the causes and effects of rapid urbanization in developing countries. Using case studies from the world's four major developing regions, including (among others) Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Managua, Singapore, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Kabul, Beirut, Cairo, Kinshasa, Cape Town and Johannesburg, it explores the economic and political dynamics that grease the wheels of contemporary patterns of growth. In addition to examining both local and transnational forces that drive contempora
