Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• CAS EC 571: Energy and Environmental Economics
  Environmental resources and markets characterized from physical, economic, and legal standpoints. Welfare arguments for public sector intervention. Methodologies for policy assessment and simulation analyzed, including project analysis, new technology, evaluation models, deterministic and econometric models.
• CAS EC 572: Public Control of Business
  Examines economic theory and case studies of antitrust policy, government regulation of private industry and operation of state owned enterprises. Case studies are drawn from both industrialized and developing countries.
• CAS EC 581: Health Economics I
  Quantitative analyses of demand for insurance and healthcare, moral hazard, adverse selection, healthcare supply, quality and price competition. Physician agency, payment systems, capitation, risk management and managed care. Emphasis is on U.S. institutions, but concepts and methodology are applicable worldwide
• CAS EC 590: Special Topics in Economics
  Fall 2020 Topic: Behavioral Economics. Introduction to a new field in economics that challenges the traditional model of rational decision-making and uses research in psychology to construct alternative models. Covers the theory of choice under certainty, uncertainty, and temptation; biases in judgment; social preferences.
• CAS EC 591: International Economics
  Quantitative theory of international trade; empirical evidence from both industrialized and developing economies. Factor content of trade, technology and trade patterns, scale economies and imperfect competition, economic geography. Policy interventions: tariffs, exchange rates, trading blocs, and political economy of reform.
• CAS EC 595: International Finance
  Applies economic tools to open-economy macroeconomics. Topics include the determinants of the current account, exchange rate management, international capital markets, and growth in the world economy. Topical issues: the formation of the Euro; debt and financial crisis in developing countries.
• CAS EC 597: MAEP Internship
  (For students starting the program in spring, the prerequisites may be abridged to CASEC501 and CASEC507 by departmental approval.) With departmental approval, MAEP students may work in an off- campus internship lasting six weeks or more, receive on-the-job training complementing their academic studies, and earn academic credits towards their degrees. Grades are based on reports from student and workplace supervisor.
• CAS EC 598: The Economics of Globalization
  Analyzes various facets of globalization from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, using tools from international trade theory. Topics include firm-level trade patterns, multinational production, foreign direct investment, the creation of global vertical supply chains, outsourcing, and offshoring.
• CAS EI 501: The Theory and Practice of Literary Editing
  An introduction to the theory, practice, and principles of editorial decisions, such as questions of modernization, revision, and annotation. Featuring a dozen visiting speakers and attending to notable editorial achievements.
• CAS EI 505: Manuscripts at Mugar
  Manuscripts, letters, literature, film, etc-inspire our Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center. This course explores these for understanding and enjoyment. At Gotlieb and the Editorial Institute, undergraduate and graduate students have their hands on originals, on presentation, and on individual interests.
• CAS EI 506: Topics in Textual Scholarship and the History of Western Society
  Topics vary by semester. Topic for 2018/2019: The State of the Language.
• CAS HI 500: Topics in History
  May be repeated for credit as topic varies.Topic for Spring 2021: History of the Self and Selfhood. Considers the changing experience and description of the self and selfhood from Antiquity to the present. Readings include biography, autobiography, and works of scholarship in history and philosophy. Appropriate for graduate students and advanced undergraduates.
• CAS HI 502: Drafts of History: Journalism and Historical Revisionism
  Considers episodes from U.S. history, comparing the "draft" of journalists to subsequent historical accounts. Analyzes how new evidence alters understanding of events, but also how different eras ask questions about the past, interrogate different sources, and appeal to different audiences. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry II, Oral and/or Signed Communication.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Oral and/or Signed Communication
  • Social Inquiry II
• CAS HI 506: The Transformation of Early New England: Witches, Whalers and Warfare
  Explores how religious schisms and revival, warfare with native Americans, political revolution, and commercial development transformed New England from a Puritanical agricultural society into an urbanized, industrial society by the outbreak of the American Civil War. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Historical Consciousness
  • Social Inquiry I
• CAS HI 507: Three Revolutions
  Examines how the English Civil Wars, the Glorious Revolution, and the American Revolution altered Anglo-American political thought and changed governance practices. Writers from Milton to Hamilton and Jefferson grappled with these transformations that created modern understandings of government. This course cannot be taken for credit in addition to the course with the same title that was previously numbered CAS HI 453.
• CAS HI 514: Enlightenment and Its Critics
  Explores how eighteenth-century criticisms of the Enlightenment have been taken up by twentieth-century thinkers such as Heidegger, Horkheimer, Adorno, Gadamer, and Foucault; discusses recent defenses of Enlightenment ideals of reason, critique and autonomy by Habermas and others. Also offered as CAS PO 592 and CAS PH 412.
• CAS HI 518: Histories of Food and Society
  Introduces themes of the history of food-production, consumption, aesthetics, and ritual through specific historical examples of food and culture(s) and food diasporas of the modern era.
• CAS HI 525: Development in Historical Perspective
  A critical investigation of modern "development" practices and projects in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Explores the rise of development paradigms in the nineteenth century and key twentieth-century transformations; interrogates challenges to, critiques of, and reaffirmations of global development schemes. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Social Inquiry II.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Social Inquiry II
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS HI 526: Poverty and Democracy: Modern India and the United States in Comparative Perspective
  Through an examination of historical, empirical, and journalistic evidence, students examine the peculiar and pernicious nature of modern and contemporary poverty in the context of two large democracies, India and the United States. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Ethical Reasoning, Social Inquiry II.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Social Inquiry II
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS HI 533: Empire and Power: British Foreign Policy, 1782-Present
  Examines the evolution of British foreign policy over time as well as the nature of Great Power rivalry. Key themes include formulation of national diplomatic strategies, policy coordination, diplomatic vs. military considerations, alliance politics, and policy over-stretch. Also offered as CAS IR 514.

Back to full list of Graduate School of Arts & Sciences