Courses
The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.
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CAS IR 510: Comparative Immigration and Racial Politics
Undergraduate Prerequisites: Senior Standing or consent of instructor. - Examines immigration policies and domestic racial hierarchies across world regions and regime-types. Role of immigration and racial hierarchy in economic development, state formation, nationalism, and electoral politics in three largest migrant-receiving regions: North America, Western Europe, and the Persian Gulf. -
CAS IR 516: Intelligence and Homeland Security
Introduces students to the interplay of intelligence and homeland security by answering questions such as: Who threatens' How and why do they threaten' Who protects the homeland' How do they protect us' What ethical framework should we apply' Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Ethical Reasoning, Historical Consciousness. -
CAS IR 517: Balkan Politics and International Relations
Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. First-Year Writing Seminar ( e.g., WR120) - Examines history and current state of international relations and security issues in the Balkans. Addresses both intra-Balkan relations and Balkan states' security options, with particular focus on EU, European security architecture, NATO, and the role of Russia and China. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Writing-Intensive Course. -
CAS IR 519: People Power in Global Politics
Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - Explores how everyday people shape global politics, drawing on classic studies of political anthropology as well as more recent examples of transnational and digital activism. -
CAS IR 520: The State and Public Purpose in Asia
Undergraduate Prerequisites: juniors & seniors in Internat'l Relations, Pol. Science, and Asian Stu dies who have completed the 1st-Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR100 or 1 20) & Writing, Research & Inquiry (WR150, 151, 152). - Meets with CAS PO 550. Comparative exploration of the economic and political institutions of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, drawing on political and economic theory. Addresses how relationships among state, business, and labor have affected industrial development and contemporary economic activity. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Social Inquiry II, Critical Thinking. -
CAS IR 521: Intelligence, Congress and the Formulation of National Security Policy
Examines the role and influence of Congress on the intelligence agencies of the US, Congress's oversight of intelligence collection, counterintelligence, covert action and surveillance in relation to the executive powers. Explores the influence of espionage on national security policy. Effective Spring 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Oral and Signed Communication. -
CAS IR 523: Cybersecurity and U.S. National Security
Undergraduate Prerequisites: open to juniors and seniors in International Relations and Political S cience who have completed the First-Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or 120) and Writing, Research & Inquiry (WR 150, 151, 152). - It is highly recommended that students have previously taken a 200 or 300-level IR course. Students who have not met these requirements need instructor approval to take this course. Addresses the challenge of cybersecurity in times of war and peace, with particular focus on U.S. national security. Explores cyber weapon systems and doctrine, the problem of attribution, and "gray zone" issues including information operations and election interference. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Writing-Intensive Course, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
CAS IR 525: 21st Century Deterrence: Nuclear, Space, Cyber
Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - Examines the challenges of deterrence in an era of multipolarity, proliferation, and technological change, with a particular focus on nuclear weapons, the militarization of space and cyber warfare. Analyzes strategic planning and posture reviews and their consequences for deterring adversaries. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Ethical Reasoning, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
CAS IR 526: National and Homeland Security Law
Undergraduate Prerequisites: limited to juniors, seniors, and graduate students. First-Year Writing Seminar (CAS WR 120 or equivalent) and CAS IR 271. - This course examines national and homeland security law as the balance between the state's requirement for security juxtaposed against civil liberties. We study the Constitution, judicial cases, and other primary sources focusing on specific topic areas. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing- Intensive Course, Ethical Reasoning, Historical Consciousness. -
CAS IR 527: Political Economy of China
Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. First-Year Writing Seminar (WR 120 or equivalent). - Provides a historical and comparative study of China's rise domestically and internationally and introduces China's national power, local governments, globalization, finance, and strategic concerns. Students learn to evaluate scholarly and policy pieces, compile evidence, and write research reports. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Social Inquiry II. -
CAS IR 528: Global History of Military Occupation
Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CASWR 100 or WR 120). - Analyzes the theory and practice of military occupation from the Napoleonic Wars through the Russian occupation of Ukraine. Considers political, legal, cultural, and military aspects of military occupation through comparative examination of a series of case studies. ¿Occupation¿ is be used a conceptual category to examine diverse phenomena in nineteenth and twentieth century international history including the expansion and collapse of modern empires and the rise of national states. -
CAS IR 531: Intercultural Communication
Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - Examines communicative problems that arise in contact between people from different cultural backgrounds in everyday life, social service encounters, and business transactions. Uses interdisciplinary approaches to study how verbal and nonverbal presentation, ethnic, gender, and cultural differences affect communication. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, The Individual in Community. -
CAS IR 532: The Far Right in Europe
This seminar approaches the resurgence of the far right in Europe since 1945 historically, reconstructing the ideology through its major thinkers, texts, organizations, and turning points with attention to broader social and political-economic context. Effective Spring 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU HUB areas: Critical Thinking, Historical Consciousness. -
CAS IR 533: Contentious Politics and the Arab Uprisings in the Middle East
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120) - Analyzes divergent outcomes of the Arab uprisings by framing them along historic continuum of domestic, regional, and international political developments. Examines how linkages between regional and international states and actors have affected historical and contemporary statebuilding and transitional outcomes. Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Writing-Intensive Course, Research and Information Literacy. -
CAS IR 534: Contemporary African Politics
Undergraduate prerequisites: First-year writing seminar or graduate student standing. - Exploration of challenges facing African states, their sources, and possible solutions. Focus on colonial legacies, political change, democracy and authoritarianism, political violence, the politics of ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexuality, and political economy, drawing on specific country cases. Effective Spring 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Research and Information Literacy, Writing-Intensive Course. -
CAS IR 535: Diplomacy and Statecraft
Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - Examines the mechanisms and process of diplomacy in historical context, to assess approaches to the implementation of foreign policy, analyze the success and failure of these approaches in different circumstances, and consider wider issues in the application of statecraft. -
CAS IR 537: Environment and Empire
Undergraduate and graduate prerequisites: previous coursework in social sciences and natural sciences. - This seminar examines the relationship between imperialism and environment since early modernity. Taking a global approach, reconsiders core themes in imperial history¿from maritime conquest, settler colonialism, and resource extraction¿as part of the longue durée of human-caused environmental change. -
CAS IR 538: Arctic Studies
Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CASWR 100 or WR 120). - The Arctic is home to 4 million people and has played important roles in global exchanges for millennia. This class explores the Arctic as a source of resource extraction booms, aesthetic currents, scientific advances, Indigenous knowledge, and unique governance systems. -
CAS IR 542: The Reemergence of Russia
Russia has reclaimed its status of a superpower. Analyzes the careers of Putin, Yeltsin, Gorbachev and various oligarchs, and challenges such as public health, degraded environment, and organized crime. Examines US-Russian intelligence competition, including claims regarding Moscow's interference in U.S. domestic affairs. -
CAS IR 543: The Changing Face of Eastern Europe
Analyzes domestic and foreign policies of Poland, (East) Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Baltic republics, Ukraine, and the Balkans from 1950s to the present. Examines positive and negative outcomes of reforms undertaken in Eastern Europe after fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.