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.

• 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.
• CAS IR 544: Solving Humanitarian Crises
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. First Year Writing Seminar ( e.g., CAS WR 100 or WR 120). - Humanitarian crises inflict vast suffering on people, upend economies, and threaten regional stability. This course investigates how diplomacy involving diverse stakeholders and tools can support solutions, even when conflicts evade comprehensive resolution, focusing on the Syrian and Rohingya refugee crises. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Writing-Intensive Course, Ethical Reasoning.
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  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Oral and/or Signed Communication
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS IR 545: History of Inequality
  Investigates the origins of present-day global inequality and asks how inequality has been understood differently over time through hierarchies of difference and categories of gender, race, class, time, land, population, capacity, geography, and biology. Effective Spring 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Critical Thinking, Historical Consciousness.
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  • Critical Thinking
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS IR 550: European Integration
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - Explores present, past, and potential future of the European Union. Investigates who is in charge and who matters in policymaking and politics. Examines a wide range of EU policies, including economics, security, and trade, and their impact on EU member-states.
• CAS IR 551: Social Europe: Identity, Citizenship, and the Welfare State
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - Meets with CAS PO 536. The past, present and future of "social Europe." Impact of European economic and political integration on national identities, cultures, politics, and citizenship; EU policies such as gender, human rights, migration and discrimination, plus the welfare state.
• CAS IR 552: Technology and War
  How do countries make choices between military technologies? How do they use them? What about emerging technologies? In this course, we examine the drivers behind countries' development of military technologies, how they operationalize them, and why they sometimes restrict them. Effective Fall 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry II, Writing-Intensive Course.
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  • Social Inquiry II
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS IR 553: Digital Diplomacy
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: at least junior standing. - Investigates the growth of digital diplomacy. Examines the ways in which diplomacy and statecraft are being transformed by the use of digital technologies, focusing on how foreign ministries and diplomatic missions engage with foreign countries and populations.
• CAS IR 555: Guatemala: Revolution, Genocide, and Genocide Denial in Twentieth Century Latin America
  Undergraduate Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor. Examines themes of Latin American history and politics of the twentieth and twenty-first century through a case study in Guatemala, with focus on genocide through the study of the Guatemalan military dictatorship’s attack on Maya Indigenous peoples in the 1980s. Effective Spring 2026, this course fulfills a single requirement in each of the following BU HUB areas: Ethical Reasoning and Social Inquiry 2.
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  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Social Inquiry II
• CAS IR 556: Current Intelligence Issues
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor and First-Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CASWR 100 or 120). - Examines U.S. intelligence needs, with an emphasis on preparing for international developments in advance. Addresses issues of transnational terrorism and proliferation in additional to traditional concerns such as rogue states, counterintelligence, organized crime, regional rivals, and rising powers.
• CAS IR 557: Guerrilla Warfare and Terrorism
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120) - Why do terrorists do what they do' How can their threat by reduced' The course examines the history and evolution of political terrorism, assesses terrorists' motivations and "marketing," and explores risk factors ranging from the global to the personal level. 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, Ethical Reasoning.
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  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Oral and/or Signed Communication
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS IR 558: Terrorism and Targeted Violence
  Terrorism and targeted violence dominate the headlines, but few attempt to think critically about the origins and evolution. This discussion-based course will introduce students to the study of terrorism and targeted violence and new thinking about prevention and rehabilitation. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, The Individual in Community, Teamwork/Collaboration.
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  • The Individual in Community
  • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS IR 559: Leadership and Cultural Change in Large Organizations
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - Analyzes the determinants of successful leadership and the importance of diversity in large organizations, with focus on how to transform dysfunctional cultures. Using military and corporate case studies, addresses how to identify root causes of problems and impediments to change. 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.
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  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Oral and/or Signed Communication
  • Teamwork/Collaboration
• CAS IR 560: Ethnic Conflict in Global Perspective
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - Surveys 20th and 21st century ethno-nationalist movements around the world. Explores how ethnic conflict, including inter-state and civil wars, challenges international peace and security. Addresses both Western and non-Western theories of nations, nationalism, identity and ethnicity to explain group mobilization.
• CAS IR 561: Religion and International Relations
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. First Year Writing Seminar ( e.g., WR 100 or WR 120) - Explores the role of religion in contemporary international relations in the context of questions about the common core of modernity. Reviews scholarly and policy literature, and case studies, in order to elucidate religion's intellectual and operational diversity in international relations. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Oral and/or Signed Communication, Critical Thinking.
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  • Critical Thinking
  • Oral and/or Signed Communication
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS IR 563: Religion and Politics across Cultures
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - This course examines the changing role of religion and secularism in modern politics, citizenship, and public life. It explores the causes of the global resurgence in religiosity and its implications for democracy, tolerance, and gender equality. It compares the public role of religion in Western liberal democracies with that of other world regions, including the Muslim world, Christianity in the global south, "Confucian" East Asia, India, and Buddhist Southeast Asia. The course asks whether an equitable and inclusive citizenship is possible in an age of deep ethico-religious plurality. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Social Inquiry II.
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  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Social Inquiry II
• CAS IR 564: Political Economy of Rising Powers
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - Offers historical and comparative examination of industrialization and globalization in the contemporary world. Focusing on rising powers, the course examines different waves of industrialization, immigration, and globalization, as well as the business-state relations in different regions and nations. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Social Inquiry II, Teamwork/Collaboration.
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  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Social Inquiry II
  • Teamwork/Collaboration
• CAS IR 565: Development Finance Institutions
  Development financing unlocks economic and social development. Multilateral, regional and national development finance institutions, with dual mandates of development impact and commercial sustainability have emerged. How can DFIs remain relevant in addressing challenges in a fast-changing world?
• CAS IR 566: History of Deportation and Border Security in the Americas
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120). - Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the U.S. has deported over 10 million Latin Americans. Drawing on history, anthropology, sociology, and films, this course explores how certain people--mostly Latin Americans--came to be considered deportable over time. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Ethical Reasoning.
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  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Writing-Intensive Course