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Syllabus

SUNY at Stony Brook, Federated Learning Communities Program 

FLC 301: Global Identities, Cultures, and Institutions

(Fall 2001)

Wednesday 6-9 p.m.

SBS-N403

Professor: Hermann Kurthen (hkurthen@notes.cc.sunysb.edu, phone: 632-7717)

Teaching Assistants: Wendy Christensen (noodlehead@earthlink.net); Rebecca Woloszyn (cutipa@hotmail.com)

Office Hours: Wednesday 4-6 p.m. & by appointment at SBS-S443

The Federated Learning Community (FLC) is a program which focuses on an issue of major societal importance and leads to an academic minor. The program enables students to register for a cluster of courses arranged around a specific issue. The "core" program seminar focuses and integrates the material of the federated "theme" courses in a small community setting of about 25 -30 students. Students may earn a minor in Globalization (GLS) by completing 24 credits in a sequence of their own choice, including both program seminars FLC 301 and 301, plus any six of the other courses with a grade of C or better. The topic for Spring  2002 is Global Technoscience, Communications, and Environment.

FORMAT

A goal of the FLC is to engage students in a holistic way that touches their personal lives as well as their academic interests and allows them to gain a hands-on experience combining theory and practice, including a variety of extracurricular activities. The objective is to practice skills, such as writing (issue reports, short essays, briefing handout, and class minutes); group research projects, oral presentations, webpage design, community assignments (USB Diversity month events), organizing an outing or field trips (e.g., U.N., movies, plays, conferences), pizza parties, and meetings with scholars.

In the FLC program seminar students will extensively collaborate in small groups called "issue delegations" organized around the topics covered in the program course and at least one other "theme" course they are enrolled in. Each team will be responsible for

·         preparing a 30 minutes issue class briefing (copied handout to all students, including  5-10 questions) based on the required and recommended reading for a topic (see for briefing examples http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/class/soc401).

·         An issue delegation will also have to write the minutes (3-4 pages) of one class session during the semester. Minutes shall be made available to all class members through E-mail at least 24 hours before next class (for example see above website).

·         During the semester the issue delegation will also engage in an extracurricular project related to their topic, such as doing a research or case study project, setting up a web page, interviewing an expert of their topic and writing an article for a student paper, active participating in a topic related event (conference, play, movie) and presenting an observation report, etc.

·         At the end of the semester, each delegation as a team must present a theoretically and empirically informed printed team issue report of about 10-15 pages which will count as a collaborative term paper. The report ties together the team's prior class briefing, the ensuing class discussions, extracurricular activities, and the team's research interests. The term papers will be discussed during the last two class sessions. Topics have to be agreed upon by the instructor early in the term. The final version of the collective hard copy term paper is due no later than Wednesday, December 17, 5 pm at the instructor's office.

·         There will be a short mid-term essay exam.

A typical class will start with a short discussion of the minutes of the previous session and a report from extracurricular projects, followed by a class briefing and discussion of questions. After a short break with food & drinks, the invited "theme" instructor from a federated course will give a 30-40 minute guest lecture, followed by a Q&A session and a summary.

EVALUATION

Course Calendar: "Global Identities, Cultures, and Institutions"

If you have a physical, psychological, medical or learning disability that may impact on your ability to carry out assigned course work, I would urge that you contact the staff in the Disabled Student Services office (DSS), Room 133, Humanities, 632-6748v/TDD. DSS will review your concerns and determine with you what accommodations are necessary and appropriate. All information and documentation of disability are confidential.

 Required reading

·         Class reader (can be purchased from instructor)

·         Kincaid, Jamaica. 2000. A Small Place. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux  (available at Stony Books)

·         IAEA Annual Report 2000 can be downloaded from the Web at: http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/Documents/Anrep/Anrep2000: 2000

Recommended Supplemental Reading

·         Barber, Benjamin. 1996. Jihad versus McWorld. NY: Ballatine.

·         Held, David and Anthony McGrew (eds). 2000. The Global Transformation Reader: An Introduction to the Globalization Debate. Cambridge, UK: Blackwell

·         Kalb Don et al. (eds). 2000. The Ends of Globalization. Bringing Society Back In. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield

·         Lechner, Frank and John Boli (eds). 2000. The Globalization Reader. Cambridge, UK: Blackwell.

·         Mingst, Karen A. and Margaret P. Karns. 2000. The United Nations in the Post Cold War Era, 2^nd edition. Westview Press.

·         O’Meara et al. (eds). 2000. Globalization and the Challenges of a New Century, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

·         Waters, Malcolm. 1995. Globalization. London: Routledge.

Questions to ask when evaluating the reading

·         What central problem does this author seek to address?

·         How does the author seek to address this question?

·         Are the methodologies and data sources appropriate and the interpretation convincing?

·         What other methodologies and data sources might also provide insights into this question?

·         How does this author's argument compare/contrast with others we have read?

·         What contribution does this author make to the topic discussed?

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Last Updated: 10/10/01 04:40:04 PM