How does gender make a difference in politics? Do women and men legislate differently? What issues become political when women decide to act? This hybrid course will explore the role of gender difference in political action and outcome by examining social movements, interest groups, and the three branches of government. Students will be encouraged to explore their specific political interests through a gendered lens. By examining how political change and process is and is not influenced by gender, the course will add depth to our understanding of the explicit inclusion of gender in the public sphere.
This hybrid course will be taught both online and face-to-face through the W&M Washington Center. During the 5-week course, students will, on their own, complete assignments, which include daily chapter tests, personal diet diaries and diet analysis, reaction papers, answers to discussion forum questions, and responses to peer's answers. Also, students in this course will conduct and blog about self-guided tours of facilities such as the National Institutes of Health and The National Museum of American History (History of Food Exhibition).
During the week of in-person evening sessions, students will hear from guest lecturers from the U.S. Public Health Services, The National Cancer Institute, the Food and Drug Administration, The National Institute of Food and Agriculture as well as other Washington, DC area services and programs.
By combining a balance of scientific research, core concepts, and relevant applications with educational input from sources only available in the Washington DC area, this course will enhance nutrition learning in unique and interesting ways.
This hybrid course will critically examine "political violence," which some call "terrorism," in the 20th and 21st century Middle East. We will examine "political violence" in its state and non-state forms; in other words, how violence is used by state and non-state actors. Therefore, we will learn about the unprecedented way colonial rulers utilized political violence and how anti-colonialist struggles contested those regimes' right to it.
Likewise, we will witness the legacy of violence as it was perpetuated by post-WWII "imperialist" powers in the region, notably the USA and Soviet Union, and its contribution to the "making of the modern Middle East." We will consider how states clain the right to violence and, in turn, how authoritarian regimes and repressive states in the Middle East (from Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Israel) deploy violence in official capacities to manage their societies. Finally, we will end with learning the ideological differences is between militant left wing organizations and the rise of political Islamic groups have used violence strategically and tactically, from the Muslim Brotherhood to Qa'idah and ISIS.