Foundational Area Three

Questions?

  • General Education
    202-885-3879
    Fax: 202-885-1069
    gened@american.edu
    Leonard, Room 101F

    Marechal, Nathalie R
    Program Coordinator, Undergraduate Studies

Mailing Address
The Global and Cross-Cultural Experience

Global interdependence

is a powerful fact. Through an exploration of societies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Europe, this Foundational Area opens the doors into varied cultures and issues that challenge a parochial understanding of the world.

You may select courses that focus on the major issues of contemporary world politics, including management of conflict, economic competition, and environmental threats to the quality of life. Other courses emphasize either a comparative or cross-cultural examination of societies, polities, and belief systems and acknowledge the importance of recognizing and overcoming cultural barriers.

Finally, some courses focus on the dilemma of the global majority—the three-quarters of the world’s population who live in countries striving for national identity as well as economic and political development.

All courses in this area encourage a better understanding of the dimensions of experience and belief that distinguish cultures and countries from one another and, conversely, the commonalities that bind human experience together. The courses stimulate awareness of the need for enhanced international and intercultural communication.

Learning Objectives

  1. explore those habits of thought and feeling that distinguish regions, countries, and cultures from one another
  2. discuss, in comparative and cross-cultural perspective, the concepts, patterns, and trends that characterize contemporary global politics
  3. develop your capacity to critically analyze major issues in international and intercultural relations, especially how categories of difference are organized within and across cultures and how they affect political systems

 

Course Offerings

see Schedule of Classes for class times and course descriptions

Anthropology

ANTH-110 Culture and Human Experience
ANTH-210 Roots of Racism and Interracial Harmony
ANTH-215 Sex, Gender and Culture
ANTH-220 Living in Multicultural Societies

Communication

COMM-280 Contemporary Media in a Global Society

Economics

ECON-110 The Global Majority

Education

EDU-285  Education for International Development

Government

GOVT-130 Comparative Politics
GOVT-235 Dynamics of Political Change

History

HIST-120 Imperialism and Revolution
HIST-225 Russia and the Origins of Contemporary Eurasia
HIST-250 Empires and States in East Asia

International Business

IBUS-200 The Global Marketplace

Literature

LIT-150 Third World Literature

Religion

RELG-185 Forms of the Sacred
RELG-210 Non-Western Religious Traditions

School of International Service

SIS-105  World Politics
SIS-110  Beyond Sovereignty
SIS-140  Cross-Cultural Communication
SIS-210  Human Geography: Peoples, Places, and Cultures
SIS-215  Competition in an Interdependent World
SIS-220  Confronting our Differences/Discovering our Similarities: Conflict Resolution
SIS-245  The World of Islam
SIS-250  Civilizations of Africa
SIS-255 China, Japan, and the United States

Sociology

SOCY-110 Views from the Third World
SOCY-225 Arab Societies
SOCY-235 Women in the Third World

World Languages and Cultures

SPAN-210  Latin America: History, Art, Literature
RUSS-200  Russia and the United States

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