Bachelor of Behavioural Science - Postsecondary Education Quality ...

Upper
or
Lower
Lower
Upper
Course Title
Global International
Politics
POLS 3200
Good and Evil
(Advanced Level)
HUMA 408
Calendar Course Description
this culture seems to require rejecting everything associated
with ―femininity‖. Consequently, female traits, and thereby girls
and women, are often devalued and denigrated. Human traits
tend to be sorted into rigid boxes of ―feminine‖ and ―masculine‖
and straying out of one‘s socially-designated box regularly
invites gender policing and enforcement by society in the form of
jokes, homophobia, bullying, and violence. In this course, we will
examine the ways in which both masculinity and femininity are
constructed throughout the lifespan, and then analyze their
various cultural meanings and social implications. We will focus
on evaluating prominent biological and psychoanalytic
explanations of gender, and then move onto developing a
thorough understanding of a range of current sociological and
feminist perspectives on gender relations that are attentive to
discourse, power, privilege, cultural difference, ‗race‘ and sexual
diversity. Gender dynamics and gendered interactions will be
analyzed in various realms of our cultural environment including
the internet, media, film, art, education, health, work and
intimate relationships.
International relations is one of the most dynamic and important
areas of political science today. Traditionally, international
relations focused on relations between national governments,
taking them as the dominant actors on the world stage. Over the
past several decades, however, the world has shifted away from
the traditional state-dominated model of international politics to
a more complex one in which transnational corporations,
financial markets, international institutions, non-governmental
organizations, and terrorist groups have joined governments to
give shape to a rapidly changing and, at times, highly
unpredictable global political environment. In addition,
challenges like the global economic crisis of 2008 and climate
change have highlighted the growing need for cooperation
between national governments and other important social and
economic actors.
These changes and challenges raise the question of what role
conventional international politics will play in a world that is
increasingly characterized by the mutual dependency of
different peoples and regions for things like food, water, energy,
economic growth, and security. This course will introduce
students to the study of international relations by placing it
against the backdrop of the present day ―globalized‖ world. In
this way, it will help students to not only better understand
current global politics, but to comprehend and even anticipate
future changes.
Do good and evil really exist In the early years of this century,
we have been exposed increasingly to the idea that there are
still indisputable evils in the world – terrorism, war, ethnic
Bachelor of Behavioural Science Section D, Page 72