PRD Curriculum

The Approaches seminars introduce students to some of the key concepts, assumptions and values related to global politics, such as power, democracy, citizenship, rights, and economic development. These discussion-based seminars explore the connections between international politics, human rights, and development from a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, e.g.,

• Realism 
• Liberalism and Conservatism 
• Cosmopolitanism 
• Marxism and Capitalism 
• World Systems Theory 
• Authoritarianism and Fascism 
• Just War Theory 
• Theories of Democracy 
• Capabilities Theory 
• Theories of Dissent and Resistance 
• Humanitarianism 
• Other Socio-Economic Theories

Students will be able to explain the historical, cultural, and philosophical sources of political power, human rights, and the notion of global justice and critically evaluate arguments about politics, rights, and development. They will develop the ability to construct a research question, identify relevant scholarly sources that enable research and thereby begin to join ongoing scholarly conversations in their fields of interest. Students will learn the use of research methods and sources, including the thoughtful use of digital tools and databases available through the Bobst libraries. Assignments will ask students to become acquainted with advanced theories relevant to the concentration, to master theoretical vocabularies, and to apply such theories to a specific issue, work, or phenomenon in a substantial research paper. Throughout the course, students will take intellectual responsibility through their research projects and presentations and as discussion leaders.

Sample Courses:

• Foreign Intervention, Democracy, and Justice
• Re-Thinking Citizenship and Humanitarianism Locally and Globally
• Four Faces of Democracy
• Reform and Revolution: Social and Political Change in Developing Countries
• Global Justice & the Global Citizen
• The Political Economy of Growth and Distribution

View a suggested bibliography for PRD Approaches classes

Politics, Rights, and Development puts special emphasis on the controversies that surround social action. Topics courses in the concentration typically concern not only politics but also economics and culture as they shape modern social movements. Subjects include the complexities of international relations; the many forms of imperialism; law, justice, and human rights; ethics and the conduct of war and peace; challenges of democratization, revolution, and social change; industrialization and globalization; and policies of health and the environment. Students will gain a more specialized instruction in one or more of the above topics. Topics courses allow the students to examine specific themes in their chosen concentration that connect to their junior global site of study. Courses may include a variety of texts including site-specific case-studies, documentaries, and autobiographies. Instructors encourage students to examine issues related to their junior year sites and offer them the opportunity to work on such issues in at least one formal assignment. Topics seminars are discussion based and may include site-specific case studies, documentaries, and life-writing. Students take greater intellectual responsibility by way of research projects, individual presentations, or as discussion leaders.

Sample Courses:

• International Human Rights
• NGO Narratives: Global Humanitarianism: From Development to Disaster
• Economic Development and Historical Patterns of Industrialization
• Global Women’s Rights and Organizations (cross-listed with Identities and Representations)
• Global Violence: Vulnerable and Targeted People
• Contemporary Issues in Growth and Development

View a suggested bibliography for PRD Topics classes

Overview

The Junior Independent Research Seminar brings together a community of Politics, Rights, and Development juniors from around the world and connects them online. The course encourages students to reflect on their junior year abroad in ways that integrate their academic work and their experiential learning (their independent internships or equivalents) at their particular locale. Students interact from different sites in different cultures to create a rare learning environment, while being anchored in NYC under the instruction and supervision of the junior seminar faculty. Students develop independent thinking, practice creating research questions, gather data and resources, and produce a substantial independent research essay for the Junior Seminar. The course work will lead to the completion of an annotated bibliography, an essay that might serve as a draft chapter of the thesis, and a prospectus outlining a potential thesis topic growing out of the essay.

The Junior Seminar – Experiential Learning II

Students learn and discuss a range of methodological issues and then apply these lessons to their research interests. Students play a role in creating the assigned reading for the course (according to their particular focus in PRD), and each student responds weekly to the works within a virtual discussion group. The students reflect, discuss, and post weekly responses to the assigned readings. Students write a thesis prospectus and an annotated bibliography in communication with their PRD peers at other global sites and with their faculty instructor in New York. In the last third of the semester, collaboration is stressed; students share sections of their research with other students, and they respond to suggestions and criticisms. At the end of the semester, students submit:

• an annotated bibliography of approximately five print resources and five online resources in the student’s field (depending on the nature of the topic and the site’s library facilities).
• a final paper of approximately 12 to 15 pages. The paper should be capable of serving as the basis for a thesis chapter; however, the student is not obliged to pursue the same topic in the senior thesis.
• a prospectus outlining a potential thesis topic growing out of the term paper (approximately 1000 words; 3–4 pages).

Overview

The Senior Thesis is organized into two courses taken sequentially in the senior year: the Senior Colloquium in the fall semester and the Senior Thesis in the spring.

These courses provide an opportunity for the development of a research project culminating in a senior thesis. A senior thesis is the product of scholarly research of high academic quality. The work involved in a senior thesis reflects an outstanding level of student independence, originality, and effort. Students develop an original thesis argument based on their research that engages with the relevant scholarly literature on their topic.

Students gain a more specialized instruction in the interdisciplinary aspects of Politics, Rights, and Development. Readings or other research activities are based on the students’ research interests as well as the faculty member’s area of expertise.

PRD-related subjects might include the complexities of economics and international relations; the many forms of imperialism; law and global justice; human rights and humanitarianism; ethics and the conduct of war and peace; challenges of democratization, revolution, and social change; policies of health and the environment; industrialization and globalization.

The Senior Colloquium

Senior Colloquia are largely discussion-based. Students improve their critical research abilities and become able to articulate their own research, both in written and in oral form. The Colloquium topics represent a combination of the instructor’s expertise and background and the group’s interests and objectives for their final thesis. Students learn to analyze and interpret a number of theories and methods in their respective field of study.

A thesis project may build on a previous research paper or on a proposal that developed by the end of their junior year. Students are encouraged to connect their thesis work with their international study/experience.

Students will have the opportunity to work individually with their instructor. Generally, the course is structured as a workshop in which students review, critique, and help revise each other’s work. Each student presents his/her research during the course of the semester. Also, students will be encouraged to attend PRD and university-wide lectures and events related to their senior thesis projects.

The Senior Thesis

The senior thesis must consist of polished scholarly writing, no longer than 50 pages, not counting proper documentation and bibliography. This would exclude what is sometimes called a creative thesis (e.g., film, fictional narrative, graphic works, or dramatic dialogue), which could be pursued instead in another concentration.

After submitting their first thesis draft, students work one-on-one with their instructors in order to submit their final thesis by mid-April. An excellent thesis should articulate a clear and well-developed argument in response to research questions, analyze primary sources, and be structurally organized around the thesis’s main argument.