This seminar explores Ireland's journey towards reproductive justice & its global implications. Through the lenses of sociology, anthropology, political science, & history, students consider the past, present & future of reproduction in Ireland. Key themes include the impact of cultural norms, beliefs and values on abortion access, the intersection of state, church & medicine, the relationship between law & practice, the role of activism and art in social change, and the weight of the past in the present. Excursions will focus on the history of reproduction in Ireland, experiences of Irish women, & reproductive justice activism in Ireland.

A small island off the coast of China, Taiwan occupies an outsized role in global geopolitics. Whether seen as David to China's Goliath or a flashpoint in the South China Sea, Taiwan is frequently in the news but remains poorly understood. This seminar takes students beyond the headlines to explore Taiwan's history, society and culture. The course will examine the island's colonial past, economic rise, the transition to democracy, and social movements such as feminism, LGBTQ and indigenous rights, and environmental activism. Using interdisciplinary methods, students will reflect on Taiwan's complex history and vibrant culture and society.

Time after time, Brazil has been hailed as the "land of the future". Capturing the world's attention for over five centuries of colonialism and modernization, Brazil has offered rich natural resources for extraction and diverse social and political realities for the imagination of travelers and the work of scientists, academics and artists alike. Drawing from history, anthropology, literature and the arts, this Global Seminar explores how Brazil's becomings have been represented nationally and internationally and the ways in which its peoples have evolved within or escaped and recast the frames of this imagined country.

Modern agriculture is the most environmentally consequential activity that humans engage in. It has a profound impact on climate change, soil quality, water availability and risk of pandemics. However, agriculture itself is highly sensitive to climate change. This course covers the challenges of climate change, food availability and health in India. Traditional and novel solutions to carbon sequestration, and livestock practices that offer alternatives to the use of antibiotics will be discussed. Students will meet scientific and policy experts who will describe how India will have to adapt to tackle its 21st century challenges.

This seminar, taught at University of Tokyo offers an opportunity to understand contemporary Japanese society through lectures, readings, discussions, and field trips in both urban and rural Japan. In the six weeks, we will cover six important topics in six modules. For each module, we will have a combination of a lecture, a guest lecture, readings, student presentations, and class discussions.

This course examines how Paris is made of an amalgam of spaces of memory - places, monuments, museums - which have shaped its history and the way it is experienced by residents and visitors. Students will discover the constitutive elements of the city and recognize the traces of memories that have formed the image of Paris in the collective imagination. We will see how diverse communities (African, Asian, Maghrebi and Jewish as well as African-American expatriates) changed Paris, in the aftermath of colonialism and immigration. We will gauge how a city coalesces into a mix of multiple identities and shared, personal experiences.

We will examine African languages in digital technology when education & communication is becoming dependent on AI as well as the impact of language technology on daily life & how integrating African languages into digital technology promotes inclusivity, allowing languages to thrive in digital orality & mainstream spaces. Topics range from typology of African languages, structure of Bantu languages, Swahili as a lingua franca of Eastern Africa, & NLP concepts & applications i.e. search engines, speech processing, text classification, machine translation, information extraction & recommendation systems.

This course will be held in Cluj and Sibiu, Romania, with a focus on history and contemporary politics in Eastern Europe. The course begins with historical background, followed by an exploration of post-communist political dynamics. It covers the transition from one-party rule, debates about EU and NATO membership, energy security, and the threat of Russian aggression. Discussions will be complemented by meetings with local policy experts and guest academics. Students will also receive language instruction twice a week. The course includes excursions to the Romanian capital, Bucharest, and a trip to the Danube Delta.