Open to all majors for winter term.

This course examines contemporary trade conflicts through the lens of international political economy (IPE), with a particular focus on tariffs, non-tariff barriers, and the World Trade Organization dispute settlement system. Students will study key trade policy instruments including antidumping measures, safeguard measures, and national security based trade restrictions and analyze how states use these tools in practice. By the end of the course, students will develop a practical understanding of how trade law, state power, and political interests shape global trade conflicts.

This course examines the gap between the rights migrants have on paper and the realities they face in practice. In the first part, students will explore how international law seeks to protect refugees and migrants, analyzing landmark treaties and cases that define these protections. In the second part, attention shifts to the political forces that shape whether these rights are upheld or denied. Drawing on case studies from different countries, students will learn both the legal standards and the political realities that determine whether migrants rights are effectively protected or undermined.

How does media shape political socialization and belief formation? How do entertainment and news genres differ in how they cover politics? And how have digital and streaming media reshaped who produces political meaning, and how citizens encounter it? This course examines how American political life ideology, partisanship, political behavior, and identity is represented, contested, and produced through popular media. Rather than treating media as a passive mirror of political reality, students will learn to analyze podcasts, music, streaming television, social media, and news coverage as sites where political meaning is actively constructed. The course draws primarily on political communication and political behavior research, with select modules incorporating race and ethnicity as a case study in how political identity and ideology are represented and mobilized through media.