International Studies
Departmental Guidelines & Mission
The International Studies major asks students to inquire broadly into social, political, economic, environmental, historical, and cultural processes, linkages, interdependencies, and power relations that connect individuals, communities, groups, states, and regions across the globe. These cross-border flows and processes are not new, but their increased intensity, complexity, and speed compel us to examine the world with the renewed emphasis on interconnectivity and interdependency as the fundamental human conditions under which we live today. These transnational and transregional cultural, political, and economic phenomena today are not mere outcomes of abstract and structural forces, but actively shaped by concrete human activities and decisions. Therefore, the major in International Studies helps students examine these phenomena within both historical and contemporary frameworks, and tackle shared dilemmas and challenges that tie the world's people together as committed global citizens.
Denison’s International Studies major moves beyond traditional International Relations (IR) in that it transcends nation-state-centered perspective, and involves the use of theoretical tools from sociocultural analysis and political-economy. International Studies majors are also asked to move beyond traditional Area Studies approaches, in that the major problematizes seeing areas as bounded and distinctive historical and cultural zones, and instead stresses the ways in which regions are, and historically have been, tied together in complex patterns and processes.
International Studies is inherently interdisciplinary. While it borrows from and employs theoretical tools and concepts from a wide range of disciplines in the humanities, social sciences and arts, it stresses the need to use these tools and methods in ways that work together and that problematize the limitations of any single disciplinary approach. This interdisciplinary emphasis encourages students to view the processes that tie together and divide the world from multiple perspectives. In doing so, the majors in International Studies synthesize study of global forces with real-world experience of how these forces shape, and are shaped by, the peoples living in their unique sociocultural and political-economic situations.
Faculty
Hanada Al-Masri (Modern Languages), Katy Crossley-Frolick (Office of the Provost), John Davis (Anthropology), Quentin Duroy (Economics, International Studies), Andrew Frankel (Education), Alina Haliliuc (Communication), Zarrina Juraqulova (Economics), Fadhel Kaboub (Economics), Sangeet Kumar (Communication), Veerendra Lele (Anthropology and Sociology), Francisco Lopez-Martin (Modern Languages), Diana Mafe (English), Isis Nusair (International Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies), Malliga Och (Politics and Public Affairs), Anne Sokolsky (English, East Asian Studies), Catherine Stuer (Art History and Visual Culture), Taku Suzuki (International Studies), Joanna Tague (History), Adrian Young (History), Hoda Yousef (History)
Academic Administrative Assistant
Meagan Tehua
International Studies Major
Students who major in International Studies must take the following courses:
| Code | Title |
|---|---|
| INTL 100 | Introduction to International Studies: The Making of the Modern World (the introductory course to the major, taken by the end of sophomore year) |
| INTL 200 | Themes and Approaches in International Studies (required for sophomore International Studies majors) |
| INTL 201 | Global Research Methods and Major Proposal (4-credit proposal writing course, taken Spring semester sophomore year) |
| INTL 400 | Senior Capstone Seminar (offered in the Fall semester for International Studies seniors) |
| Four (4) courses related to student's thematic/regional focus | |
| One (1) "Global and Local Flows and Frictions" Elective | |
| Relevant Off Campus Study | |
| Language beyond Denison's GE requirement | |
One "Global and Local Flows and Frictions" Course
Several elective courses are offered each semester. Course numbers range from 250 to 270.
Four courses related to the student's thematic/regional focus:
In the INTL 201 course, students will propose four elective courses that relate to the students' thematic/regional focus within International Studies. Up to three courses from their OCS program may count towards their major.
Language requirement:
Two semesters of non-English language study beyond the Denison GE requirement. The language requirement can be fulfilled in a number of ways, and students should consult with the INTL Director or another INTL faculty advisor. Students may include in their off-campus study a language particular to that program and one that is not taught at Denison. Multilingual students should consult with the INTL Director to determine how to fulfill their language requirement. In general, INTL encourages multilingual students to gain exposure to a new language related to their field of study.
Relevant off-campus study (OCS) experience
Courses
INTL 100 - Introduction to International Studies: The Making of the Modern World (4 Credit Hours)
Introduction to themes, concepts and approaches to International Studies from an interdisciplinary perspective. The course explores key concepts of modernity in the context of specific cultural, political, and economic experiences within a historical framework. This course must be taken before the end of the sophomore year.
INTL 199 - Introductory Topics in International Studies (1-4 Credit Hours)
A general category used only in the evaluation of transfer credit.
INTL 200 - Themes and Approaches in International Studies (4 Credit Hours)
The main goals of this course are to introduce sophomore students, who have completed INTL100, to some of the key themes and theories within the purview of International Studies to help them shape their individual thematic/regional focus. The course also provides opportunities for students to examine various world problems through an interdisciplinary lens, drawing on both political-economic and sociocultural analytical frameworks in various disciplines. Finally, students learn the basics of academic research and writing processes, i.e., formulating a well-defined topic, posing a relevant research question, finding and interrogating appropriate sources, justifying the research’s intellectual contribution to a broader scholarly audience and, when applicable, to the efforts to solve real-world problems, through writing and revising a carefully crafted prose. Among numerous debates and issues that International Studies scholars grapple with, the course focuses on four broadly conceived themes: economic development, nationalism and national identity, transnational migration, and mediated and material culture. After learning major scholarly approaches to theorize each of these themes, students each develop an individual research project and write a scholarly paper, complete with abstract, introduction, literature review, case study, and conclusion. At the end of the course, students are expected to be able to formulate, broaden, and contextualize their thematic and regional focus within the interdisciplinary scheme of International Studies, and be equipped with skills to conduct academic research.
Prerequisite(s): INTL 100.
INTL 201 - Global Research Methods and Major Proposal (4 Credit Hours)
This course aims to help students develop basic research competencies they can use in future classes while providing them with practical research skills they can use during their off-campus (OCS) program. The course draws from a diverse range of research projects and scholarship that helps students develop a greater understanding of, and appreciation for, the value of global research. Students learn the value of a global, transdisciplinary framework that transcends disciplinary borders, resists methodological nationalism, and draws on diverse methods and methodologies that help students to decenter Western-centric forms of knowledge production while being attentive to the importance of local-global flows and ways of thinking. Students learn to use mixed-methods (qualitative and quantitative) research, including archival research, compiling and using data sets, online surveys, interviews, ethnography, textual and discourse analysis, data visualization, as well as the basics of statistical analysis (both techniques and common software). The course also helps students develop their intellectual focus for the International Studies (INTL) major, both thematically and geographically.
INTL 250 - Global and Local Flows and Frictions (4 Credit Hours)
A mid-level topics course that allows students to build upon concepts and theories introduced in INTL-100 and 200. It explores, in specific and contextualized terms, particular issues associated with global linkages in contemporary and historical contexts. The course takes into account cultural, economic and political factors. The specific topic or theme varies according to the interest of the faculty member teaching the course. Students may take more than one section of this course.
INTL 255 - Women Creators Across Borders: Rhetorics of Life Writing (4 Credit Hours)
How do women negotiate the challenge of re-composing lives and cultural identities under conditions of geographical dislocation and cultural estrangement? Such self-fashioning requires a strong sense of voice. Yet, both migration and patriarchy challenge the self’s cultural expression: pressures to assimilate rush the stranger into silence, while patriarchal ideologies challenge women’s cultural relevance and claim to a public voice. In this course, we read work by women who have become recognized public voices: Hannah Arendt, Masha Gessen, Nora Krug, bell hooks, and Robin Wall Kimmerer, among others. We explore how their life writing (personal essays, memoirs, and graphic memoirs) becomes a rhetorical tool to evoke the experiences of the displaced, render them intelligible, and theorize transnational and anti-colonial feminist identities. By attending to women’s life writing as resistive and creative engagement, we consider displacement as not only a wound. Rather, we study it as the engine for rhetorical projects of transnational and cross-cultural belonging that articulate more awake, imaginative, spiritual, and connected living-thinking-being.
Prerequisite(s): COMM 280 and COMM 290, or INTL 100 or WGST 101 or consent.
INTL 261 - Art of Japan (4 Credit Hours)
An introduction to Japanese architecture, sculpture, painting and the decorative arts from prehistoric times to the 20th century, with an emphasis on the works in their cultural and religious context.
INTL 265 - Human Rights in Global Perspectives (4 Credit Hours)
This course analyzes the emergence, expansion and enforcement of international human rights norms. Students taking the course will acquire an enhanced understanding of the United Nations, national governments, nongovernmental organizations, customary international law, treaty law, regional courts, and international tribunals in articulating and enforcing human rights. Students will acquire a broad understanding of human rights as a topic of both intellectual inquiry and political action.
Prerequisite(s): PPA 201 or consent of instructor.
Crosslisting: PPA 345.
INTL 299 - Intermediate Topics in International Studies (1-4 Credit Hours)
A general category used only in the evaluation of transfer credit.
INTL 361 - Directed Study (1-4 Credit Hours)
A student in good standing may work intensively in areas of special interest under the Directed Study plan. A Directed Study is appropriate when, under the guidance of a faculty member, a student wants to explore a subject more fully than is possible in a regular course or to study a subject not covered in the regular curriculum. A Directed Study should not normally duplicate a course that is regularly offered. Directed Studies are normally taken for 3 or 4 credits. A one-semester Directed Study is limited to a maximum of 4 credit hours. Note: Directed Studies may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.
INTL 362 - Directed Study (1-4 Credit Hours)
A student in good standing may work intensively in areas of special interest under the Directed Study plan. A Directed Study is appropriate when, under the guidance of a faculty member, a student wants to explore a subject more fully than is possible in a regular course or to study a subject not covered in the regular curriculum. A Directed Study should not normally duplicate a course that is regularly offered. Directed Studies are normally taken for 3 or 4 credits. A one-semester Directed Study is limited to a maximum of 4 credit hours. Note: Directed Studies may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.
INTL 363 - Independent Study (1-4 Credit Hours)
Independent Study engages a student in the pursuit of clearly defined goals. In this effort, a student may employ skills and information developed in previous course experiences or may develop some mastery of new knowledge or skills. A proposal for an Independent Study project must be approved in advance by the faculty member who agrees to serve as the project advisor. Note: Independent Studies may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.
INTL 364 - Independent Study (1-4 Credit Hours)
Independent Study engages a student in the pursuit of clearly defined goals. In this effort, a student may employ skills and information developed in previous course experiences or may develop some mastery of new knowledge or skills. A proposal for an Independent Study project must be approved in advance by the faculty member who agrees to serve as the project advisor. Note: Independent Studies may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.
INTL 400 - Senior Capstone Seminar (4 Credit Hours)
This seminar integrates the three core courses, the four elective courses related to the student's thematic/regional focus, the off-campus experience and the language training, into a culminating research project. It focuses on theoretical tools, frameworks and methodologies in International Studies. This seminar emphasizes the development of independent research skills and scholarly writing in connection with a research project based on individual students' interests.
INTL 451 - Senior Research (4 Credit Hours)
Students may enroll in Senior Research in their final year at Denison. Normally, Senior Research requires a major thesis, report, or project in the student's field of concentration and carries eight semester-hours of credit for the year. Typically, a final grade for a year-long Senior Research will not be assigned until the completion of the year-long Senior Research at the end of the second semester. In which case, the first semester Senior Research grade will remain "in progress" (PR) until the completion of the second semester Senior Research. Each semester of Senior Research is limited to a maximum of 4 credit hours. Note: Senior Research may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.
INTL 452 - Senior Research (4 Credit Hours)
Students may enroll in Senior Research in their final year at Denison. Normally, Senior Research requires a major thesis, report, or project in the student's field of concentration and carries eight semester-hours of credit for the year. Typically, a final grade for a year-long Senior Research will not be assigned until the completion of the year-long Senior Research at the end of the second semester. In which case, the first semester Senior Research grade will remain "in progress" (PR) until the completion of the second semester Senior Research. Each semester of Senior Research is limited to a maximum of 4 credit hours. Note: Senior Research may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.