Stanford Global Studies has awarded five Stanford faculty members with Course Innovation Awards, which support courses that creatively offer ways for students to learn about topics of regional and global importance.
The goal of this annual program is to spur the design of courses that can appeal to a large number of students or reach students early in their academic trajectory. Since the program started in 2016, more than two dozen courses across a diverse range of disciplines have received funding from SGS.
2025-26 Course Innovation Awards:
The World at War: A Global History
JP Daughton (offered in 2026-27)
This course will examine the First and Second World Wars as transformative global conflicts that reshaped political, social, economic, and cultural landscapes across the world. Moving beyond traditional Eurocentric narratives, the course will adopt a global perspective to explore the causes, conduct, and consequences of catastrophic war. Students will analyze the interconnectedness of nations, empires, and peoples, investigating how the wars were shaped by events and actors in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific. Key themes include the role of imperialism, nationalism, and ideology; the mobilization of societies and economies; genocide; the experiences of soldiers and civilians; the impact of technology and warfare; and cultural responses to conflict. The course also emphasizes the diverse voices and experiences of individuals and groups, including women, colonial subjects, and marginalized communities.
The Sacred: Global Perspectives
Amir Eschel (offered in 2026-27)
Drawing on research for my forthcoming book, “The Sacred, Now,” this course responds to a vital need in our fractured world: understanding how sacred traditions shape, challenge, and inspire contemporary life. At Stanford, where technological innovation meets cultural transformation daily, we are uniquely positioned to explore how ancient wisdom traditions navigate and influence our digital age.
Planet Ice: How Ice Controls Human Life
Lochlann Jain (offered in 2026-27)
Ice is central to every aspect of planetary and human life, and yet it has been nearly illegible as a cohesive subject of academic investigation. In the current global catastrophe of global warming, the study of ice is more urgent than ever. Furthermore, it provides a fascinating lens on geological and human histories and conceptual insight into material culture. This course centers a rigorous study of the history and politics of ice by dividing the course into five key sections. 1) Ice as a preservative of deep time, or how ice brings us the earth’s history: Theoretical readings from science and technology studies (STS) will undergird scientific readings on the mechanics and findings of ice core analysis. 2) Ice as a commodity and food preservative: Cold has been a central element food preservation, and thus in local and global politics of food production, transport, and consumer habits. This section moves from ice as a commodity being shipped as far as the Caribbean from New England in the early 19th century to the dramatic shifts in foodways and trade brought by the development of refrigeration. 3) Ice and Imagination: Exploration and Extraction: This section will focus on the race to the North and South Poles to the search for the Northwest Passage as a more efficient route to Asia and in particular to India. Here we will cover the science and technology of arctic exploration, some of the main adventure stories and how these impacted national imaginaries, and the role of the artic in global exploration. Readings will cover the impact of arctic exploration on indigenous populations, including the hunt for sea mammals. 4) Ice as Representative Field: How Icescapes were imagined: As landscapes that most people could not imagine inhabiting and yet that held a potent enthusiasm for European and American audiences by the 19th century, the Artic and Antarctic became a rich subject for artists. Here we will take up the work of artists, from the landscapes of Fredrick Edwin Church to the social commentaries of contemporary artists such as Nele Azevedo. 5) The End of Ice: How to Understand the Present: Melting icesheets at the poles and glaciers on the continents are the source of existential threat. The final section of the course seeks to better understand the current threat of ice melt and the political responses the crisis.
Haiti in Global History: Past, Present, and Futures
Rachel Jean-Baptiste (offered in Winter 2026)
While every nation has a creation story, few are as unique and particular as the founding of Haiti, the only country established as a result of a slave revolt. The long aftermath of debt to France, invasion and occupation by other nations, years of dictatorial rule, and its current state as a failed state present Haiti and its global engagement as an important site for analyzing the meanings of nation, peoplehood, and belonging in the modern world. This course explores this question by exploring what Haiti has symbolized for other nations in the Americas and France, and how ordinary Haitians have conceived of nation and nationality in engagement with other nations. We will begin by exploring how one part of the independent national briefly became the kingdom of Haiti in the early twentieth century. We move on to explore Haitian women's feminist political mobilization amidst occupation by the United States during World War I. We then crisscross the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic in the 1930s to examine migration, identity, and the killing of Haitians by the Rafael Trujillo regime. We move to the 1960s and 1970s to consider the circulatory migrant of Haitians to newly decolonized French speaking colonies in West Africa, as well as Quebec and France. We end in the current times to examine environmental factors of deforestation amidst cycles of coups and countercoups. Throughout the course, we consider the ways in which ordinary Haitians and state and non state actors have wrestled to define their presents and futures amidst contexts of violence, precarity, hope and renewal.
Governing AI: Innovation, Safety, and Geopolitics
Rob Reich and Nate Persily (offered in Fall 2025)
This innovative course on AI governance will be team-taught by Rob Reich, professor of political science and Nate Persily, professor of law. The goal is a cross-disciplinary analysis of one of the most pressing global challenges of our time. The course examines how geopolitical competition shapes various approaches to AI governance that balance innovation with safety and national security. Drawing on lessons from social media governance while recognizing AI's distinct challenges, the course integrates technical, social science, legal, and philosophical perspectives to help students understand the complex landscape of AI policy.