Course Innovation Awards

SGS course innovation awards support the development of new courses that focus on substantive topics of regional or global interest for the following academic year. The goal is to spur the design of courses that can appeal to large numbers of students or reach students early in their academic trajectory.

2024-25 Course Innovation Awards:

GLOBAL 109: Racial Justice in the Nuclear Age

Instructor: Gabrielle Hecht

Quarter taught: Spring 2025

In the 79 years since the US dropped atomic bombs on Japan, nuclear technologies have relied on and exacerbated conditions of insecurity and inequality. Dismissing health and environmental harms as "externalities," security experts have ignored this paradox and instead focused on the future of nuclear warfare. Yet for frontline communities --often Black or Indigenous in the US, and in formerly colonized territories elsewhere --nuclear activities pose a real, ongoing existential threat, not a hypothetical one. From nuclear testing in the Pacific and the deserts of Algeria, Kazakhstan, and the US, to uranium mines in Africa, Aboriginal Australia, and the Navajo Nation, the "security" promised by nuclear weapons involves sacrificing the lives and territories of (some) citizens, reinforcing racial, imperial, and colonial logics of disposability. This course will examine those patterns historically and ethnographically. It will explore how the pursuit of nuclear weapons joined people in otherwise disconnected parts of the world into a common history. For example, uranium extracted in apartheid South Africa was used in weapons tested in the Marshall Islands, dispossessing islanders from their homes; the ships used in these tests were later "decontaminated" in Bay Area naval shipyards, with deadly consequences for neighboring communities of color. It will also explore the differences in nuclear experience that resulted from pre-existing vulnerabilities distinct to each location. Finally, the course will explore how these different communities have sought remediation, compensation, and other forms of reparative justice.

Global 126: Sustainability, Governance, and Economic Development in Southeast Asia

Instructor: David Cohen

Quarter taught: Spring 2025

Situated at the heart of the broader Indo-Pacific region, Southeast Asia's 11 countries encompass an astonishing range of societies, political systems, economic development, culture, languages, and populations. Despite the many differences, in important ways they face similar challenges in regard to sustainability in the face of climate change, environmental degradation, energy transition, food and water security, poverty, inequality, and the management of conflicts internal and external to their region. Each individual Southeast Asian nation deals with such challenges in ways relevant to their political, economic, environmental, and societal circumstances. At the same time, they have also joined together in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to serve common regional interests and develop long term economic and environmental strategies to promote the security and prosperity of the approximately 670 million citizens of the ASEAN Member States. This course will focus on how Southeast Asian nations manage the tensions between economic development and sustainability, how the policies and strategies they develop impact the societies they are mandated to serve, and the role of good governance, sounds regulatory frameworks, and the rule of law in shaping the outcomes of local, national, and regional initiatives. We will be able to discuss such issues with guest speakers from the region who will participate in several class sessions.

ILAC 142N: Mexico in Ten Images

Instructor: Nicole Hughes

Quarter Taught: Spring 2025

This course takes students on a tour through the culture, literature, and history of Mexico guided by 10 emblematic images. From the mythical foundation of Mexica (Aztec) Tenochtitlan to the Mexican Revolution to the present day, Mexico has sustained strikingly beautiful and complex visual cultures. They include the painted books of the Mexica known as codices; the feather mosaics of Indigenous amanteca; costumbrista paintings of typically Mexican customs; maps that sustained Indigenous struggles for land rights; photos of the brave soldaderas (women soldiers) in the Mexican Revolution; Diego Rivera's sweeping murals and Frida Kahlo's striking self-portraits; and the "moving images" of Mexican Golden Age Cinema. Each week of this course features a lecture and a discussion session on one emblematic image to be studied alongside secondary images and short literary and historical texts. Beginners are welcome in this introductory course. Taught in Spanish.