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 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.

Global 213: Culture and Revolution in Africa

Instructor: Fatoumata Seck

Quarter Taught: Winter 2025

This course investigates the relationship between culture, revolutionary decolonization, and post-colonial trajectories. It probes the multilayered development of 20th and 21st-century African literature amid decolonization and Cold War cultural diplomacy initiatives and the debates they generated about African literary aesthetics, African languages, the production of history, and the role of the intellectual. We will journey through national cultural movements, international congresses, and pan-African festivals to explore the following questions: What role did writers and artists play in shaping the discourse of revolutionary decolonization throughout the continent and in the diaspora? How have literary texts, films, and works of African cultural thought shaped and engaged with concepts such as "African unity" and "African cultural renaissance"? How have these notions influenced the imaginaries of post-independence nations, engendered new subjectivities, and impacted gender and generational dynamics? How did the ways of knowing and modes of writing promoted and developed in these contexts shape African futures?

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.