Below are some materials related to courses I have taught, ranging from introductory undergraduate lecture-based courses to specialist PhD seminars. All of my courses are multidisciplinary and historical. (I am no longer teaching, so this will mostly be a static page, but I do intend to finish up course descriptions at some point.)
The courses (non-exhaustive list):
- Introduction to International Politics (UG lecture)
- Political Networks (UG lecture + lab)
- The Politics of Economic Crisis and Reform (UG lecture + policy sim)
- International Political Economy (UG lecture)
- The Politics of Global Inequality (UG capstone seminar)
- International Political Economy (PhD seminar)
- Network Analysis and World Politics (PhD seminar)
In addition to these I have taught occasional courses/seminars/guest lectures on World Politics in a Time of Populist Nationalism (Spring 2017), institutional analysis, boot camps on quantitative research methodology (combining frequentist, Bayesian, complex/social network analysis and system science), as well as a series of professionalization seminars for graduate students and numerous ad hoc roles on student committees and at conferences.
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Introduction to International Politics is a 100-level undergraduate course that I have taught many times. It was the first course I taught (at UNC, as a PhD student) and the last course I taught. My approach to the course is non-traditional. Rather than organizing the course according to topics — this week we learn about nuclear deterrence, next week we learn about trade agreements — I approach the topic systemically. Meaning, we approach the history of the world political system as a system in which hierarchy, institutions, and interconnectedness together produces outcomes of interest. In this way, we might consider nuclear deterrence and trade agreements as part of related processes. One world, one system.
To make this manageable, so that I am not just saying that everything causes everything, we emphasize three subsystems as we move through the course: the security subsystem, the economic subsystem, and the development subsystem. Each of these is explicitly linked to the others.
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Political Networks is a class…
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The Politics of Economic Crisis and Reform was initially created in response to the global financial crisis that began in 2007 and is arguably ongoing. ..
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International Political Economy (UG) is my bread-and-butter subject, the course I was hired to teach at IUB in both undergraduate and graduate modalities. …
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The Politics of Global Inequality was created as a capstone course for graduating seniors who majored in Political Science at Indiana University. Every major is required to complete a reading/writing-intensive course, in which attendance is capped at a lower number than any other undergraduate courses to facilitate a seminar structure. I’ve taught the course several different ways, but it has always been primarily a political economy class.
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The PhD-level International Political Economy course…
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The PhD-level Network Analysis and World Politics seminar