HIST 19910 - Social Movements in Global Perspective

Course Credit: 1
Maximum Credit: 0

(GLIS)
Social Movements in Global Perspective This course examines the interaction between individuals, societies, cultures, and socio-political environments from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The course aims to give us a better understanding of how men and women experience life as individuals and, at the same time, as members of cultural systems that shape their personalities, behaviors, and perceptions of their social surroundings. In this course, we will explore what it means to be human, asking such vital questions as: Is there such a thing as human nature independent of society? How do worldviews play a role in shaping the value systems, thought patterns, and actions of both individuals and societies? Are individuals free actors and makers of their own destinies or the products of historically determined conditions? What causes men and women to initiate social, religious or political movements? How do they capture the public imaginations to garner a mass following and remake their times and social orders? Why do social movements “fail” or “succeed” in achieving their goals? In addition, in the age of globalization, social movements have increasingly embraced universal values. Cognizant of this, the course lays special emphasis on the importance of looking at ourselves as citizens of the world and hence considers thematic-oriented topics from various parts of the world. Many movements will be examined. These include Mohammed and the rise of Islam, the Protestant Reformation, Indian nationalism and Gandhi’s Civil Disobedience, West African colonial rule and resistance, Pan-Africanism, The Civil Rights Movements, Ethnocentrism and identity politics in Rwanda, the Meiji Restoration in Japan, Apartheid and Nelson Mandela, The Chinese Revolution and Mao Zedong, Marxism and youth politics in Ethiopia, The Young Turks and Kamal Ataturk , The None-Aligned Movements and the Afro-Asiatic “Third Block,” Nasserism, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the “Arab Spring,” the women of the Wangari Maathai and the Green Belts Environmental Movements and Political Islam in Somalia.