Expand the course offerings below to learn more about the class schedule, theme, and cross listings.
REQUIRED TRACK COURSES
Global Development Studies
GDS 4991 – Fourth-Year Seminar (2 sections)
In this seminar, GDS majors complete their GDS research paper. Prerequisite: Instructor permission AND the student must be a GDS major in order to enroll.
001
M 02:00PM-04:30PM | MON 122
Huong Ngo
002
M 02:00PM-04:30PM | MON 118
David Edmunds
Global Public Health
PHS 3825 – 001 – Global Public Health: Challenges and Innovations
T 05:00PM-07:30PM | GIB 211
Christopher Colvin
Undoubtedly, we've made important advances in global health, but there's still a long way to go. What factors determine health? What threats do we face today? What issues should we be working to change? We will explore these questions & more through a variety of interactive lectures & small group activities centered on 4 major themes: History & Trends, Determinants of Health, Culture, & Communication. Instructor Permission.
PHS 4050 – 001 – Public Health Policy
TR 02:00PM-03:15PM | MHP C1
Kathryn Quissell
Explores the legitimacy, design, & implementation of a variety of policies aiming to promote public health & reduce the social burden of disease & injury. Highlights the challenge posed by public health's pop-based perspective to traditional ind-centered, autonomy-driven approaches to bioethics & const. law. Other themes center on conflicts between PH & pub morality & the relationship between PH and social justice. Instructor Permission.
PHS 4991 – GPH Capstone (4 sections)
Explores topics in global public health and the myriad of governmental and non-governmental entities whose goal is to address and resolve problems encountered in global public health and synthesizes the student's interdisciplinary studies in global public health, culminating in a Capstone Paper. Instructor Permission Required.
001
W 01:00PM-03:25PM | Ask Dept.
Christopher Colvin
002
W 01:00PM-03:25PM | Ask Dept.
Kathryn Quissell
003
W 01:00PM-03:25PM | Ask Dept.
Paige Hornsby
004
W 01:00PM-03:25PM | Ask Dept.
Rupa Valdez
Global Environments & Sustainability
GSVS 4991 – Capstone Seminar- GSVS (2 sections)
This course is the required Capstone Seminar in the Global Environments and Sustainability track of Global Studies.
001
W 03:30PM-6:00PM | CAB 389
Phoebe Crisman
002
W 03:30PM-6:00PM | MON 118
Spencer Phillips
Global Security & Justice
GSSJ 4991 – Capstone Seminar (2 sections)
This is the capstone seminar for students in the Security and Justice track of Global Studies. Instructor Permission.
001
W 03:30PM-6:00PM | WIL 214
Peter Furia
002
W 03:30PM-6:00PM | CAB 132
Huong Ngo
Global Studies – Middle East & South Asia
GSMS 4991 – 001 – Fourth-Year Seminar
TR 11:00AM-12:15PM | CAB 395
Tessa Farmer
In this seminar, GSMS majors complete their GSMS research paper. Instructor Permission.
Global Commerce in Culture & Society
GCCS 4991 – 001 – Fourth-Year Seminar
W 03:30PM-06:00PM | THN A207
Deborah Durham
In this course, Global Commerce in Culture and Society students will complete a 25-page research paper, as the culminating work of the major. Each student will choose readings relevant to his or her project, present them to the class and lead class discussion. Global Commerce in Culture and Society concentration only. Instructor Permission.
ELECTIVE COURSES
GDS 3114 – 001 – Science, Technology & Development
TR 11:00AM-12:15PM | CAB 332
David Edmunds
This course will outline current debates about scientific and technical interventions in global development. We will look at case studies in broad areas in which UVA has considerable expertise: the built environment, public health, climate change and programming. Students will be asked to research a techno-scientific problem of their choosing, and analyze it using the concepts we discuss in class.
GDS 4952 – 001 – University Museums Internship
F 10:00AM-12:30PM | FHL 208
Melissa Love
This is the second semester internship at either the Fralin Museum of Art or Kluge Ruhe Aboriginal Art Museum. Students will work approximately 100 hours per semester in the museum, and will participate in three training sessions and three academic seminars. ARTH/GDS 4951 and instructor permission. Please see information at https://art.as.virginia.edu/course-descriptions and https://globalstudies.as.virginia.edu/#
PHS 3050 – 001 – Fundamentals Public Health
TR 12:30PM-01:45PM | MHP C1
Paige Hornsby
Public health is multidisciplinary, universally relevant, & constantly evolving. In this survey course, we learn about past & current public health issues & explore the core disciplines of public health through a combination of lectures & small group discussion of documentaries & case studies. We develop an appreciation of how public health knowledge relates to our lives & learn about career opportunities. Instructor Permission.
PHS 3095 – 001 – Health Policy in US Economic Perspective
TR 08:00AM-09:15AM | MHP 3181
Tanya Wanchek
This course uses an economic perspective to analyze the health policies and institutions that shape the health care system in the US. The consequences of current health care policies on health outcomes are discussed. The processes through which health policies are developed, implemented, and evaluated are analyzed. Instructor Permission.
PHS 3104 – 001 – Introduction to Epidemiology: Methodological and Ethical Considerations
TR 02:00PM-03:15PM | MHP 3181
Josh Colston
This course provides an undergraduate level introduction to the field of epidemiology. Using epidemiological concepts and methods as foundations, students are challenged to engage critically with the major population health issues facing the world today. The course emphasizes the importance of critical thinking, quantitative and qualitative methods, collaboration in teams, and ethical principles and reasoning in this process. Instructor permission required. Priority is given to third- and fourth-year students in the Global Studies major.
GSVS 2050 – 001 – Sustainable Energy Systems
TR 02:00PM-03:15PM | NAU 101
James Groves
This course investigates a major source of human impact upon the Earth - energy consumption to fuel human activity. The course a) provides a cross-disciplinary perspective on the challenge of human-centered energy use, b) explains the historical origins of today's energy systems, c) describes current energy systems, d) examines the components of sustainable energy systems, and e) considers keys to their deployment.
GSVS 3150 – 001 – Sustainability Leadership
TR 11:00AM-12:15PM | SHN 109
Andrea Trimble
In this experiential, workshop-based course, students will develop leadership skills in translating ideas into action, using UVA's Grounds as a living lab for sustainability - the campus as a sustainability classroom. Students will gain insight into a process in which individuals can catalyze change to solve global problems and advance strategic goals on a local level through a place-based, project-based, and human-centered approach.
GSVS 3210 – 001 – Clean Energy Materials
TR 05:00PM-06:15PM | GIL 390
James Groves
Clean energy (CE) systems require far more minerals than their fossil fuel-based counterparts, minerals sourced, refined, and disposed of globally. The course examines which minerals are needed for the CE transition and why. It considers social, economic, and environmental sustainability challenges from use of these materials and highlights the sociotechnical reality of sustainability, i.e., Success depends upon social and technical advance. 3rd year standing or instructor permission.
GSSJ 3559 – 001 – Law Justice & Sustain Devlopment
TR 02:00PM-03:15PM | CAB 389
Huong Ngo
On one level, the very definition of sustainable development is “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”, on another level, it is about intertemporal distributive justice. In this course, students will build their understanding of justice built on foundational principles applied in the context of sustainable development. They will also gain a working knowledge of the legal frameworks (international law, treaties, national laws), and institutional and policy governance frameworks intended to spread, deepen, and defend justice in sustainable development, particularly from Global South experiences. We will also explore solutions to these challenges of sustainable development. We will examine United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, International Labour Standards, and human rights-based approaches for their potentials to advance sustainable development. Our goal is to equip thinkers, policy analysts, activists and communicators with the ability to influence and use these institutions to promote justice and sustainable ends.
GSMS 3559 – 001 – South Asian and SSA Dev
TR 03:30PM-04:45PM | CAB 309
Muhammad Tayyab Safdar
South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are two of the most important developing regions in the World. Despite their growth potential, many countries in both regions suffer from high incidences of absolute poverty. Countries in these two regions also consistently rank poorly on the UN’s Human Development Index (HDI) and various governance indicators published by organizations like the World Bank. What explains the lack of progress within countries in these regions after decades of independence?
To answer this complex question, this course will critically examine the role of different factors, such as the history of colonialism, the nature of the post-colonial state and the role of external development actors on economic growth, governance and development within these two regions. Linking theories of economic growth with empirical evidence, the course will help students tease out the underlying factors that explain the developmental challenges facing countries in these regions and explore potential solutions.
GSGS 3030 – Global Cultural Studies (2 sections)
100 - MW 12:00PM-12:50PM | GIL 390
200 - MW 01:00PM-01:50PM | GIL 390
Michael Levenson
Global Cultural Studies offers an interdisciplinary approach to world cultures during the decades just before and after this new millennium. Engaging a wide variety of media (including film, popular song, avant-garde art, memoir, political philosophy), the course addresses recent conditions of China, India, North and South Africa, and the Middle East. Important events – such as the global plight of refugees, the rise of China as super-power, the place of Gandhi in present-day Indian politics, the aspirations and failures of the Arab spring, the war in Ukraine – will be some of our focal points. At every stage we consider the making of our present-day world since 1945 and the urgent issues that inform it: the campaign for international human rights, the independence movements in Africa and Asia, the resurgence of religious faith around the world, the crisis of the environment, the plague of Covid, the rise of authoritarian nationalism.
Combined with ENGL 3610
GSGS 3112 – 001 – Global Perspectives Corruption
TR 03:30PM-04:45PM | COC 115
Sylvia Tidey
This course takes an ethnographically informed approach to the question of how to understand corruption by examining practices of and perspectives on corruption from across the globe - including the so-called Global North. It aims to encourage students to 1) critically assess assumptions at the heart of international anti-corruption discourses; 2) examine tensions between global discourses of corruption and local practices; 3) compare and contrast corruption between different localities.
GSGS 3559 – 001 – Ecological Economics
TR 09:30PM-10:45PM | CAB 168
Spencer Phillips
Ecological Economics augments standard economics, especially natural resource and environmental economics, by stressing the interdependence and coevolution of natural systems with human institutions, including markets and other means of allocating economic resources. The transdiscipline elevates concerns for “sustainable scale” and “just distribution” to an equal footing with “allocative efficiency” as worthwhile (and indeed essential) societal goals. In this course, students examine these fundamental relationships, rooted in ecology and human behavior, and the consequences of those relationships as realized in current local and global agricultural, natural resource, environmental, and development issues. The course complements a standard course of study in economics and, for students who might take only one economics course, provides an overview (and then some) of the field.
GSGS 4559 – Applied Research in Global Studies (2 sections)
Applied Research in Global Studies is a chance for students to load their own backpack and choose their own adventure to learn something new about the challenges facing our planet, its people, and our fellow beings. The course comprises a set of modules taught by two faculty. Students choose a path that includes a methodological foundation, a deep dive into a particular set of methods, then an analytical technique or two, and culminating in an application of the students’ (collectively) diverse learnings to one of several real-world issues.
001
TR 12:30PM-01:45PM | RTN 150
David Edmunds
002
TR 12:30PM-01:45PM | CAB 132
Spencer Phillips