AP/SOSC 4600 6.00

Advanced Seminar in Development Studies

The aim of this seminar is to give students some specialized knowledge about the present discourses/perspectives in development, some contemporary development issues/challenges, and the potential of various agents in addressing these issues/challenges. The focus of the course is on globalization that most directly sets the current context of international development. In addition to identifying the trends in the contemporary phase of global economic restructuring, this course provides informative and useful insights into the construction of a ‘homogeneous world’ through cultural and political globalizations. It also explores various debates on globalization and takes a critical look at the differential impacts of globalization on countries and communities in the world. One of the primary objectives of this course is to present a comparative discussion of differences and commonalities among mainstream, critical, post-modern, and post-structuralist analyses of development which have appeared over the last two decades. It opens up the possibility for new ways of thinking about the problems of and prospects for development in the twenty-first century. This course also examines the contemporary agenda of international development within the changing structures of the global political economy.