Undergraduate Courses in Global Thought

The CGT continues to expand course offerings for undergraduate students at Columbia University. Current courses include:

Seminar in Global Thought: Inquiries Into an Interconnected World (CGTH 3401), a Global Core eligible course, tackles big questions related to globalization by tracing the history and contemporary production and consumption of textiles fashioned into cloth and clothing.  From the ancient silk trade and early modern production of cotton and cotton textiles in the context of conquest, imperialism, and industrialization, to the fast fashion industry of today, textiles have interwoven the world and “fashion” manifested the global circulation of ideas about class, gender, race, and nationality.  Studying globalization through textiles and clothing reveals the power dynamics underlying global interconnection and the unevennesses produced by it. It also challenges concepts of cultural essentialism by underscoring the hybridity of human societies and individual identities in an interwoven world.

“Global 20: Youth in an Interconnected World (CGTH UN3402),” a Global Core Eligible course, asks what it means to be a young person today as the world confronts seismic shifts in the geopolitical order, in the nature and future of work, and in the ways we connect with each other, express identity, engage politically, and create communities of belonging.

Approaches to Global Thought (CGTH 3600), a required course for Global Thought Scholars, introduces students to transdisciplinary approaches necessary to address complex problems confronting the world today. The course places students into conversation with others of diverse backgrounds, passions, and majors to consider the approaches of their own disciplines, learn about the methodological “tool kits” of other fields, investigate examples of transdisciplinary research, and work with classmates to design their own problem-centered collaborative projects.

The following are joint undergraduate / graduate courses:

“Global Cities (CGTH 4600 GU)” takes as its starting point that urban spaces throughout the Global North and South provide an ideal vantage point from which to contemplate diverse global processes and issues, ranging from economic globalization and the climate crisis to inequality and pandemics. This course highlights the dialectical nature of global cities, as places defined by both egalitarianism and stratification, freedom and danger, cosmopolitanism and localism, sustainability and ecocide, and utopian dreams and dystopian nightmares. Through site visits and group fieldwork, students will also analyze how “the local” and “the global” intersect both in New York City and beyond.

Global Latin America (CGTH 4725):

In contrast to the “methodological nationalism” (or “regionalism”) that has long characterized outside analysis of Latin America, this course foregrounds the region’s global embeddedness and world-making potential—as a protagonist in the generation, adaptation, and diffusion of diverse border-crossing flows, frameworks, and imaginaries. These include: global discourses concerning modernity, postmodernity, liberalism, and postcolonialism; global understandings of race, class, gender, and the intersections between them; global policy frameworks related to human rights, democracy, and economic development; historical and contemporary globalizing relations with distant parts of the world, including the Middle East and Asia; and global alternatives to a world order based on exclusion, extractivism, and environmental degradation. Accordingly, we will engage with a series of texts and materials produced by diversely situated interdisciplinary scholars, writers, artists, and political figures—many of them based in Latin America, and operating in languages other than English—who are all seeking to make sense of the region’s place in the world. From a transnational perspective, we will also identify pockets of “Global Latin America” that exist beyond the region’s borders, including in parts of New York City. 

Global New York (CGTH 4400):

How did New York go from “Fear City” to “Capital of the World”? What historical structures, contingencies, and policy decisions produced Global New York? This course examines New York City’s long history as a site of globalization. Since European colonization, New York has served as a hub in world-spanning networks of capital, goods, and people. At the same time, the city’s reinvention in the late-20th century as a “global city”—defined in large part by its deep embeddedness in world financial markets—represented a fundamental shift in the city’s economy, governance, demography, cultural life, and social relations. We will interrogate how this came to be by exploring New York’s historical role in global business, culture, and immigration, with attention to how local and national conditions have shaped the city’s relationship to the world. While critically analyzing how elites both in and outside New York have wielded power over its politics and institutions, readings and discussions will also center the voices of New Yorkers drawn from the numerous and diverse communities that make up this complex city.