Short Description:
Les manières de faire de la science aujourd’hui sont multiples et innovantes. Pourtant, un modèle normatif continue d’écraser les autres : le modèle positiviste. Il soutient que la science vise l’étude objective de la réalité en s’appuyant sur l’application rigoureuse de la méthode « scientifique » dont la neutralité est un des emblèmes. Cette vision est vivement contestée dans plusieurs champs de recherche, tels que les études sociales des sciences, l’histoire des sciences et les études féministes et décoloniales. Ces critiques considèrent que les théories scientifiques sont construites et influencées par le contexte social, culturel et politique dans lequel travaillent les scientifiques, ainsi que par les conditions matérielles de leur travail. Cet ancrage social de la science rend impensable, pour ces critiques, l’idée même de neutralité. Faut-il donc renoncer à cette exigence normative? Par quelle autre norme la remplacer?Né d’un colloque tenu en 2017 à Montréal, ce livre propose les réflexions et analyses de 25 auteurs et autrices issues de sept pays sur ces questions. Études de cas, analyses réflexives et discussions théoriques s’entrecroisent pour permettre une réflexion collective approfondie sur ces enjeux anciens, mais constamment renouvelés, notamment dans le contexte du nouveau statut précaire de l’expertise scientifique dans l’espace public.

Long Description:
Les manières de faire de la science aujourd’hui sont multiples et innovantes. Pourtant, un modèle normatif continue d’écraser les autres : le modèle positiviste. Il soutient que la science vise l’étude objective de la réalité en s’appuyant sur l’application rigoureuse de la méthode « scientifique » dont la neutralité est un des emblèmes. Cette vision est vivement contestée dans plusieurs champs de recherche, tels que les études sociales des sciences, l’histoire des sciences et les études féministes et décoloniales. Ces critiques considèrent que les théories scientifiques sont construites et influencées par le contexte social, culturel et politique dans lequel travaillent les scientifiques, ainsi que par les conditions matérielles de leur travail. Cet ancrage social de la science rend impensable, pour ces critiques, l’idée même de neutralité. Faut-il donc renoncer à cette exigence normative? Par quelle autre norme la remplacer?

Né d’un colloque tenu en 2017 à Montréal, ce livre propose les réflexions et analyses de 25 auteurs et autrices issues de sept pays sur ces questions. Études de cas, analyses réflexives et discussions théoriques s’entrecroisent pour permettre une réflexion collective approfondie sur ces enjeux anciens, mais constamment renouvelés, notamment dans le contexte du nouveau statut précaire de l’expertise scientifique dans l’espace public.

Word Count: 189292

ISBN: 978-2-924661-54-3

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Short Description:
A Few Words that Changed the World brings together short texts - many less than one page long - that profoundly changed the world in which we live. In its initial form, the book's focus is on the growth and development of European empires, and the ways in which peoples responded to that expansion. Over time, we hope that this resource will grow to include other sources, such as songs, poems, and perhaps pieces of art.

Long Description:
A word is dead When it is said, Some say.

I say it just Begins to live That day.

Emily Dickinson, A Word is Dead (1862)

Word Count: 41764

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Short Description:
A Few Words that Changed the World brings together short texts - many less than one page long - that profoundly changed the world in which we live. In its initial form, the book's focus is on the growth and development of European empires, and the ways in which peoples responded to that expansion. Over time, we hope that this resource will grow to include other sources, such as songs, poems, and perhaps pieces of art.

Long Description:
A word is dead When it is said, Some say.

I say it just Begins to live That day.

Emily Dickinson, A Word is Dead (1862)

Word Count: 33169

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

In this class, food serves as both the subject and the object of historical analysis. As a subject, food has been transformed over the last 100 years, largely as a result of ever more elaborate scientific and technological innovations. From a need to preserve surplus foods for leaner times grew an elaborate array of techniques – drying, freezing, canning, salting, etc – that changed not only what people ate, but how far they could/had to travel, the space in which they lived, their relations with neighbors and relatives, and most of all, their place in the economic order of things. The role of capitalism in supporting and extending food preservation and development was fundamental. As an object, food offers us a way into cultural, political, economic, and techno-scientific history. Long ignored by historians of science and technology, food offers a rich source for exploring, e.g., the creation and maintenance of mass-production techniques, industrial farming initiatives, the politics of consumption, vertical integration of business firms, globalization, changing race and gender identities, labor movements, and so forth. How is food different in these contexts, from other sorts of industrial goods? What does the trip from farm to table tell us about American culture and history?

This course explores how gender shaped the historical experiences and cultural productions in the North American West during the time it was being explored, settled, and imagined. The North American West of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries provides a fascinating case study of the shifting meanings of gender, race, citizenship, and power in border societies. As the site of migration, settlement, and displacement, it spawned contests over land, labor disputes, inter-ethnic conflicts and peaceful relations, and many kinds of cultural productions.
The Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies (GCWS)
This course is part of the Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies. The GCWS at MIT brings together scholars and teachers at nine degree-granting institutions in the Boston area who are devoted to graduate teaching and research in Women's Studies and to advancing interdisciplinary Women's Studies scholarship. Learn more about the GCWS.

This subject examines the paradoxes of contemporary globalization. Through lectures, discussions and student presentations, we will study the cultural, linguistic, social and political impact of globalization across broad international borders.
We will pay attention to the subtle interplay of history, geography, language and cultural norms that gave rise to specific ways of life. The materials for the course include fiction, nonfiction, audio pieces, maps and visual materials.

What is homeland security and why do we need it? What was unique about the 9/11 attacks that prompted the largest reorganization of the Federal government since the end of World War II? What is the difference between homeland security and national security? Why is critical infrastructure protection so critical? Why is emergency management an essential mission area within homeland security? What is the relationship between homeland security and DoD, National Guard, FBI, and State and Local law enforcement? Explore these questions and the events that made homeland security what it is today. Find out why homeland security is an unprecedented historical challenge requiring an unprecedented government response. Review the homeland security mission areas and understand not only what is being done but also why. Discover “who’s who and what do they do” within the Department of Homeland Security and the greater Homeland Security Enterprise. This book provides the most comprehensive overview and most concise resource for understanding homeland security today. Within these pages you will find insight to the most pressing challenges of the 21st century confronting the nation, your community, and you.

This seminar has three purposes. One, it inquires into the causes of military innovation by examining a number of the most outstanding historical cases. Two, it views military innovations through the lens of organization theory to develop generalizations about the innovation process within militaries. Three, it uses the empirical study of military innovations as a way to examine the strength and credibility of hypotheses that organization theorists have generated about innovation in non-military organizations.

The aim of this course is to introduce and analyze the international relations of East Asia. With four great powers, three nuclear weapons states, and two of the world's largest economies, East Asia is one of the most dynamic and consequential regions in world politics. This course will examine the sources of conflict and cooperation in both periods, assessing competing explanations for key events in East Asia's international relations. Readings will be drawn from international relations theory, political science and history.

This is an HTML version of a previous resource, originally in Word format and with supplemental materials: https://oertx.highered.texas.gov/courseware/lesson/871

This course examines Israeli identity using a broad array of materials, including popular music, film, documentaries, and art, in addition to academic historical writings. Topics include Israel's political system and society, ethnic relations, settlement projects, and the Arab minorities in the Jewish state. Students also discuss whether there is a unique Israeli culture and the struggle for Israel's identity.
Preference is given to students in the MISTI MIT-Israel program.

This course is designed for students seeking a fundamental understanding of Japanese history, politics, culture, and the economy. "Raw Fish 101" (as it is often labeled) combines lectures, seminar discussion, small-team case studies, and Web page construction exercises, all designed to shed light on contemporary Japan.

Diverse Perspectives

Short Description:
This book is intended for readers who have never studied the Middle East, or experts who may wish to fill gaps in their knowledge of the region from other disciplines. Whether for establishing or deepening one’s knowledge of the region, these fundamentals are important to know. The languages, cultural, religious and sectarian communities of the region, and selected turning points and influential people in history are starting points for gaining an understanding of the diverse contexts of the region.

Long Description:
This book is intended for readers who have never studied the Middle East, or experts who may wish to fill gaps in their knowledge of the region from other disciplines. Whether for establishing or deepening one’s knowledge of the region, these fundamentals are important to know. The languages, cultural, religious and sectarian communities of the region, and selected turning points and influential people in history are starting points for gaining an understanding of the diverse contexts of the region. It is based on introductory and graduate courses on the contemporary Middle East, which the Center’s director, Dr. Alam Payind, has been teaching for the past 30 years. The book’s co-author, Melinda McClimans, has taught these and other courses with him, as well as her own, for the past 15 years. The material is intended engage with diverse – even conflicting – cultural and historical perspectives, and ways of perceiving both Middle Eastern and world history from perspectives within the region. It is not intended to reinforce a monolithic or matter-of-fact perception of the region. For this and many other reasons, images are an important aspect of the knowledge presented. Each chapter starts with links to its image galleries, along with other visual aids and key elements.

Word Count: 28082

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically as part of a bulk import process by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided. As a result, there may be errors in formatting.)

This course explores the history of the ideal of personal freedom with an eye towards contemporary debates over the pros and cons of the regulatory state. The first part of the course surveys the sociological and theological sources of the concepts of freedom and civil society, and introduces liberty's leading relatives or competitors: property, equality, community, and republicanism. The second part consists of a series of case studies in the rise of modern liberty and libertarianism: the abolition of slavery, the struggle for religious freedom, and the twentieth-century American civil liberties movement. In the last part of the course, we take up debates over the role of libertarianism vs. the regulatory state in a variety of contexts: counter-terrorism, health care, the financial markets, and the Internet.

The Malaysia Sustainable Cities Practicum is an intensive field-based course that brings 15 graduate students to Malaysia to learn about and analyze sustainable city development in five cities in Malaysia. The students in the Practicum will help determine the extent to which these efforts have been successful. They will identify specific projects or policy-making efforts that the following year's cohort of International Visiting Scholars can examine more closely. 
Lead Faculty
Professor Larry Susskind
Teaching Assistants
Jessica Gordon
Yasmin Zaerpoor
Administrative Staff
Takeo Kuwabara
Selmah Goldberg

This course surveys Japanese history from the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603 to the present and explores the local and global nature of modernity in Japan. It highlights key themes, including the emergence of a modern nation-state, the rise and fall of the Japanese Empire, the development of mass consumer culture and the middle class, and the continued importance of historical memory in Japan today.

Short Description:
Written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729, A Modest Proposal—full title A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick—is a satirical essay which mocks the heartless attitudes towards the poor. In order to improve their economic troubles, the essay suggests that the impoverished Irish sell their children as food to rich gentlemen and ladies.

Long Description:
Written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729, A Modest Proposal—full title A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick—is a satirical essay which mocks the heartless attitudes towards the poor. In order to improve their economic troubles, the essay suggests that the impoverished Irish sell their children as food to rich gentlemen and ladies.

Word Count: 4255

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically as part of a bulk import process by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided. As a result, there may be errors in formatting.)

The rise and fall of National Socialism is one of the most intensively-studied topics in European history. Nevertheless, after more than half a century, popular views of Nazism in the media and among the public remain simplistic-essentialized by equal parts fascination and horror. Adolf Hitler, for instance, is often portrayed as an evil genius of supernatural ability; while the Nazi state is similarly imagined to have held absolute power over every aspect of its subjects' lives. Such characterizations allow ordinary Germans to be portrayed as helpless victims of Nazism, ensnared or coerced into submission by forces beyond their control. Another popular characterization is that German culture itself is fundamentally flawed - that all Germans were basically Nazis at heart. This schema conveniently erases the manifestations of fascism in other Western nations, and allows Americans and other Westerners to reassure themselves that the horrors of Nazism could never emerge in their own enlightened national cultures.

This course was designed to educate students about how nuclear weapons came into being, the physics of these weapons, how they are structured, how they have evolved over the past several decades, efforts to control them and limit the threats that they represent, and what the possibilities for the future are. Many people in our country and other countries are not aware of what an existential threat nuclear weapons represent, and this lack of awareness is an important part of the overall threat. 
The course was taught by an MIT Iterdisciplinary team coordinated by Robert P. Redwine, Professor of Physics Emeritus.  The full list of instructors is listed on the course page.

This course will expose students to tools and methods of analysis for use in assessing the challenges and dangers associated with nuclear weapons in international politics. The first two weeks of the course will look at the technology and design of nuclear weapons and their means of production. The next five weeks will look at the role they played in the Cold War, the organizations that managed them, the technologies that were developed to deliver them, and the methods used to analyze nuclear force structures and model nuclear exchanges. The last six weeks of the course will look at theories and cases of nuclear decision making beyond the original five weapon states, and will look particularly at why states pursue or forego nuclear weapons, the role that individuals and institutions play, and the potential for both new sources of proliferation and new consequences.