Global Public Goods

This course addresses attempts to initiate, coordinate and execute solutions to problems that many understand as being not solely local in origin and implication, but rather connected with other sites, across the world (e.g., cultural destruction, disease and health care, financial crises, ecological destruction, aging and social security challenges, state and non-state actor violence, migration). Framing issues in the language of global interests, the metaphor of “public goods” invites an approach that seeks commonalities with an eye toward action that allow forms of cooperation to be imagined and achieved. Students produce a major paper on one theme written over the semester as part of their course obligations. May be counted toward the major in Conservation Biology and a minor in Public Health. Fulfills the EL requirement.