PSCH - Political Science Honors

This course prepares students participating at the Harvard National Model United Nations (HNMUN) for competition through the use of traditional and experiential instructional methods.  The course is offered to Honors students selected to serve as members of The University of Tampa delegation to the HNMUN. Because UT delegations only represent nonwestern counties at the HNMUN, students are further enriched through exposure to different cultures, customs and values.

This course provides a comprehensive survey of Japanese political economy, society, and culture from the end of the Cold War to the present day. Upon completion of the course, students will travel for two weeks to Japan to visit the cities of Tokyo and Kyoto.

Through class readings, films, discussions and a travel component, this course focuses on development as part of an academic discourse and as an underlying assumption behind applied service projects. Students begin by questioning what development is and who defines it, and they explore who benefits from it. They then read about a wide range of development projects and evaluate them for effectiveness. Finally, students and residents of the poor and rural villages of Nabdam, Ghana, put together developmentally oriented service projects and implement them during a trip to Ghana.

The Latin American essay constitutes a unique and rich intellectual tradition that has confronted issues of race and identity, cultural expression and ideological commitment, utopian political projects and revolutionary upheavals with originality and aesthetic flair that is unmatched. This course will follow its development through the 19^th and 20^th centuries as a means of understanding the complexity of contemporary Latin American society and culture, and in doing so will witness from a unique vantage point the evolution and transformation of a region of the world that was the first to liberate itself from European colonialism, and that continues to recreate itself in a struggle to bring forth a unique modern civilization from the remains of conquest, genocide, revolution and globalization.

This travel course will introduce students to the developments, past and present, that define Cuba-U.S. relations. The course will have a strong emphasis on the historical importance of José Martí, Cuba’s most prominent political and literary writer. Students will learn about the conditions that lead to Castro’s revolutionary movement and the deterioration of the relationship between the two countries that culminated with the U.S. embargo. Students will also study how the animosity intensified during the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, and consider how the relationship will evolve when the Castro years come to an end.