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DGC is comprised of two sorts of courses.  DGC 1000H is the core course, required of all students registered in the program.  DGC 1000H will be co-taught by Professor Robert Vipond and Professor Stephen Clarkson this fall 2011.

Please click here to the see the syllabus for DGC1000H for fall 2011.

Dynamics of Global Change Core Course
DGC  1000H F
2011-12
Tuesdays, 2-4:30
University College 177

In most tellings, the idea of globalization entails an account (or claim) of fundamental, even transformative change.  The leitmotif of significant change underscores anxiety about the degradation of the physical environment (e.g. climate change) just as it underpins accounts of the resurgence and global spread of infectious diseases (e.g. SARS).   Technological change has transformed the ways in which ideas, information and images are exchanged and employed.  Global capitalism has changed the ways in which goods are both produced and consumed - shaping, and in turn shaped by, the neo-liberal (or neo-conservative) turn at the level of global economic governance.  The end of the Cold War and the concurrent rise of non-state actors capable of strategic, “game-changing” attacks on powerful nation-states (e.g. 9/11) have led to a profound reassessment of the conventional assumptions that underlie international security studies.   And social, cultural, and political identities now reflect the interaction of global and local contexts, in turn creating a whole new vocabulary of social analysis (e.g. “glocalization”) and whole new modes of inquiry (e.g. diasporic transnationalism).  In one way or another, as Anthony Giddens once put it, “the world we live ‘in’ is different from that of previous ages.”

But what exactly is globalization?  How do various disciplines and intellectual traditions explain global change?  And how do scholars on the ground go about understanding global phenomena in an interdisciplinary way?  These three large and interrelated questions animate this course – the core seminar in the Dynamics of Global Change collaborative PhD program.

The course is divided into three parts of unequal length.  The first section attempts to develop a common vocabulary and theoretical foundation for understanding the diverse forms of globalization.  The second part of the course focuses on a series of case studies of global change that will permit us to examine a variety of theoretical perspectives that may be deployed to illuminate, in context, the dynamics of global change.  The case studies range widely and include climate change, the rise of humanitarianism, the connections between development, health and income, and the challenges of controlling disease in refugee camps in the global south.  The third part of the course follows from the second in focusing on the challenges and benefits of undertaking interdisciplinary research and applying that research in the context of global change.

The course will be co-taught by Professors Stephen Clarkson (Political Science) and Rob Vipond (Director, DGC program), supplemented by a number of guest lecturers.  These include Yu-Ling Cheng (Engineering), Steve Easterbrook (Computer Science), Ryan Hum (Engineering), James Orbinski (Medicine and Munk School), and Janice Stein (Munk School and Political Science), among others.

Students will be required to write a major paper (preceded by an outline), as well as complete a number of short assignments connected to weekly readings.

DGC 1000F serves as the core course in the Dynamics of Global Change (DGC) collaborative PhD program.  Doctoral students who are enrolled in DGC (or who intend to apply) should take the course.  It is, however, open to other interested doctoral students at the University of Toronto, whether or not their home unit is a participant in the program.  With the permission of the instructor(s), it is also open to other U of T graduate students (e.g. MA students).  If you are interested, please contact either the program administrator, Megan Ball (cis.mair@utoronto.ca), or the program’s director, Rob Vipond (rvipond@chass.utoronto.ca).

The Dynamics of Global Change program also offers a cluster of intensive, modular courses on special topics – DGC 2000H, 2001H, 2002H, and 2003H.  Each course is the equivalent of a one-quarter credit, that is .25 FCE, and involves approximately 15 hours of classroom time.  (Assignments vary from instructor to instructor but are calibrated to reflect the .25 credit received.)  Instructors include leading scholars from other universities, as well as scholars from the University of Toronto.  These courses will vary in the time of year they are offered but we will make an effort to make sure they are at times that do not conflict, or conflict minimally with, other academic commitments.

Students enrolled in DGC must complete at least two of these intensive courses in order to complete the DGC program.  Doctoral students not enrolled in DGC will have an opportunity to enroll in these courses if space permits.

 

Past DGC Short Course Instructors:

Daryl Copeland

Mr. Copeland grew up in downtown Toronto, and received his formal education at the University of Western Ontario (Gold Medal, Political science; Chancellor’s Prize, Social Sciences) and the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (Canada Council Special MA Scholarship). He has spent years backpacking on six continents, and enjoys travel, photography, arts and the outdoors. Mr. Copeland serves as a peer reviewer for Canadian Foreign Policy, the International Journal, and The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, and is a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Place Branding and Public Diplomacy.
From 1981 to 2009 Mr. Copeland served as a Canadian diplomat with postings in Thailand, Ethiopia, New Zealand and Malaysia. Among his positions at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) in Ottawa, Mr. Copeland has worked as Deputy Director for International Communications; Director for Southeast Asia; Senior Advisor, Public Diplomacy; Director of Strategic Communications Services; and, Senior Advisor, Strategic Policy and Planning and spent three years as Director at the Canadian Institute of International Affairs.

Prof. Arie Kacowicz

Prof. Arie Kacowicz is an Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He earned both his Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree from Hebrew University and his Ph.D from Princeton University. Prof. Kacowicz's fields of interest include theories of international relations; the normative dimension of international relations (international ethics); international relations of Latin America; peace studies.

Dr. James Orbinski

James Orbinski practices clinical medicine and is a research scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital, and he is cross-appointed to Medicine and Political Science at the University of Toronto. Dr. Orbinski caught the public’s imagination when, as President of Médicins sans frontières (MSF), he accepted the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the organization for its pioneering approach to medical humanitarianism. His work with MSF involved extensive field experience in Somalia, Afghanistan, Rwanda, and Zaire; as the international president from 1998 to 2001, he launched the organization’s Access to Essential Medicines Campaign to improve access to existing medical tools (medicines, diagnostics, vaccines) and to stimulate the development of better tools for people in countries where MSF works, a particular concern in poor developing countries. After his presidency was up, he stayed on with MSF to chair, from 2001 to 2004, its Drugs for Neglected Diseases Working Group, which helped to create, in 2003, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDI), a global not-for-profit drug development initiative that develops drugs and other health technologies. He is a founder and board chair of Dignitas International, an NGO designed to provide and research community-based care, prevention, and treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS in the developing world.

Prof. Andrea Paras

Andrea Paras received her PhD in International Relations from the University of Toronto, and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies in the Munk School of Global Affairs. Entitled A Genealogy of Humanitarianism: Moral Obligation and Sovereignty in International Relations, her dissertation traced the parallel histories of moral obligation and sovereignty from the 16th century to the present.  Her current research is on religious humanitarian movements.

Prof. Bettina von Lieres

Bettina von Lieres is the Lead Researcher at the Development Research Centre for Citizenship, Participation and Accountability, Institute for Development Studies at Sussex University in the UK.