PERSPECTIVES ON GLOBAL ISSUESANTHROPOLOGY 362WEB SYLLABUS : SUMMER 1999
Course Manager: Gloria Bobbie
Room: Redcay 131
Home phone: 518-563-9722 (no calls after 9PM please)
Primary email: bobbieg@westelcom.com
Alternate email: BOBBIEGJ@splava.cc.plattsburgh.edu
Office hours: by appointment only
Welcome to the distance education section of Perspectives. Distance education is still very new to the university setting, therefore, some of you may never have taken an online course before and are a little nervous about it. I will do everything possible to make it as painless an experience for you as I can. I have been involved with distance education for several years now and the feedback from the students who have participated is quite positive and almost all have said that they would not hesitate to enroll in other distance ed courses.
I have given you two email addresses where I can be reached and communication should be through this method. If you have any problems or questions, please do not hesitate to contact me immediately so that we can work together on them. Do not let yourself fall behind because you are confused or have questions about something, or because something unexpected crops up which may affect your work.
Introduction
"Each day we confront on television, radio, newspapers, and news magazines, stories about global problems: population growth, poverty and huger, environmental degradation, disease, ethnic and religious strife, war, and crime. A premise of the course is that we are not getting the whole story from these sources. This does not necessarily mean that there is a conspiracy to keep us from the truth, but only that our perspectives on global problems are biased by the cultural framework through which the news is reported."
"There are a couple of consequences of the cultural bias in our knowledge of world events. First, they seem far more removed from our lives than they really are. While we may agree that it is a tragedy that people are starving in Brazil, it seems to have little to do with us. More importantly, it seems that there is little we can do about these problems other than contribute to one charity or another or support government aid programs that are intended to alleviate them. Second, because the media is largely ahistorical, it rarely seriously examines the historical roots of the problems it reports on. Consequently, the problems seem rooted in contemporary dynamics only. Finally, because the media tends to view problems as isolated, and not as issues rooted in a global system or network, we fail to appreciate the degree to which the world is integrated."
"Global Perspectives will attempt to demonstrate how world events are rooted in a global system and cannot be fully understood in isolation from this system's economic, political, social, and historical contexts. Furthermore, the course should create an awareness that our lives are affected by and affect these events."
Dr. Richard RobbinsAnthropological Perspectives on Global Issues, Spring 1998
READING MATERIALS
1. Richard H. Robbins, State University of New York at Plattsburgh, Global Problems And The Culture Of Capitalism, Allyn & Bacon Publishers, 1998.
2. Mandatory online readings: articles which are on the WWW will be assigned as mandatory reading. These articles will be listed in the assignment section for each topic. Readings are in the Online Global Problems Reader, edited by Richard H. Robbins and Gloria Bobbie
3. Optional readings: in my own research, I often come across articles which pertain to the work we are doing and which I feel might be helpful. When this happens, I will send an email to you of either the URL where you can find the article or a copy of the article itself if it is not available on the web. The subject line on the email for these articles will be marked "optional reading". It is up to you if you wish to read the articles, and there is no penalty for not doing so.
4. Shared articles and resources: you will each be assigned a country and a corporation to research during the semester. There will be more than one person assigned to each country and corporation. I encourage you to share resources and feel free to discuss your own research with others working on the same assigned areas. Addresses will not be listed on the website. I will email a class list to each enrolled student with the names and email addresses of the other students so that you may work together if you wish.
COURSE COMPONENTS
The course is comprised of several components. You will be assigned a country to represent and to research. When reading the assigned material, think of how it applies to your country. The country assignments may be found in the newspaper project section.
1. Reading component...reading assigned materials as well as materials of your choice to complete the requirements
2. Discussion: discussion of the issues is an important part of the course. Click on the 'discussion' link on the table below for details regarding this part of the course.
3. Corporate project: you will be assigned a corporation to work with for the semester. Click on the 'corporate' link in the table for details of the project.
4. Newspaper project: click on 'newspaper' link in the table for details.
5. Papers: all papers will be written as a reflection of the topic as it pertains to your country. For instance, if you are writing a paper on poverty, you will write about poverty in your country, not poverty in general.
Click on the paper topic in the table for paper guidelines.
COURSE EVALUATION
The coursework is comprised of mandatory assignment and assignments which you select from the list below.
Please read each section carefully. Be aware that late submissions of work will be penalized 1 point.
1. MANDATORY ASSIGNMENTS:
a. eight discussion periods worth up to 10 points each for a total of 80 points. A discussion period is all discussion which takes place during a 'work period'. If two topics are discussed during the workperiod, points will be divided between them. Discussion is grade based on participation and relativity of discussion to topic.
b. eight journal summaries (newspaper and corporate combined on one summary). The newspaper paragraph is worth up to 5 points each summary for a possible total of 40 and the corporate paragraph up to 5 points each summary for a possible total of 40 points. Each combined weekly summary is worth a possible 10 points. Total possible points for all summaries is 80.
c. newspaper project paper..10 points
d. corporate paper...20 points
e. History paper...25 points.
f. Population paper...25 points.
g. Two papers worth 25 points each from the following list...50 points:
1. Hunger paper
2. Environment paper
3. Disease paper
4. Indigenous paper
5. Resistance/protest paper
BONUS
a. MANDATORY introductory exercise assigned during period 1: This mandatory exercise as described in the syllabus is worth 10 bonus points. This bonus will be average into the grade points. This is not a graded exercise and you get 10 points for completion of the exercise.
b. additional papers: if you do not do as well as you expect on a paper or section of the course and wish to bring your grade up, you may do an additional paper from the topic group from which you select other papers.
NOTE: the paper will be worth up to 25 points and will be averaged into your grade point total as another paper.
EVALUATION SUMMARY
There are a total of 300 possible points. Your final grade will be determined by dividing your total accumulated points by 300.
Grade Equivalents
- A = 94-100
- A- = 90-93
- B+ = 86-89
- B = 83-85
- B- = 80-82
- C+ = 76-79
- C = 73-75
- C- = 70-72
- D+ = 66-69
- D = 63-65
- D- = 60-62
- Fail = 59 or below
- Incompletes are given only under special circumstances and rarely.
LINKS TO COURSE ELEMENTS
Select the area of the course which you wish to access by clicking on the link in the table below.
COPYRIGHT: GLORIA BOBBIE__JUNE 1998 |