Course Offerings

GLST 101: Introduction to Global Studies

GLST 101 focuses on contemporary global issues from a multidisciplinary perspective. This course introduces the five main world regions that we cover in the program (Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East) and addresses most of the following themes: international political economy; international organizations; cultural change; nationalism; global environmental issues; religion/religious conflict; global threats; and colonialism/postcolonialism.

GLST 301: Capstone in Global Studies

Beginning fall of 2021, this course number may be used only exceptionally for a course of study that a student contracts with a faculty mentor of their choosing and that is not offered otherwise at Loyola. The contracted course must function as a way for students to draw together their undergraduate studies in a "capstone" fashion and in a way that is relevant to the concerns of the Global Studies Program. Students must arrange this course of study with their chosen faculty mentor. The faculty mentor should send the syllabus to the director of global studies at least one month before the start of the term in which the student plans to undertake their course of study. Students will complete a very substantial research project or paper of approximately 20,000 to 25,000 words (about 40-50 double-spaced pages) that they work on over the course of the entire semester with their faculty mentor.

GLST 302: States and Firms

This course focuses on the relationship between multinational corporations and the state. The first half of the course will explore the origin of firms, as well as issues like corruption, tax policy, bailouts, and economic development, including the role of state-owned enterprises. The second half of the course will examine the use and development of private military contractors and their relationship to state security, war-fighting, and the legal and ethical issues raised by the privatization of war.

GLST 303: Technological Change and Society

This course explores how advances in technology affect society in four broad areas: how we communicate, how we work, how we regulate technological advances and the firms that produce them, and finally how the genetic revolution may be changing humanity itself.  Specific topics covered include the internet and online privacy, social media, workplace automation and the idea of universal basic income, autonomous vehicles and weapons including cyberwarfare, blockchains & cybermoney, antitrust legislation and net neutrality, as well as modern advances in genetics, genomics, and medicine.   

GLST 304: Global Civil Society and Social Movements

This course focuses on global civil society groups (both advocacy groups or apolitical) and on social movements that seek to fight injustices. We will discuss a variety of civil society projects ranging from monitoring government corruption and promoting micro-credit to organizing transnational protest campaigns.

GLST 305: Globalization and Environmental Sustainability

This course introduces students to social, political, and economic factors that have contributed to globalization, development, and their impact on the environment. It provides students with the background and conceptual tools to understand global environmental challenges and questions.

GLST 306: International Development

This course provides an interdisciplinary overview of the international development system and issues related to development in those countries variously referred to as the third world, the Global South, developing, underdeveloped, or peripheral countries. We will look at various social actors involved in the development system, including non-governmental organizations, as well as ordinary people who are subject to and might benefit from development.

GLST 370: Internship in Global Studies

This course offers three or six hours of academic credit. The course may be taken for either 3 or 6 credit hours, but no more than 3 credits can be applied to the global studies major. When the internship is taken for 3 credit hours, students are expected to work 8–10 hours per week in their placements; when it is taken for 6 credit hours, students are expected to work 16–20 hours in their placements.

The internship is open to Loyola students with grade point averages of 2.50 or above. Global Studies interns are placed in a wide variety of agencies, including government offices, non-profit organizations, private businesses, and foreign consulates. Grades are based on a research paper and a written evaluation from a student's host agency. For more information on internship opportunities and the process of applying, please review the Internship home page.

Tagged Courses

Numerous courses across the university are tagged with the Global Studies Program and count as electives in the major and minor in Global Studies. Please consult LOCUS using the interdisciplinary search option in the "Undergraduate CORE/Interdisciplinary" drop-down menu or the semester-specific listing on the Global Studies website to see which electives are being offered in a given semester. 

Many courses tagged with Global Studies are not offered very often, so please check with departments if you want to know when a particular course is going to be offered next. The Global Studies Program does not control the scheduling of tagged courses. For complete course descriptions, please see the listings of the course's home department. 

Global Studies Concentration Clusters

Students majoring or minoring in Global Studies are not required to choose an area of concentration but are encouraged to do so. Students may, for example, focus most of their elective courses on one world region, preferably in alignment with their modern foreign language studies. Alternatively, students may choose to complete a cluster of courses in a designated thematic area. Options are listed below.