CL1099 Modern to Contemporary in the Arab World
David Tresilian, [email protected], American University of Paris
This course examines the modern and contemporary Arab world through its literature, including fiction and autobiography, travel writing, films, and some poetry. It takes a thematic approach, touching on issues such as identity, citizenship and social and political participation, relations with the outside world, including diaspora and emigration, education, lifestyles and living spaces, the family, and relations between men and women. Materials relating to contemporary political and social change are explored in the context of multiculturalism and globalization, among them political transition, minority rights, sexuality, civil society, and religion. [Expected enrollment: 18]

AMES 291: Introduction to Southeast Asia
Royce Novak, [email protected], Kenyon College
This course introduces students to Southeast Asia, a dynamic region home to 11 contemporary countries (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar/Burma, the Philippines, Thailand, Timor Leste, Singapore, and Vietnam). Southeast Asia is a region of incredible cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity and has long been a crossroads of global trade and cultural exchange. Its history has seen the rise and fall of powerful empires, colonization and revolution, and more recently, rapid economic growth accompanied by the sharp impacts of global climate change. This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to understand the region through history, culture, geography, politics, culture, religion, and literature. The course will zoom in on individual countries while placing them within a wider regional framework. By the end of the course, students will understand some of the major forces that have shaped – and continue to shape – Southeast Asian societies while developing an ability to interpret and appreciate Southeast Asian culture in context. [Expected enrollment: 20]

CN4532 Communication Research Methods
Katerina Diamantaki, [email protected], The American College of Greece
An overview of the principles, methods, and tools essential for designing, conducting, and critically evaluating communication research. The course emphasizes both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, guiding students to become proficient and critical consumers and producers of research. Students will undertake a step-by-step research project, broken down into manageable components to enhance learning and practical application.
The course’s learning outcomes:
1. Critically evaluate theoretical frameworks to understand how they inform the selection and application of research methods in communication studies
2. Analyze and synthesize existing research to develop a coherent literature review that informs the development of research questions.
3. Compare major qualitative and quantitative research methods and justify the selection of appropriate methods for addressing specific research questions.
4. Design ethical communication research projects, adhering to professional and ethical guidelines throughout the research process.
[Expected enrollment: 20]

HIS 151: Asian Heritage
Niyati Shenoy, [email protected], Washington & Jefferson College
An introduction to the history of modern Asia from 1800 onwards—featuring India, China, Japan, Turkey, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Iran—through the historical genres of biography and life-writing. By examining the lives of several Asians of varying fame (including Ho Chi Minh, Mahatma Gandhi, Sun Yat Sen, and even Hayao Miyazaki) we will explore themes such as colonization and imperialism, modernization efforts undertaken to meet the challenges posed by the West, family relations, travel, food, literature, and contemporary popular culture. Emphasis will be on the middle of the nineteenth century to the present. No prior knowledge of Asia is expected. [Expected enrollment: 25]

PLSC 101: Introduction to Political Science (3 credits)
Shehzadi Zamurrad Awan, [email protected], Forman Christian College (A Chartered University)
This course serves as an introductory-level study of politics and power, offering students an examination of both domestic and international perspectives, as well as a comparative analysis. Its primary objective is to foster an understanding of political ideas, ideologies, institutions, policies, processes, and behavior. Additionally, it explores various subjects such as groups, classes, government, diplomacy, law, strategy, and war. A key focus of this course lies in examining the branches of government, specifically the legislature, executive, and judiciary. By undertaking a detailed analysis of parliamentary and presidential systems, including the characteristics of unicameral and bicameral legislatures, students gain insight into diverse political systems across the globe. Furthermore, this course emphasizes a systematic study of governance by applying empirical and generally scientific analysis methods. While traditionally defined and studied, this course primarily examines the state and its organs and institutions. However, within the contemporary discipline, its scope extends considerably beyond this narrow focus, encompassing studies of societal, cultural, and psychological factors that mutually influence the functioning of government and body politics. [Expected enrollment: 20-25]

SOCL 100 Introduction to Sociology
Shamaila Athar, [email protected], Forman Christian College
This is a course that aims to introduce students to origins of the discipline of Sociology and provide them with a sociological perspective on a range of issues. The theoretical texts introduce students to origins, basic premises, and key concerns of the discipline. These cover the major sociological thinkers and schools of thought. This course will outline major sociological themes and issues, looking both at issues related to stratification as well as approaches to understanding social processes. Theories discussed initially in course will continue to inform the discussion of specific themes and issues in the later parts of the course. [Expected enrollment: 25]

SOCL 170 Environmental Sociology
Athar Azeem, [email protected], Forman Christian College
This course introduces environmental sociology by examining the dynamic relationship between society and the natural environment. It explores how environmental issues are deeply rooted in social structures, economic systems, cultural values, and human behavior. Students are introduced to key sociological perspectives, concepts, and theories to understand environmental attitudes, resource use, and ecological degradation. The course highlights themes such as biodiversity, water, food systems, development, gender, and environmental movements, emphasizing sustainability and social responsibility. By adopting an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, students develop critical thinking skills to analyze socio-environmental problems and consider sociological strategies for improving community engagement and environmental governance. [Expected enrollment: 25]

OSCM 302 Operations Management
Islam El-Nakib, [email protected], College of Business, Effat University
This course introduces the fundamental principles and analytical tools essential for designing, managing, and improving efficient processes that produce and deliver goods and services in manufacturing, service, retail, healthcare, and public sector organizations. Students explore key concepts including productivity measurement and improvement, operations strategy formulation, process and capacity management, inventory control models such as the Economic Order Quantity (EOQ), facility location and layout strategies, line balancing, lean operations, aggregate planning, material requirements planning (MRP) with ERP integration, Through practical case studies and quantitative tools, the course emphasizes aligning operations with finance, marketing, and supply chain functions while addressing modern challenges like sustainability, globalization, digital transformation, and risk management. By the end, students gain the ability to optimize operational performance, reduce costs, enhance quality, and drive competitive advantage in diverse business environments. [Expected enrollment: 25]

CORE 2096 Selling Culture: Branding Identities and Traditions
Yousra Bakr, [email protected], The American University in Cairo
“Selling Culture: Branding Identities and Traditions” examines the intersections of culture, marketing, commerce, technology, and power, exploring how cultural artifacts, traditions, and identities are packaged, marketed, and sold in global markets. We will analyze historical and contemporary examples of cultural commodification across industries such as fashion, tourism, entertainment, food, and digital media. Through case studies ranging from nation branding campaigns like “Cool Japan” to the commercialization of street food and indigenous fashion, students will critically engage with the economic structures, ethical debates, and power dynamics that shape cultural markets. [Expected enrollment: 20]

HSP-3020E – Tourism, community & Development
David Chacon, [email protected], Universidad San Francisco de Quito
Nowadays, tourists seek unique experiences where they can learn and engage locally. During this course, you will explore the origins of community-based tourism, different theories to analyse its impacts, globally and locally. You will further explore guidelines to create unique experiences and identify possible risks for tourists and operators. By exploring concepts of globalization and development we will further understand the flows of ideas, knowledge and culture in tourism. [Expected enrollment: 15-16]

MKT4304: Marketing research
Sara Dassouli, [email protected], Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane
This course focuses on the use of marketing research as an aid to making marketing decisions. Specifically, the course addresses how the information used to make marketing decisions is gathered and analyzed. Topics include the marketing research process, research design, research methodologies, data collection, data analysis and data interpretation. It also includes initiation to Basic and Advanced Quantitative Data Analyses by means of different softwares. [Expected enrollment: 20]

BUAD 334: Consumer Behavior
Jackie Yates, [email protected], Saint Mary’s College
Basic study of consumer, business and non-profit organization buyers. Emphasis on cultural, social, psychological, and demographic influences on the buying decision process. [Expected enrollment: 20]

COM 2301 Digital Media in the Age of AI
Abderrahim Agnaou, [email protected], Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane
This course provides a thorough exploration of the evolving landscape of digital media literacy, with a particular focus on the ethical challenges brought about by advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI). Students will examine the intersection of technology, media, and ethics through focused readings and hands-on activities. The course covers a wide range of topics, including misinformation, privacy, digital citizenship, synthetic media, and the growing concerns around algorithmic bias, AdSense, identity theft, deepfakes, and media manipulation. A special focus will be placed on the role of AI in content creation and dissemination, which raises complex legal and ethical questions around accountability, consent, and the boundaries of free speech. Students will explore the dangers posed by these technologies, including their impact on public trust and the far-reaching implications for journalism, law enforcement, and other fields that rely on visual evidence. The course will also analyze the role of AI in shaping political discourse and its potential influence on elections, considering how digital media technologies may distort or amplify certain messages. By the end of the course, students will be equipped with the tools and knowledge to navigate the ethical dimensions of digital media and contribute meaningfully to discussions on AI’s role in shaping the future of communication. [Expected enrollment: 20]

ENGL 250 Creative Writing
Mussarat Shahid, [email protected], Forman Chrisitan College University
Eastern Folklore and Creative Writing: This course module introduces students to Eastern folklore as a living narrative resource for creative writing and ethical exploration. Centered on the epic tradition of the Hamzanama and the trickster figure Umro Ayyar, the course examines how supernatural storytelling engages enduring human concerns such as justice, morality, gender roles, filial obligation, transformation, and the afterlife. The Hamzanama presents enchanted worlds shaped by jinn, sorcery, disguise, and moral trials, where justice is pursued through courage, loyalty, and intelligence rather than institutional authority. Umro Ayyar’s reliance on wit, deception, and performance offers students an alternative model of heroism and ethical ambiguity, particularly useful for character construction and plot development. Supporting texts include short wisdom and trickster narratives associated with Mullah Nasruddin and Behlol, whose humor and paradox critique power and moral rigidity. Storytelling as survival and ethical intervention is explored through Scheherazade in One Thousand and One Nights, foregrounding narrative voice, framing, and suspense. Through retellings, rewritings, and original compositions, students will use Eastern folklore as a creative toolkit for ethically engaged, imaginative storytelling. [Expected enrollment: 25]

JMC 2020 Digital Storytelling
Darina Sarelska, [email protected], American University in Bulgaria
Digital Storytelling is an undergraduate course exploring narrative building across digital formats, including text, audio, and video, with an emphasis on ethical storytelling and audience engagement. The course seeks a Global Course Connection partner for a 5 week module (ideally weeks 5–10) embedded in the second course project. It typically focuses on interview-based audio storytelling. Students will interview peers from a partner course about any Gen-Z-relevant social issues of their choosing- featuring local perspectives and lived experiences across cultures, using these exchanges to produce narrative audio stories. Ideal partner courses include public speaking, creative writing, oral history, self-expression, cultural or identity studies, media or media literacy, service-learning, civic engagement, and language-and-society courses. Exchanges are primarily asynchronous and guided by clear protocols and reflection prompts. [Expected enrollment: 20-22 ]

CORE 1130 – The Human Spirit: Being the Change
Heba Fathelbab, [email protected], The American University in Cairo
Students in this course will learn about change and transitions that take place in personal, cognitive and social contexts as individuals move from adolescence to adulthood, and reflect on the implications of these transitions on their thinking and identity. They will discuss various cultural beliefs and environmental features, and how these may impact identity and emerging self-concept. Students will examine these issues from a multidisciplinary perspective, engaging in experiential learning activities, readings and media drawn from psychology, education, sociology and cultural studies. They will come away with a deeper understanding of recognizing transitions and how they influence behavior and thinking, and how to position themselves to see opportunity in life changes. [Expected enrollment: 18-20]

JPNS 216: Introduction to Manga and Graphic Narrative
Tiffany Hong, [email protected], Earlham College
Students will be introduced to sequential art and graphic narrative through a selection of Japanese manga and Western comics and graphic novels. We will examine the historical conditions and precursors for these texts, while learning the particular vocabulary and methodologies necessary to understand, categorize, and analyze multimodal media. Throughout the course, we will touch on definitions of genre; high-low culture; censorship; relationships to other media; and representations of violence and sexuality. We will also focus on the place of ‘non-traditional’ creators and fans; the objectification of the body considered native to the superhero genre; heteronormativity; representation and responsibility; and the politics of the gaze. [Expected enrollment: 10 to 20]

JPNS 342: Japanese Cinema
Tiffany Hong, [email protected], Earlham College
We will screen and discuss a selection of Japanese films from 1949 to 2013, examining these films within a national (studios, trends, social and artistic movements) and global context (reception, awards, influence, collaborations, box office gross). We will also read scholarly criticism that addresses issues of gender, post-humanism, political allegory, and eco-criticism. Students will be encouraged to critique cinema – dismantling problematic categorizations of high- and low-brow while being informed of genre markers – in an informed, technical manner that takes account of sociohistorical and economic conditions, while questioning their own positionality as international consumers of Japanese cinema. [Expected enrollment: 15-20]

BWS 310: Black Feminisms: Revolutionary Rhymes: Hip Hop, Gender, and Social Change
Dawn Chisebe, [email protected], Ohio Wesleyan University
Examines hip hop as a powerful site of Black feminist theory, cultural critique, and political resistance. Centering the voices of Black women, femmes, and gender-expansive artists, the course explores how rap, spoken word, and performance engage questions of gender, sexuality, race, class, and power. Students analyze hip hop’s role in shaping social movements and envisioning liberation, understanding revolutionary rhymes as tools for storytelling, survival, and social change. [Expected enrollment: 15]

DANC227 Choreography I
Balinda Craig-Quijada, [email protected], Kenyon College
The Choreographer I is a dance composition course chiefly focused on generating a personal movement vocabulary that guides the choreographic process. Students create solo movement studies that investigate dynamics and weight, along with movement studies that use music, or the environment, or text as a source for dance-making. Students learn to generate movement through improvisation and how best to develop this material through the use of compositional devices, use of spatial design, and group work. [Expected enrollment: 5 to 7]

ENGL175 Critical Thinking and Reading
Saud Hanif, [email protected], Forman Christian College (A Chartered University)
This foundational course serves as an introduction to a wide range of methods for literary, critical and textual reading. This course aims to provide the students with a set of interpretive tools which they can use to analyse, evaluate and question written and visual texts in English classes and beyond. The students will also learn to critique the digitised and adapted versions of the texts in order to explore their contribution to digital preservation of knowledge. This course has a special emphasis on developing close reading and critical analysis of the texts through close reading. Eventually, this ability to read critically will help them analyse cultural beliefs and norms that prevail as well as influence their identity and society. In the end, this course requires students to submit argumentative papers featuring their analysis of any written or visual text. [Expected enrollment: 25-30]

AMES 101 First Year Seminar: Introduction to Asian and Middle East Studies
Phoebe Carter, [email protected], Kenyon College
This course is designed to introduce students to the study of Asia and the Middle East within the context of the global humanities. It serves as a sampler, which exposes students to the rich diversity of Asian and Islamicate humanities. The seminar explores a wide range of primary sources from different places and historical periods. These may include such diverse materials as the memoirs of the medieval Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta, “The Analects of Confucius,” readings from the “Vedas” and “Upanishads,” Farid ud din Attar’s “The Conference of the Birds,” Kurosawa’s “Rashomon,” Rabindranath Tagore’s “The Home and The World,” short fiction from the modern Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani and examples of contemporary Chinese science fiction. [Expected enrollment: 12]

BMS 4530 Bioinformatics and Health Information Systems
Leonardos Mageiros, [email protected], The American College of Greece
The course provides an overview of Information Technology related to health and biomedical sciences. It covers the basics of computer science and its applications in genomics, transcriptomics, gene expression studies, structural bioinformatics, machine learning and artificial intelligence. [Expected enrollment: 20]

EVS 260 Diffusion of Environmental Innovations
Robert East, [email protected], Washington & Jefferson College
This course introduces students to the role of being a professional “change agent” when introducing innovations primarily within foreign cultures. The emphasis is on environmental ideas, perceptions, and technologies as well as the attendant social and ecological consequences. Through a mixture of lectures, discussions, student presentations, and individual research work, students will understand the processes by which innovations are adopted and diffused. Messaging and appropriate use of various media outlets is also explored. In order to anticipate and predict the consequences of planned change, students engage with introductory-level applications of Participatory Rural Appraisal and Logical Framework Analyses in the design, implementation, and monitoring of rural development projects. [Expected enrollment: 12]

Math 128: History of Mathematics in the Islamic World
Noah Aydin, [email protected], Kenyon College
This course examines an important and interesting part of the history of mathematics, and more generally, the intellectual history of human kind: history of mathematics in the Islamic world. Some of the most fundamental notions in modern mathematics have their roots in this part of the history such as the modern number system, the fields of algebra and trigonometry, the concept of algorithm, foundations of optics, and the scientific method. These contributions are generally not known, not only in the west but in the Islamic World either. Moreover, there are commonly held misconceptions about the subject. In addition to studying specific contributions of medieval Islamic scholars in the areas of arithmetic, algebra, geometry and trigonometry in some details, we will also examine the context in which the Islamic science and mathematics flourished, and the role of religion this development. We will discuss the reasons behind the lack of awareness in the subject. We will examine the evidence from recent research that challenges and refutes many of the commonly held misconceptions (the Classical Narrative). The rise of Islamic science and its interactions with other cultures (e.g. Greek, Indian, and European Renaissance) tells us much about the larger issues of humanities. Thus, this course has both a substantial mathematical component (~60-65 %) and a significant history and social science component (~35-40%), bringing together three disciplines: Mathematics, History and Religion. [Expected enrollment: 16]

GD 2002 Research Concept Design
Marina Emmanouil, [email protected], The American College of Greece
This course aims to familiarize students with the design thinking methodology for creating evidence-based design. It will teach them how to read a brief, define the problem/challenge, and research a subject. It will also train them in using idea-invention techniques in order to create viable solutions and concepts that can be applied to Graphic Design or other design and communication projects. [Expected enrollment: 15]

GD 4747 Branding Ecosystems
Melina Constantinides, [email protected], The American College of Greece
This course aims to show students how to apply conceptual thinking and design skills to the creation of identity and branding solutions that effectively communicate the essence and philosophy of a company, organization, or product. The course examines how people perceive and experience brands. Students analyze the key stages of brand creation, including research, strategy, design, and implementation. An integrated approach to branding is emphasized, covering its applications across visual identity systems and physical packaging. [Expected enrollment: 10]

EDUC 120 – Educational Psychology
Ammar Husnain Khan, [email protected], Forman Christian College
This course introduces students to the foundations of Educational Psychology, focusing on how research in child development, cognition, learning, motivation, and assessment informs effective teaching practices. It integrates theory with classroom application, enabling students to understand learners’ cognitive, social, and emotional development and to apply behavioral, cognitive, and constructivist perspectives in real educational settings. The course emphasizes instructional strategies, classroom management, assessment, and reflective practice to help students address everyday teaching challenges and create productive, inclusive learning environments. [Expected enrollment: 20]