PSCI441 Latin American Politics in Film & Fiction
Nancy Powers, [email protected], Kenyon College
This course considers key political events and issues in modern Latin America through the lens of film and the pages of fiction. Works from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela are included to engage themes of democracy, colonialism, dictatorship, truth and justice for survivors of dictatorship, collective memory, and social inequalities, among other topics. We make some use of documentary films, but the course focuses on works of fiction. [Expected enrollment: 16]

PSCI 355 Immigration, National Identity & Citizenship
Nancy Powers, [email protected], Kenyon College
States increasingly control human mobility, even as globalization processes encourage mobility. These dynamics pose challenges related to state sovereignty, human rights, national identity, the qualifications for citizenship, and the rights of non-citizens. This course considers normative questions about justice, popular sovereignty, and human rights and empirical questions about comparative politics and policy; U.S. politics and immigration policy; and international law and practices on asylum. As previously taught, approximately half of the course has dealt with immigration to the United States and the other half with comparative and international policies and controversies. [Expected enrollment: 18]

CAST 210 Sanctuary and Solidarity
Gina Perez, [email protected], Oberlin College
What is the meaning of sanctuary? What are the connections between today’s sanctuary movements and those of the past? And what are some examples of solidarity struggles historically and today? These are some of the guiding questions for this course which locates today’s sanctuary movements within broader solidarity struggles and social movements, with particular attention to the experiences of migrants. This course examines uses the US as the point of departure, but takes a global and transnational framework to explore a range of solidarity struggles across space and time. [Expected enrollment: 15-20]

Econ 3071: Labor Economics
Dina Abdel Fattah, [email protected], The American University in Cairo
The course offers a general introduction to modern theoretical and empirical labor economics. Topics to be covered include operations of labor markets; labor supply and labor force participation decisions; human capital investment; firm, industry, and public sector labor demand; unemployment; wage determination; race and gender employment and wage discrimination. The empirical discussions in the course will apply many of the above topics to recent local (Egyptian) and regional (MENA-Middle East North Africa) labor market developments. [Expected enrollment: 30]

ENTP406 – Launching Entrepreneurial Ventures
Muhammad Khan, [email protected], Effat University
This course analyses in detail the significant steps and essential procedures adopted by successful entrepreneurs when launching their own business. It discusses and helps the students build business plans. Course discusses organizational setups, governance and the legal nature of business, consultative and counseling bodies, business and product legal obligations, intellectual property rights protection, sources of credit, establishing credit, seeking investors and business-enterprise capital, writing and circulating the Venture Profile, making and protecting financial forecasts, revenue flows and expense grouping, cost and price estimates, pro-forma financial statements, negotiating contracts, permits, systems of assessment, and exit strategies. [Expected enrollment: 10-15]

CS2179 Business Information Systems
Kostas Leftheriotis, [email protected], Deree – The American College of Greece
The purpose of this course is to provide knowledge on the integration of information systems and technology into enterprise business activities. The course explains how individuals, workgroups, and organizations make use of information and communications technologies as a foundation for competitive advantage and business success. The course touches upon the following areas, Competitive Advantage, Business Processes, Decision Support, Business Intelligence, CRM, SCM and ERP. As a result of taking this course, the student should be able to:

1. Demonstrate understanding of business information systems and of the MIS function.
2. Describe the role of IS and IT in decision making and business operations.
3. Apply data analysis methods and related information technologies to solve business problems. [Expected enrollment: 20]

ENGR 4990 – Entrepreneurial Development and Innovation
Ahmad E Shahin, [email protected], The American University in Cairo
This course introduces entrepreneurship to engineering students and develops a much needed perception of being an “entrepreneur” in their minds. Students analyze the concepts, elements, processes, and behaviors associated with successful entrepreneurship, and develop an insight into how to evaluate and launch ventures and enterprises in any sector, especially in engineering. The course is structured around lectures, interactive sessions, guest speakers, and case study analyses. The skills of critical and creative thinking, communication, presentation, analysis, synthesis, and persuasion are emphasized. [Expected enrollment: 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. We will of necessity examine fundamental differences in demographic, languages (visual/auditory/tactile), and layout within the Japanese and Western contexts. [Expected enrollment: 15]

ARTS 363: Other Shores, Other Lands: Islamic Culture in Premodern Travel Accounts
Riyaz Latif, [email protected], FLAME University
Centering on travel accounts produced by premodern Arab and Persian travelers in order to appreciate the composite fabric of premodern Islamicate cultures, this course seeks to study the impetuses behind individuals traveling and writing about it, which included a quest for knowledge, pilgrimage, and trade. This resulted in a cross-pollination of ideas and objects, and also a creation of cultural stereotypes. Delving into ajaib (wonder) literature, biographies, and ethnographies thus, the course attempts to analyze the ways in which these travelers’ experiences were constructed and preserved, thus aiming to foreground the processes of the premodern Islamicate world at the nodes of the literary, the cultural and the visual. [Expected enrollment: 10]

THEA 329: Dramaturgy & Theater Criticism
Kari Barclay, [email protected], Oberlin College
This seminar course asks how we research and write about theater for various audiences. We’ll study two methods: 1) Dramaturgy–the study of dramatic structure and cultural context to help production teams build compelling productions and 2) Theater criticism–writing about theater for academic and non-academic audiences to further cultural dialogue. Writing about theater matters! We’ll talk about why and gain lenses from theater history, theory, and scholarship for writing about performance. Over the semester, each student will prepare their own dramaturgical packet for a production and write reviews of contemporary performances. [Expected enrollment: 16]

Ling 370: Language, Culture & Identity
Ambreen Javed, [email protected], Forman Christian College
The course aims at developing an understanding of how identity is related to and shaped by language and culture. The course also seeks to conceptualize views of language, literacy and cultural practices in different contexts. Some topics that will be discussed include: types of identity (religious, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and national), the issue of identity in multicultural societies, identity crisis, language attitudes, ethnic conflicts, linguistic conflicts, linguistic inequality, linguistic imposition, cross-cultural communication and culture shock. [Expected enrollment: 15-20]

ENGL 250 Creative Writing
Mussarat Shahid, [email protected], Forman Christian College
The ENGL 250 Creative Writing course begins with the premise that personal narratives can be effective mediums that echo what we see, hear, and experience and help construct our own unique identities. Where these stories allow us to communicate who we are to other people, they act as mirrors into our souls unveiling past events or series of events that have helped shaped our identities. However, just like one cannot make Pinocchio into a real boy by adding more strings, one cannot breathe life into words unless they stem from meaningful real-life experiences. Students attending this course will learn how a curated selection of rich and relevant experiences can infuse life into mere words just like Geppetto’s wooden doll, who came alive with love and care. This non-fiction segment of the course will culminate in memoir writing. Students will be introduced to memoirs written by varied authors from different cultures and encouraged to identify areas they find interesting and discuss their takeaways from each text they read. They will subsequently be guided in selecting nuggets from their own personal experiences and engaging in peer assessment and providing constructive feedback. This exercise of identifying elements of personal stories to locating a past event and being able to turn it into a gripping narrative is likely to enhance students’ understanding of memoir writing, but more importantly, it is hoped that this introspective process will help open a window of empathy and a deeper appreciation of what makes us human. [Expected enrollment: 20]

Writing and Communication 101
Farheen Saeed, [email protected], Forman Christian College
The first course in the Writing and Communication Program asks students to choose and work through a current controversy in Pakistan or the world. Along the way, students will learn the basics of academic writing, from constructing an argument to fashioning a paragraph to analyzing opposing arguments in a short essay. Students will also learn how to listen for main ideas, what makes up a good speech, and how to present their papers. [Expected enrollment: 25]

LING 2220 – Language and Society
Ayatallah Mohamed Amin , [email protected], The American University in Cairo
This course deals with the relation between language and society. It tackles issues pertaining to the relation between our gender and the way we talk, and how our social background affects the way we speak and judge others’ way of speaking. The following questions will be covered in the course: What is a linguistic community? How does language reflect our identity? Is our gender reflected through language or constructed through language? Is there a relation between Language and race? Language and social class? Language and education? Language and media? [Expected enrollment: 30]

FYS 101: First Year Seminar on the Meaning of Life
Elizabeth Schiltz, [email protected], College of Wooster
Viktor Frankl calls our concern about the meaning of life “the truest expression of the state of being human.” In this writing-intensive seminar, we will critically analyze the question, “What is the meaning of life?” Why do we ask this question? What would it even mean for life to be meaningful? How should we think about the meaningfulness of our own self-development, belief systems, relationships, work commitments, social engagements, and/or aesthetic experiences? This class includes an experiential component, as well as careful analysis of films, music, and texts such as Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles, the Bhagavad Gita, the Daodejing, and Sartre’s No Exit. [Expected enrollment: 15]

CHEM 2001 Egypt Water Crisis: Challenges and Solutions
Mayyada El-Sayed, [email protected], AUC
This core course tackles the water challenges in Egypt and globally, and it focuses on several water-related issues such as pollution, quality, management, sustainability, health, safety, protection, policies, and ethics. The students are engaged in several community-based and experiential learning activities such as hands-on laboratory work, group presentations and flyers, surveys, and water awareness campaigns to young children. [Expected enrollment: 30]

DSC 2301 Principles of Data Science with Python, R and SQL
Nouhoun KANE, [email protected], International University of Grand-Bassam (Ivory Coast)
This module will introduce students to the principles of Data Science that underpin key tools and techniques used both to describe and to gain insights into the properties of often large and complex datasets. The approach taken in the module will combine the development of mathematical theory with case studies taken from real-world application domains. The case studies will also highlight the use of modern software packages including R, Python and SQL for both statistical computation as well as the graphical visualization of statistical properties and results. [Expected enrollment: 10]

SCI1008 Discovering a small world: an introduction to nanotechnology
Amr Tayel, [email protected], The American University in Cairo
How rapid the technological discoveries are improving? How to make a self-cleaning fabric? Why sun block preparations contain titanium dioxide nanoparticles? What is the rule of nanotechnology in our everyday life? Through discussions on the scientific principles, this course will explore how nanotechnology is integrated in our life in technological, medical, environmental and societal related applications. Related science-fiction novels and movies will be used to illustrate the potential applications of nanotechnology in different fields using blended learning approach. [Expected enrollment: 25]