Academics: Featured Courses
Introduction to Global Affairs and Integral Human Development
GLAF 10001
Instructors: Mahan Mirza & Rose Luminiello
3 credits
This course provides an overview of the broad and loosely related field(s) of study and expertise typically clustered under the term "global affairs" and explores Notre Dame's particular approach to global issues, namely "integral human development" (IHD). IHD is a conceptual and normative framework for understanding, practicing, and evaluating efforts to reduce poverty, build peace, protect human rights, and address crises caused by food shortages, natural disasters, environmental degradation, and exploitative government or corporate practices and policies. This course examines the provenance, meanings, and resonances of integral human development and comparable concepts in multiple religious as well as secular traditions.
Catholicism and the Struggle for Human Dignity: A Global Survey
GLAF 30608
Instructor: Scott Appleby
3 credits
A total of approximately 1.4 billion Catholics are found in virtually every country in the world. Since the 1960s their global religious community, the Roman Catholic Church, has embraced the mission of advancing integral human development as a comprehensive approach to Catholicism's commitment to upholding the God-given dignity of every person, regardless of race, religion, creed or any other marker of identity. What difference do Catholics make in a world beset by growing inequality, human rights violations, poverty, war, and the environmental and refugee crises? Focusing on the United States, Brazil, the Philippines, Uganda and Italy, this course examines the impact of Catholics and the Church in these countries, with an emphasis on the modern history and contemporary social, political, cultural and interreligious dynamics of each. Students will be expected to master the comparative narratives of regions and countries where Catholics might be expected to make a difference, and to focus on one country in depth.
Religion: The History of an Idea and Its Global Significance
GLAF 30168
Instructor: Scott Appleby
3 credits
Through reading of common texts, discussion and multimedia presentations this course traces the evolution of religion as an idea that both mirrors and attempts to shape modern sensibilities, beliefs, and ways of being in the world. Along the way we explore and interpret the power of religion to inspire seemingly contradictory behaviors: warmaking and peacebuilding, ethnic chauvinism and civic pluralism, shaming and healing. Finally, we ask: Is religion's role in global affairs fated to be morally ambivalent?