The Major in Global Studies —
Concentration in Eurasian Studies: New Silk Roads

This concentration focuses on the social, cultural, and economic interconnections among the peoples of Eurasia. We define Eurasia as the vast landmass stretching east to west from China to Europe and north to south from Siberia into the Caucasus, the Crimean Peninsula, Central Asia, and the Himalayas. Ancient trade routes that crisscrossed the interior spaces of Europe and Asia, known collectively as the Silk Road, served as a globalizing thoroughfare for the movement of peoples, cultural practices, religious values, and commodities. Recent infrastructural improvements in these areas — as well as international economic, environmental, and political concerns — have once again opened up transnational economic networks and cross-cultural exchange along these "new silk roads."

For this concentration, students draw from a variety of disciplines to study not only specific geographical regions but also vital intersections and interrelationships among regions and peoples.

General Requirements

One semester of language must be completed before declaring the major.

• Students must complete a minimum of 36 units in Global Studies, including at least three courses focused on a world area.
• Students must complete at least 24 units at the 300 level or above, including courses across a minimum of three academic disciplines.
• Students must complete at least 6 units at the 400 level, no more than 3 of which may be directed research or independent study.
• In addition to the 36 units, students must complete a four-semester sequence of courses in one modern language appropriate to their concentration.

These requirements may be fulfilled only with college-level course work undertaken during a student's undergraduate enrollment. Courses must be taken for a grade, and a student must receive a grade of C+ or higher in all courses.

This concentration requires 36 units of course work:

• 3 units of core course work: GS 3020 Global Futures
• 3 to 6 units of introductory course work (100-200 level)
• 27 to 30 units of advanced Eurasian studies course work (300-400 level) dealing with three different regions (e.g., Eastern, Western, and Central Eurasia) or with a transregional focus
• Students must fulfill the standard Global Studies language requirement with Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Hindi, Persian, Russian or another Eurasian language as determined in consultation with their Global Studies advisor.

Note: A single course may satisfy more than one of the distribution requirements (i.e., disciplinary or regional). Some of these requirements may be completed while abroad.

Advanced courses: Choose 10 or 11 courses from current, relevant, internationally focused course offerings in the following areas of study.* All courses must be approved by the student's Global Studies advisor in order to count for the major. Visit the concentration webpage and concentration course list for the full list of options.

*

Students may submit a request to add a course by following the instructions for the Petition Process.

• Anthropology

Course List

Code	Title	Units
Anthro 3053	Nomadic Strategies and Extreme Ecologies	3
Anthro 3617	Past and Present Cultural Environments	3
Anthro 374	Social Landscapes in Global View	3
Anthro 376	Warriors, Merchants, Monks and Courtesans: Ancient Narratives of Globalization in Google Earth	3
Anthro 3775	Ancient Eurasia and the New Silk Roads	3
Anthro 4033	Culture, Illness and Healing in Asia	3
Anthro 4041	Islam and Politics	3
Anthro 4455	Ethnographic Fieldwork: The Politics of Schooling	3
Anthro 474	National Narratives and Collective Memory	3
Anthro 4761	The Pleistocene Peopling of Eurasia	3
Anthro 4803	Advanced GIS Modeling and Landscape Analysis	3

• Applied Linguistics

Course List

Code	Title	Units
APL 4023	Second-Language Acquisition and Technology	3
APL 4111	Linguistics and Language Learning	3
APL 4692	Reading Across Languages and Cultures: Theory, Research and Practice	3

• Arabic

Course List

Code	Title	Units
Arab 352	Iraqi Literature	3

• Art History

Course List

Code	Title	Units
Art-Arch 3415	Early Chinese Art: From Human Sacrifice to the Silk Road	3
Art-Arch 4924	1968 and its Legacy	3

• Chinese

Course List

Code	Title	Units
Chinese 341	Early and Imperial Chinese Literature	3
Chinese 342	Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature	3

• Classics

Course List

Code	Title	Units
Classics 345C	Greek History: The Dawn of Democracy	3
Classics 346C	Greek History: The Age of Alexander	3

• Comparative Literature

Course List

Code	Title	Units
Comp Lit 394	Worldwide Translation: Language, Culture, Technology	3

• East Asian Languages and Cultures

Course List

Code	Title	Units
EALC 3250	Topics in Early Modern Korea: Guns, Tobacco, and Sweet Potato: A History of Material Culture	3
EALC 340	Writing New Horizons: Explorers, Envoys, and Other Encounters in Korean Travel Narratives	3
EALC 4242	Culture and Politics in the People's Republic of China: New Approaches	3
EALC 4710	Topics in Japanese Culture: Reminiscences of Childhood and Youth	3

• Environmental Studies

Course List

Code	Title	Units
EnSt 380	Applications in GIS	3

• Film and Media Studies

Course List

Code	Title	Units
Film 475	Screening the Holocaust	3
Film 485	Visualizing Orientalism: Art, Cinema and the Imaginary East 1850-2000	3
Film 507	The 007 Saga: James Bond and The Modern Media Franchise	3

• Global Studies

Course List

Code	Title	Units
GS 3006	Global Health and Language	3
GS 3040	International Law and Politics	3
GS 318	Learning to Use GIS in Development, Area Studies and International Affairs	3
GS 3248	Intercultural Communication	3
GS 328B	Gateway to Development	3
GS 3512	"Model Minority": The Asian American Experience	3
GS 3575	U.S. Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice	3
GS 364	Anarchism: History, Theory, and Praxis	3
GS 374	Russian Literature at the Borders: Multiculturalism and Ethnic Conflict	3
GS 3750	Topics in Russian Literature and Culture (WI)	3
GS 376	International Economics	3
GS 3822	From McDonald's to K-pop: New Movements in East Asia	3
GS 384	Migration and Modernity in Russia and the (Former) Soviet Union	3
GS 386	Empire in East Asia: Theory and History (WI)	3
GS 3866	Interrogating "Crime and Punishment"	3
GS 389	Furies and Die-Hards: Women in Rebellion and War	3
GS 396	Comintern: The Communist International's Global Impact	3
GS 4005	Directed Research in Global Studies	3
GS 402	The Meaning of National Security in the 21st Century	3
GS 4036	Children of Immigrants: Identity and Acculturation	3
GS 4246	State Failure, State Success and Development	3
GS 4350	War and Peace	3
GS 4414	Gender Analysis for International Affairs	3
GS 4622	Labor and Labor Movements in Global History	3
GS 4761	Politics of Global Finance	3
GS 4869	Reading War and Peace	3

• Hindi

Course List

Code	Title	Units
Hindi 353	Understanding Indian (Hindi/Urdu) Literature: Through Text and Images (Visual)	3

• History

Course List

Code	Title	Units
History 301T	Historical Methods — Transregional History	3
History 3045	Hot Peace: U.S.-Russia Relations Since the Cold War	3
History 3073	The Global War on Terrorism	3
History 313C	Islamic History: 600-1200	3
History 335C	Becoming "Modern": Emancipation, Antisemitism and Nationalism in Modern Jewish History	3
History 3350	Out of the Shtetl: Jewish Life in Central and Eastern Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries	3
History 3354	Vienna, Prague, Budapest: Politics, Culture and Identity in Central Europe	3
History 3416	War, Genocide and Gender in Modern Europe	3
History 3455	Cultural Encounters: China and Eurasia Since the Middle Ages	3
History 3548	Gender, Sexuality and Communism in 20th-Century Europe	3
History 3559	Socialist and Secular? A Social History of the Soviet Union	3
History 357	All Measures Short of War	3
History 3598	The First World War and the Making of Modern Europe	3
History 3680	The Cold War, 1945-1991	3
History 3681	The U.S. War in Iraq, 2003-2011	3
History 3810	Between Sand and Sea: History, Environment, and Politics in the Arabian Peninsula	3
History 39SC	Imperialism and Sexuality: India, South Asia and the World: Writing-Intensive Seminar	3
History 4154	Decolonization to Globalization: How to End an Empire	3
History 4274	Palestine, Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict	3
History 49SC	Advanced Seminar: Inventing India	3

• Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies

Course List

Code	Title	Units
JIMES 354	Anthropological and Sociological Study of Muslim Societies	3
JIMES 3622	Topics in Islam	3
JIMES 373	Topics in Near Eastern Cultures	3
JIMES 442	Empire and Memory: Approaches to Islamic Historiography (ca. 800-1250)	3
JIMES 445	Topics in Islam	3
JIMES 446	History of Political Thought in the Middle East	3

• Political Science

Course List

Code	Title	Units
Pol Sci 372	Topics in International Politics	3
Pol Sci 393	History of Political Thought III: Liberty, Democracy and Revolution	3

• Psychological and Brain Sciences

Course List

Code	Title	Units
Psych 413	Contemporary Topics in Social Psychology	3

• Religious Studies

Course List

Code	Title	Units
Re St 311	Buddhist Traditions	3
Re St 3392	Topics in South Asian Religions	3

• Russian Language and Literature

Course List

Code	Title	Units
Russ 332	Russian Theater, Drama and Performance: From Swan Lake to Punk Prayer	3
Russ 350C	The 19th-Century Russian Novel (Writing Intensive)	3
Russ 372	Dostoevsky's Novels	3

• Sociology

Course List

Code	Title	Units
SOC 3710	Sociology of Immigration	3

Additional Requirements and Information

Study Abroad

• We strongly encourage students to study abroad. For those who do not study abroad and receive credit toward the Global Studies General Requirements, an additional 3-unit course at the 300 or 400 level is required.
• We strongly prefer students to select a study abroad location and regional specialization consistent with their chosen language of study (e.g., if a student wishes to study in Latin America, they must satisfy their language requirement with either Portuguese or Spanish).
• Students may receive a maximum of 6 credits from a single semester, 12 credits from a year, or 3 credits from a summer term of study abroad.
• Students may apply no more than 12 total credits to the Global Studies major from study abroad, the School of Continuing & Professional Studies, summer school at other U.S. universities, or any combination thereof.
• To receive credit for a summer course completed at another institution, a student should fill out the Approval for Non-WashU Course Credit form with Arts & Sciences to take the course for "general credit" and then petition to have the course count as an elective toward their Global Studies major.

Latin Honors

• Students must confidently expect to graduate with an overall grade-point average of 3.65 or higher to qualify for Latin Honors.
• Students should enroll in GS 485 Preparation for Global Studies Honors Thesis during the fall of senior year and in GS 486 Global Studies Senior Honors Thesis during the spring of senior year (under the corresponding section number of the faculty member overseeing the student's thesis).

Language Requirement

Contact Info