Global Studies Major, Eurasian Studies Concentration

Program Requirements

  • Total units required: 36

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."

Concentration Objectives

For the Eurasian Studies 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
  • 6 units of introductory course work (100-200 level)
  • 27 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.
  • The study abroad location must be in a country relevant to this concentration area. Otherwise, the student will not meet the study abroad requirement and will need to complete an additional 300- or 400-level course on campus.

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

Students choose nine 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
Anthro 3053Nomadic Strategies and Extreme Ecologies3
Anthro 3617Past and Present Cultural Environments3
Anthro 374Social Landscapes in Global View3
Anthro 376Warriors, Merchants, Monks, and Courtesans: Ancient Narratives of Globalization in Google Earth3
Anthro 3775Ancient Eurasia and the New Silk Roads3
Anthro 4033Culture, Illness, and Healing in Asia3
Anthro 4041Islam and Politics3
Anthro 4455Ethnographic Fieldwork: The Politics of Schooling3
Anthro 4761The Pleistocene Peopling of Eurasia3
Anthro 4803Advanced GIS Modeling and Landscape Analysis3
  • Applied Linguistics
APL 4023Second-Language Acquisition and Technology3
APL 4111Linguistics and Language Learning3
APL 4692Reading Across Languages and Cultures: Theory, Research and Practice3
  • Arabic
Arab 352Iraqi Literature3
  • Art History
Art-Arch 3415Early Chinese Art: From Human Sacrifice to the Silk Road3
Art-Arch 49241968 and Its Legacy3
  • Chinese
Chinese 341Early and Imperial Chinese Literature3
Chinese 342Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature3
  • Classics
Classics 345CGreek History: The Dawn of Democracy3
Classics 346CGreek History: The Age of Alexander3
  • Comparative Literature
Comp Lit 394Worldwide Translation: Language, Culture, Technology3
  • East Asian Languages and Cultures
EALC 3250Topics in Early Modern Korea: Guns, Tobacco, and Sweet Potato: A History of Material Culture3
EALC 340Writing New Horizons: Explorers, Envoys, and Other Encounters in Korean Travel Narratives3
EALC 4242Culture and Politics in the People's Republic of China: New Approaches3
EALC 4710Topics in Japanese Culture3
  • Environmental Studies
EnSt 380Applications in GIS3
  • Film and Media Studies
Film 475Screening the Holocaust3
Film 485Visualizing Orientalism: Art, Cinema and the Imaginary East 1850-20003
Film 507The 007 Saga: James Bond and The Modern Media Franchise3
  • Global Studies
GS 3006Global Health and Language3
GS 3008Topics in Global Studies3
GS 3020Global Futures3
GS 318Learning to Use GIS in Development, Area Studies and International Affairs3
GS 3248Intercultural Communication3
GS 3512"Model Minority": The Asian American Experience3
GS 364Anarchism: History, Theory, and Praxis3
GS 374Russian Literature and Empire3
GS 374Russian Literature at the Borders: Multiculturalism and Ethnic Conflict3
GS 3750Topics in Russian Literature and Culture (WI)3
GS 3822From McDonald's to K-pop: New Movements in East Asia3
GS 384Migration and Modernity in Russia and the (Former) Soviet Union3
GS 386Empire in East Asia: Theory and History (WI)3
GS 3866Interrogating "Crime and Punishment"3
GS 389Furies and Die-Hards: Women in Rebellion and War3
GS 4007Global Studies Research Methods Proseminar and Assistantship3
GS 4036Children of Immigrants: Identity and Acculturation3
GS 4246State Failure, State Success and Development3
GS 4414Gender Analysis for International Affairs3
GS 4622Labor and Labor Movements in Global History3
GS 4761Politics of Global Finance3
GS 4868Russia and the West: Creating and Representing Identity3
GS 4869Reading War and Peace3
GS 4976Global Asias3
  • Hindi
Hindi 353Understanding Indian (Hindi/Urdu) Literature: Through Text and Images (Visual)3
  • History
History 301THistorical Methods-Transregional History3
History 3045Hot Peace: U.S.-Russia Relations Since the Cold War3
History 3073The Global War on Terrorism3
History 313CIslamic History: 600-12003
History 335CBecoming "Modern": Emancipation, Antisemitism and Nationalism in Modern Jewish History3
History 3350Out of the Shtetl: Jewish Life in Central and Eastern Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries3
History 3354Vienna, Prague, Budapest: Politics, Culture and Identity in Central Europe3
History 3416War, Genocide and Gender in Modern Europe3
History 3455Cultural Encounters: China and Eurasia Since the Middle Ages3
History 3548Gender, Sexuality and Communism in 20th-Century Europe3
History 3559Socialist and Secular? A Social History of the Soviet Union3
History 357All Measures Short of War3
History 3598The First World War and the Making of Modern Europe3
History 3680The Cold War, 1945-19913
History 3681The U.S. War in Iraq, 2003-20113
History 3810Between Sand and Sea: History, Environment, and Politics in the Arabian Peninsula3
History 39SCImperialism and Sexuality: India, South Asia and the World: Writing-Intensive Seminar3
History 4154Decolonization to Globalization: How to End an Empire3
History 4274Palestine, Israel, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict3
History 49SCAdvanced Seminar: Inventing India3
  • Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies
JIMES 3030Topics in JIMES: Education in Divided Societies - the Israeli Case3
JIMES 3035Antisemitism: History, Causes, Consequences3
JIMES 3520Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi: Genre-Fiction in Arabic Literature3
JIMES 354Anthropological and Sociological Study of Muslim Societies3
JIMES 3622Topics in Islam3
JIMES 373Topics in Near Eastern Cultures:3
JIMES 4043Race and Ethnicity in the Middle East and North Africa3
JIMES 442Empire and Memory: Approaches to Islamic Historiography (ca. 800-1250)3
JIMES 445Topics in Islam3
JIMES 446History of Political Thought in the Middle East3
  • Political Science
Pol Sci 372Topics in International Politics3
Pol Sci 393History of Political Thought III: Liberty, Democracy, and Revolution3
  • Psychological and Brain Sciences
Psych 413Contemporary Topics in Social Psychology3
  • Religious Studies
Re St 311Buddhist Traditions3
Re St 3392Topics in South Asian Religions3
  • Russian Language and Literature
Russ 332Russian Theater, Drama and Performance: From Swan Lake to Punk Prayer3
Russ 350CThe 19th-Century Russian Novel (WI)3
Russ 372Dostoevsky's Novels3
  • Sociology
SOC 3710Sociology of Immigration3

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.
  • Study abroad credit only counts at the 300 level.
  • 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.
  • Students may not receive credit for January Intensive Term (J-Term) study abroad programs; these programs are too short in duration.

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

All Global Studies majors must satisfy a language requirement that entails both the successful completion of four semesters of a modern language for a letter grade and placement into the third year of that language.

Available modern languages include Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swahili.

Students should consult the course listings for details about the language sequences. (On the "A&S IQ" tab, click on "Courses," and then toggle "Area Requirement" to "LS Language & Cultural Diversity-Language." Click "Search" to see a list of available language courses.)

Please see the FAQs on the Global Studies website for more information.

Contact Info

Contact:Toni Loomis
Phone:314-935-5073
Email:aloomis@wustl.edu
Website:https://globalstudies.wustl.edu