Graduate Courses

The independence of African countries from colonial rule remains one of the pivotal events in the making of the modern world. Before and after the imperial flags were lowered in countries such as Ghana and Tanzania, many people of African descent questioned the extent to which decolonization equated liberation. This course invites students to examine how different segments of African society across age, class, gender, and ethnic backgrounds struggled for economic, gendered, social, and political freedom from the Second World War until the present. How did these actors define, experience, and imagine decolonization? What impact did their ideas have on their societies and the African diaspora? How can we apply their theories and practices of decolonization? The answers to these questions and more will help to shape students’ understanding of this pivotal period in world history.

The connection between security and oil use can be traced to the early 20th century when the world’s naval fleets shifted to oil power. Yet today’s concept of ‘Energy Security’ has moved far beyond its historical definition, which traditionally focused on the security of energy for consuming countries. Unlike its historical definition, which focused mostly on oil security, this concept has expanded from security of oil flow to the uninterrupted flow and access to other sources of energy in today’s complex energy systems and baskets. Today, the elements of energy security include a much longer list: uninterrupted supply of oil and other sources of energy, affordable prices, security of demand, support for renewable energy resources, security of investment and overall energy facilities. The concept of ‘Energy Diplomacy’ critically examines the interplay between energy, international relations, and the emerging challenges in cybersecurity and irregular warfare within the energy sector. This Energy Security & Diplomacy course charts the transformation of energy security, and expands our understanding of today’s concept of ‘energy security’ and ‘geopolitics of energy’ This course also aims to provide students with a deep understanding of global energy dynamics, how they influence diplomacy and geopolitics, and the modern challenges posed by the digitalization of energy infrastructure and the transition to sustainable energy sources.

The Graduate Internship and Professional Development course offers graduate students from across the university access to real-world skills building while interning at an established company, non-profit, or government agency where they can apply those skills. The course encourages whole person learning through our holistic pedagogy combining experiential, formal, and program specific learning. Students set professional SMART goals at the start of their internship. They complete weekly asynchronous training modules and skills workshops to build core professional skills such as cross-cultural communication, working remotely, networking, emotional intelligence, sales, presentations, navigating bureaucracy, and more. Students produce bi-weekly written reflections on how they have and/or will apply what they learn in the course to their graduate program specific professional development, internship, and future career pathways. This facilitates cross-discipline learning with their classmates from diverse graduate programs. Each graduate program assigns a liaison who will deepen the grad program specific professional development experiences for students, including student attendance at in-person professional development mentoring, training, and networking events specifically as they relate to their graduate program’s career pathways. Students join LinkedIn groups with alumni from their program and direct message them to conduct informational interviews. At the end of the course, students design an Individual Career Development Plan to direct their career trajectory after completing the graduate program.

This class meets asynchronously. In addition to enrolling via MyAccess, be sure to visit to apply via the GSI website: https://eship.georgetown.edu/apply-to-gsi/. Contact Professor Mike Malloy with any questions.The Graduate Professional Development Seminar offers graduate students from across the university access to real-world skills building while interning at an established company, non-profit, or government agency where they can apply those skills. The seminar encourages whole-person learning through our holistic pedagogy combining experiential, formal, and program-specific learning. Students set professional SMART goals at the start of their internship. They complete weekly asynchronous training modules and skills workshops to build core professional skills such as cross-cultural communication, working remotely, networking, emotional intelligence, sales, presentations, navigating bureaucracy, and more. Students produce bi-weekly written reflections on how they have and/or will apply what they learn in the course to their graduate program-specific professional development, internship, and future career pathways. This facilitates cross-discipline learning with their classmates from diverse graduate programs. Each graduate program assigns a liaison who will deepen the program-specific professional development experiences for students, including the design of synchronous professional development training and discussions specifically as they relate to their graduate program’s career pathways. At the end of the course, students design an Individual Career Development Plan to direct their career trajectory after completing the graduate program.

The Georgetown Startup Internship (GSI) Seminar is designed to offer students access to real-world skills building while working as an intern at a startup, growth-stage company, or international social enterprise where they can apply those skills. The GSI program encourages whole-person learning through our holistic pedagogy, which combines formal, experiential, and developmental learning. Students will have access to asynchronous training modules to build core professional skills such as emails, meetings, and working remotely, as well as training on networking, informational interviews, sales, presentations, and more. The seminar includes a leadership coaching element that can bridge the gap between what students learn and apply in their internship and academic life and what they can carry forward into the rest of their lives, professional and personal. Students can self-enroll in the course today before securing an internship. Students must apply to internships and receive an offer before the add/drop period ends to be eligible for this class. Students can visit https://linktr.ee/georgetownstartupinterns to see a list of internship options and complete step 4 to finalize their internship. If you want to bring your own internship for the course, please email Prof Mike Malloy at mike.malloy@georgetown.edu for approval.

This class meets asynchronously. Students can self-enroll in the course today before securing an internship. Students must apply to internships and receive an offer before the add/drop period ends to be eligible for this class. Students can visit https://linktr.ee/georgetownstartupinterns to see a list of internship options and complete step 4 to finalize their internship. If you want to bring your own internship for the course, please email Prof Mike Malloy at mike.malloy@georgetown.edu for approval.

This course focuses upon the topic of negotiations and conflict resolution in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1977 to the present.

This course focuses upon the topic of negotiations and conflict resolution in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1977 to the present. The course is divided into four parts. First, we will present the general theoretical framework for explaining and understanding negotiations in international relations. Second, we will refer in general terms to the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the main issues and patterns of negotiations. Third, we will address several case-studies of successes and failures of negotiations between Israel and its several Arab neighbors – Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the Palestinians, and most recently, the Abraham Accords of September 2020. In this context, we will attempt to understand the failure of the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, including the assessment of the Israel-Hamas War. Finally, in the last part of the course we will play a simulation and students will present their short papers.

The important and long-standing interplay between politics and film is the focus of this course. Three general questions characterize this examination. First, what ideological, chronological, or cultural differences mark different films focusing on a common political object, such as the American Dream or war? What accounts for these differences? Second, how political is an individual movie? How expansive should the definition of political content be? Third, how effective is the specific genre in conveying the intended political message? Are propaganda films really more effective than the indirect messages found in mainstream blockbusters? We begin with a general overview of the film-politics relationship and a brief discussion of the various perspectives and theories that illuminate the connection. Next, we look at the most obvious political films: the propaganda movies Triumph of the Will and Birth of a Nation. Next we look at the documentary genre through a contemporary production Paragraph 175 and a classic, Wiseman’s Titicut Follies. A discussion of political satire follows, focused on Chaplin’s Great Dictator and South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. The next section delves into Hollywood’s image of America and American politics. The first two films revolve around the presentation of the American Dream, exemplified by Citizen Kane, and Forrest Gump, movies separated by 50 years. Then we look at the more focused theme of the image of Washington politics through Capra’s classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Wag the Dog. On a different note, we discuss one of the most unexpectedly political films, Dangerous Liaisons, a study in political personality, power maximization and unadulterated competition. The last section thematizes war and genocide. In contrast to typical heroic representations of WWII, we look at a Japanese animated feature, Grave of the Fireflies, which reveals a substantially different cultural and political sensibility, as well as the Oscar-winning glimpse of Hitler’s last days, Downfall. For the Cold War we will analyze The Manchurian Candidate and From Russia with Love. Next comes The Deer Hunter, a masterpiece that best captures the pervasive malaise of the Vietnam War period, both at home and at the front. The final films delve into an historical theme with great contemporary political and ethical relevance: the Holocaust as depicted in Spielberg’s Schindler’s List and Holland’s Europa, Europa.

The course departs from traditional rentier state theory (RST) and its normative framework of analysis that denies agency to societies in the Gulf Arab states and frames them as passive, dominated by oil revenues. The curriculum provides a meso- and micro-perspective of the sociopolitical dynamics of the Gulf Arab states (i.e., Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). It examines in-depth social transformations at play in the Gulf Arab societies while addressing critical issues, including but not limited, to diversity of social structure, tribal dynamics, gender patterns, youth activism, citizenship and belonging, social hierarchies, labor migration and racial capitalism, neoliberal urban governance, western higher education and knowledge production, entertainment industry, mobilization and dissent, etc. The comprehensiveness of the course is somewhat unavoidable, given the wide range of issues societies in the Gulf Arab states are experiencing. However, the aim of the course is to deconstruct, challenge and de-exceptionalize certain static frames presented as the primary explanatory matrix of these societies with enough detail in the reading materials offered and the hoped-for debates.

This course examines U.S. law bearing on intelligence activities and on the relationship between national security and individual rights.