ATS1326: Contemporary Worlds 2

A minor essay, major essay, final exam and tute participation + tute presentation. The minor essay was a critical comparison of two different newspaper’s coverage of the same subject matter (one is state owned, in my case Russia Today, one is at least nominally impartial). The major essay was an examination of commodity chains for one major TNC, in my case Apple (iirc, McDonald's and Nike were other options). From speaking to students in 2015, this was the essay topic in both 2014 and 2015. Exam was a definition exercise, and an essay question.

This unit is a lot like most other gateway Arts units, like Human Rights 1&2, or Intro to IR. It’s a high level survey of the area of study (International Studies), a gentle way of incorporating critical theory into your lexicon and giving you ideas or what you might like to study in the future should you choose intl studies as your major. From week to week you go over different topics, starting with introductory tools (a look at international political economy), before moving onto the meat of the course (globalization’s effects on health, the black market, terrorism, etc.), before coming back to two different case studies of globalization in China and in Australia. Each of the separate topics in the middle of the course is offered as a unit in its own right in 2nd and 3rd year.

It’s hard to get excited for units like these because invariably there will be weeks on subjects that bore you to death, and a couple on topics you’ll find really interesting, but in the end it’s all examinable and it becomes a race to see how many names and facts you can cram into your short term memory and vomit onto your exam paper. I didn’t really like Paula all that much, but my tutor was amazing (Ash King), and I don't think Paula takes this unit anymore anyway. I was also a big fan of the first assessment task. I was not, however, a big fan of the unit’s kind of shallow treatment of IPE. I get that it’s not a huge part of international studies the way it is international relations, but it still bugged me.
If you want to fit in with the cool kids rallying against neoliberalism and championing Marxism, this is definitely the unit for you – you’ll learn the lingo and have plenty of resources to learn more. If you want to major in intl studies, well, you have to do this unit. Outside of those two cases though, I can’t really say I recommend it. In my opinion it’s one of the more challenging first year arts units, if you’re looking for a bludge, and it’s also kind of boring if you’re looking for an elective to broaden your horizons. If you’re chasing something to give you a foundational perspective on international affairs, I’d recommend into to IR, or maybe even human rights 1 over this.

Paula Michaels, a few guest lecturers for some topics.

We were given a list of like 20 words and told that 5 of them would appear on the exam to be defined.

2 out of 5

Yes, with screen capture

Introducing Globalization: Ties, Tensions and Uneven Integration was the textbook in 2014. I know it was also the textbook in 2015 because I sold it to someone the year after. It wasn’t super useful, but the weekly readings are contained in there

1x2hr lecture, 1x1hr tute, every week.

2014 semester 2 lol, meant to write this two years ago and just never got around to it.

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