Spring 2019

Topic:  The City as a Global Phenomenon

Director: Daniel Chambliss, Professor of Sociology
Phone:  315-859-4291
Email:  dchambli@hamilton.edu

For thousands of years, cities have been melting pots of peoples, economies and cultures. The explosion of truly international capitalist economies in the 21st century has produced global cities – New York, London, Tokyo – in which the attentive student can find at close range the intricate connections between how the world at large works and how macrolevel forces play out in the lives of individual people on the street, at work and in their homes. This program will offer students both a wide-ranging vision of how cities have developed throughout history and across the world, as well as allowing closeup studies of urban life.  Courses will be supplemented by a variety of group activities and field trips designed to explore the rich offerings of New York City.

COLLEGE 398 SEMINAR IN GLOBAL PROCESSES: THE GLOBAL CITY

This course will explore the phenomenon of cities, using both historical and comparative examples, including writings of Georg Simmel and Louis Wirth, Jane Jacobs, Herbert Gans, Harvey Molotch, and Douglas Massey, up to the recent pathbreaking work of Saskia Sassen.  Topics will include immigration, poverty, residential segregation, urban economics and the sociology of urban life. 

COLLEGE 396 INDEPENDENT STUDY

A tutorial resulting in a substantial paper (30 pages) that integrates experience and learning from the internship with an academic perspective and knowledge gained in the seminars or other tutorial readings.

COLLEGE 397 INTERNSHIP

Work experience during four days a week that includes a journal or written account of that experience.

COLLEGE 395 URBAN ETHNOGRAPHY

This is a fieldwork course in ethnographic research, wherein students will spend time in various settings throughout New York City, learning how to systematically observe people in order to understand their lives. Students will choose many of the settings themselves, giving them a chance to get to know urban places and events they may be interested in. New York offers a vast range of interesting locales, giving students the chance both to learn about new places as well as practice these classic methods of social science research.

Fall 2019

Topic:  Global Labor Markets

Director: Derek Jones, Professor of Economics
Phone:  315-859-4183
Email:  djones@hamilton.edu

In a dynamic and globalizing world, labor markets are experiencing profound changes. The structure of employment is continuously affected by technical change in the new economy. Employers seek to adjust their preferred skill mixes. Employees must choose appropriate levels of education and seek firms that provide preferred types of training. We will study these and similar questions using New York City as a resource for learning about these issues. Course work will focus on labor economics and employment and labor relations, and will include several field trips and guest lecturers.

PRE-REQUISITE:  ECON 102 OR ECON 100  IS REQUIRED.

COLLEGE 395 SEMINAR: LABOR ECONOMICS

Examination of selected theoretical and empirical questions concerning the labor market. The focus will be on New York City. Topics will include: what are labor markets?; who participates in the labor market and how intensively?; labor demand; human resource and compensation systems in different sectors; labor unions in the private and public sectors; regulated and unregulated work in New York City; unemployment; membership in labor unions; economic effects of unions. Prerequisite Econ 102 or 100. Economics concentrators and minors may receive one credit equivalent to Economics 370 toward their concentration or minor.

COLLEGE 398 HAMILTON IN NEW YORK: EMPLOYMENT AND LABOR RELATIONS IN THE GLOBAL CITY

An introduction to issues in the broad field of employment and labor relations. Definitions, methods and evolution of the field. The employment relationship and major institutions. Job security, working conditions, work-life balance, human management resource policies, including methods of compensations. Field trips to sites and cases to illustrate key historical events and contemporary issues.

COLLEGE 396 iNDEPENDENT STUDY

A tutorial resulting in a substantial paper (30 pages) that integrates experience and learning from the internship with an academic perspective and knowledge gained in the seminars or other tutorial readings.

COLLEGE 397 INTERNSHIP

Work experience during four days a week that includes a journal or written account of that experience.

Spring 2020

Topic:  Philosophy in the Global City:  Exploration of the Existential Dynamics of the Uptown/Downtown Dichotomy

Director: Todd Franklin, Prof. of Philosophy and Africana Studies
Phone:  315-859-4628
Email:  tfrankli@hamilton.edu

This program will be phenomenological in nature.  More specifically, the emphasis will be on theoretically framing and critically analyzing an array of dichotomous everyday experiences shaped by various historical, social, cultural, and economic facets of urban location.  Focusing primarily on the role of race in demarcating differences in social location and lived experiences, the program philosophically examines both the differences and dynamics between the racialized life worlds of Harlem and the rest of Manhattan and ponders the ways in which those differences and dynamics both reflect and bear upon society more broadly.

Africana Studies or Philosophy concentrators and minors may receive up to two credits toward their concentration or minor.

COLLEGE 395 Phenomenological Practicum

An experientially grounded exploration of various contrasts and juxtapositions of place and space in terms of their relation to the dynamics of race.  Students will choose a number of the settings themselves and thereby have an opportunity to examine issues of race within contexts and in terms of mediums that speak to their interests.

COLLEGE 396 iNDEPENDENT STUDY

A tutorial resulting in a substantial paper that integrates theoretical and experiential exploration in a way that yields a uniquely framed and rigorously developed analysis of the dynamics of race, space, and place as they play out within the context of Manhattan.

COLLEGE 398 Seminar: The Racial Dynamics of Urban Dichotomies

For many years, New York City has been a global mecca for a rich array of diasporic peoples.  However, despite the mythopoetic lore of the melting pot, the history of the island of Manhattan is one of stark contrasts.  Taking up the desperate realities of the global mecca of Manhattan, the seminar critically examines the history, sites, events, and actions that frame and animate the emergent racial dynamics of the uptown/downtown dichotomy.  In doing so, the seminar focuses on existential conceptions of the social world and explores how space, place, and proximity can impact and be impacted by the lived experiences and agency of those whose identities are shaped and defined by the legacy of Western European conceptions of race. 

COLLEGE 397 INTERNSHIP

Work experience with a firm, organization, agency or advocacy group appropriate to the theme of course during four days a week.  Weekly electronic journal entries chronicling and reflecting up the experience are required.

Fall 2020

Topic:  Global Financial Networks

Director: Erol Balkan, Professor of Economics
Phone: 315-859-4180
Email: ebalkan@hamilton.edu

New York City has long been one of the financial centers in the global economy. Financial service activities of all kinds tend to be very strongly concentrated in key metropolitan centers like New York City, London and Tokyo. These form a complex network spanning national boundaries and connecting major cities around the world. By several indicators such as the volume of international currency trading, volume of foreign financial assets and the number of headquarters of the large international banks, New York City is one of the most important centers for global financial activities. The focus of our semester will be the study of global financial networks.

PRE-REQUISITES: ECON 100 and ECON 166 are required.

College 395 Global Financial Networks
 

The major financial markets are more closely integrated today than they ever were in the past. The recent developments in information and communications technologies increased the globalization of financial markets and at the same time allowed the development of a whole new range of financial instruments known as derivatives. Deregulation and financial liberalization of different financial markets also gave an immense impetus to financial integration. Market liberalization affected interest rate ceilings, reserve requirements and barriers to geographical expansion, which in turn stimulated free international movement of capital.

This course covers a broad range of theories and issues in global finance, including the evolution of the current global financial markets, balance of payments problems, exchange rate determination and currency markets, financial and currency crisis, international capital flows, international banking, and macroeconomic policies in an open economy.

College 398 Seminar in Global Processes: Political Economy of Globalization

Foundational course of the Program in New York City. Critical examination of some of the global issues and challenges considered from a political economy perspective. Issues to include economic globalization, the role of basic international economic organizations (IMF, World Bank, WTO), the development and significance of global neo-liberalism, political and cultural globalization, ecological sustainability and global financial crisis. The course is organized around readings, class discussion, films, guest discussion leaders, and field trips in New York City.

College 396 Independent Study

A tutorial resulting in a substantial paper that integrates experience and learning from the internship with an academic perspective and knowledge gained in the seminars or other tutorial readings.

College 397 Internship

An Independent Study supervised by the director of the Program in New York City and based on an internship with a firm, organization, agency or advocacy group appropriate to the theme of course.