Global Issues 151 is a course that is unique to the University of Prince Edward Island. Its principal aims are to cultivate our students’ capacity for critical reflection, to enhance their ability to read texts subtly and sensitively, and to teach them how express their insights clearly and compellingly in English prose.

The uniqueness of Global Issues 151 resides primarily in the course’s pedagogy and content. Pedagogically Global Issues employs three different forms of instruction in order to offer students a variety of contexts in which to explore course texts and to engage with faculty members. Traditional lectures, small group seminars, and monthly town hall meetings – Global Issues employs all three pedagogical strategies to deliver its content. In doing so it exposes students to the work of some of UPEI’s finest scholars, teachers, and researchers. Students in Global Issues are thus given the opportunity to witness and participate in the highest intellectual achievements of the University in their first year of study.

The content of Global Issues 151 is derived from the work of a variety of contemporary writers, among them Albert Camus, Stephen Jay Gould, Gianni Vattimo, and Jean Baudrillard. The unifying theme of that content is and the title of this year’s course is A Perfect World? The Promises and Perils of Globalization. This theme entails a critical exploration of the nature of modern globalization, its reliance on technology for its realization, an examination of its utopian origins and an exploration of its political, religious and economic consequences. The course readings have been carefully selected in order to encourage students in this study and to assist them in resisting superficial or journalistic types of analyses in favour of deeper investigations of the most important philosophical, scientific, economic, and political currents of the contemporary world.

Global Issues 151 is organized into three Areas of Study. Each Area is guided by a single question to which all of your Global Issues lecturers will respond. Area 1 asks whether technology has delivered on its promise of human betterment. Area 2 examines whether politics and religion are obstacles to or engines of human progress. And Area 3 centers on the question of whether global commerce will lead to world peace and prosperity. These three difficult questions all attempt to uncover the nature of globalization. They do so from a variety of different perspectives, each of which promises its own range of insight. We invite you to join us in this inquiry and we trust that you will find it compelling avenue by which to explore the contemporary world.

Areas of Study:

Area One: Has Technology Delivered on its Promise of Human Betterment?

Area Two: Are Politics and Religion Obstacles to or Engines Of Human Progress?

Area Three: Will Global Commerce Lead to World Peace and Prosperity?