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Spring 2024: Democracy and Civics Related Courses

Use the search function below to explore the following courses by sub-theme.

Courses

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  • 6018  | 2023-2024 Democratic Institutions and Processes, Race, Ethnicity & Identity, Rights & Justice
    Instructors:
    • Engstrom, D.
    • Venook, T.
    The American civil justice system sits at a crossroads. In three-quarters of the 20 million civil cases filed in state courts each year, at least one side lacks a lawyer. Beneath those cases sit tens of millions more legal problems that never make it to court. Many are significant, even ...
  • 21SI  | 2023-2024 Science & Technology, Environment, Civic & Democratic Ethos
    Instructors:
    • Piech, C.
    Students will learn about and apply cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to real-world social good spaces (such as healthcare, government, and environmental conservation). The class will balance high-level machine learning techniques? from the fields of deep learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and reinforcement learning? with real world case studies ...
  • 119/219  | 2023-2024
    Instructors:
    • Boyd, B.
    The introduction of artificial intelligence and autonomy into warfare will have profound and unforeseen consequences for national security and human society. This course prepares future policymakers and industry leaders for the complex debate surrounding the developmental, legal, ethical, and operational considerations of creating machines with the ability to apply lethal ...
  • 124  | 2023-2024 Democratic Institutions and Processes, Polarization & Partisanship
    Instructors:
    • Bonica, A.
    • Smith, A.
    • Fikejs, E.
    This course examines how the rules that govern elections and the policy process determine political outcomes. It explores the historical forces that have shaped American political institutions, contemporary challenges to governing, and prospects for change. Topics covered include partisan polarization and legislative gridlock, the politicization of the courts, electoral institutions ...
  • 115  | 2023-2024 Civic & Democratic Ethos
    Instructors:
    • Edelstein, D.
    Ancient Greek and Roman texts have long been regarded as the touchstones of Western culture. Many of the disciplines that we study at the university - including history, philosophy, political theory, and literature - evolved out of classical texts. In this course, we will read and discuss some of the ...
  • 116  | 2023-2024 Race, Ethnicity & Identity, Civic & Democratic Ethos
    Instructors:
    • Parker, G.
    How might the comparative global humanities help us understand the cultural traditions of Africa and South Asia? Culturally significant texts (and text equivalents) will allow us to compare different answers to abiding human questions, such as (a) Where do we come from? Why do origins matter? (b) Which features define ...
  • 2510  | 2023-2024 Democratic Institutions and Processes, Environment
    Instructors:
    • Boehm, A.
    • Sivas, D.
    This interdisciplinary course integrates the legal, scientific, and policy dimensions of how we characterize and manage resource use and allocation along the California coast. We will use this geographic setting as the vehicle for exploring more generally how agencies, legislatures, and courts resolve resource-use conflicts and the role that scientific ...
  • 201A  | 2023-2024 Civil Society
    Instructors:
    • Kahan, M.
    Restricted to Urban Studies majors. Students work at least 80 hours with a supervisor, establish learning goals, and create products demonstrating progress. Reflection on service and integration of internship with senior research plans. Must be completed by start of Winter Quarter senior year. May continue for additional quarter as 194 ...
  • 142  | 2023-2024 Civil Society, Environment, Rights & Justice
    Instructors:
    • Janus, K.
    This community-engaged learning class is part of a broader collaboration between the Program on Social Entrepreneurship at the Haas Center for Public Service, Distinguished Visitors Program and the Doerr School of Sustainability, using practice to better inform theory about how innovation can help address society's biggest challenges with a particular ...
  • 170  | 2023-2024 Civic & Democratic Ethos, Civil Society
    Instructors:
    • Clair, M.
    (Graduate students register for 270). Sociologists seek to understand how society works, specifically: how social life is organized, changed, and maintained. Sociological theory provides hypotheses for explaining social life. All empirical research in sociology is enriched by, and has some basis in, sociological theories. This course introduces students to the ...
  • 7010  | 2023-2024 Democratic Institutions and Processes, Rights & Justice, Race, Ethnicity & Identity
    Instructors:
    • Karlan, P.
    The Fourteenth Amendment is the focal point for many of the most contentious issues in contemporary constitutional law, from abortion to affirmative action to voting rights to criminal justice. This course will begin by paying attention to the origins of the Amendment: to what did it respond and how did ...
  • 7010  | 2023-2024 Democratic Institutions and Processes, Rights & Justice, Race, Ethnicity & Identity
    Instructors:
    • Banks, R.
    The Fourteenth Amendment is the source of many of the rights that have been cherished by many people throughout our nation. Rights pertaining to sex and reproduction, marriage, parenthood, abortion, birth control, educational opportunity, sex discrimination, race discrimination and many more all are rooted in the 14th Amendment. In recent ...
  • 240  | 2023-2024 Peace & Security, Environment, Health
    Instructors:
    • Gottemoeller, R.
    This seminar examines crucial foreign policy and defense-related challenges. Emphasis is on understanding how the recent past produced today's challenges and evaluating alternative strategies intended to overcome them. Topics include great power competition; terrorism and other transnational threats; security dynamics in South Asia and the Middle East; nuclear proliferation; disruptive ...
  • 134P  | 2023-2024 Democratic Institutions and Processes, Civic & Democratic Ethos
    Instructors:
    • Mapps, M.
    In this course, we will discuss the body as a site of moral and political conflict. Here are a few of the questions that will be explored: People are encouraged to become kidney donors, but we still don't have enough kidneys for everybody who needs one. Should you be allowed ...
  • 115  | 2023-2024 Rights & Justice, Economics
    Instructors:
    • O'Connell, J.
    Large corporations now routinely spend millions of dollars to protect human rights and the environment. Shell Nigeria builds hospitals and schools in the Niger Delta. Nike employs hundreds of inspectors to improve conditions for the factory workers who produce its shoes across Asia and Latin America. Social media companies have ...
  • 153  | 2023-2024 Democratic Institutions and Processes, Civic & Democratic Ethos
    Instructors:
    • McConnell, M.
    The course begins with readings setting forth the intellectual and experiential background of the framing, including common law and natural rights theory, republicanism, economic & political scientific ideas, and colonial and post-Independence experience. We then study large parts of the debates at the Constitutional Convention, primarily using Madison's Notes. Major ...
  • 2008  | 2023-2024 Democratic Institutions and Processes, Rights & Justice
    Instructors:
    • Romano, M.
    This seminar offers an opportunity to study mass incarceration and criminal law reform in real time while getting hands-on experience in active litigation on behalf of Three Strikes Project clients serving life sentences for nonviolent crimes. In this course, students read and analyze a variety of cases and articles, examining ...
  • 7016  | 2023-2024 Race, Ethnicity & Identity
    Instructors:
    • Banks, R.
    Developed in the 1970s and 1980s, and for decades relevant only to law professors and activists, Critical Race Theory has recently become an object of criticism and controversy far beyond the legal academy. Some of the tenets of Critical Race Theory have made their way into other fields, including sociology ...
  • 52  | 2023-2024 Science & Technology, Civic & Democratic Ethos
    Instructors:
    • Cain, J.
    Continuation of CS51 (CS + Social Good Studio). Teams enter the quarter having completed and tested a minimal viable product (MVP) with a well-defined target user, and a community partner. Students will learn to apply scalable technical frameworks, methods to measure social impact, tools for deployment, user acquisition techniques and ...
  • 3  | 2023-2024 Civic & Democratic Ethos, Polarization & Partisanship
    Instructors:
    • Paul Brest
    • Debra Satz
    Each class will be focused on a different topic and have guest speakers. This class will be open to students, faculty and staff to attend and also be recorded. Deep disagreement pervades our democracy, from arguments over immigration, gun control, abortion, and the Middle East crisis, to the function of ...

Explore previously taught democracy and civics related courses at Stanford.