The international studies concentration prepares students for careers and pursuits spanning national boundaries. It is grounded in the social sciences and focused on contemporary issues to help students develop an understanding of the current dominant modes of international interactions, and the global nature and consequences of those interactions. Interested students may select international studies as a concentration within, or focus of, their liberal arts education. The concentration can complement many academic majors, building students’ capacities to apply their major’s disciplinary knowledge to the challenges of the globalized world.
For the concentration, students choose from more than 100 courses across the Oberlin curriculum on the world’s cultures, regional interactions, and international dynamics, in addition to core politics and economics classes. We expect majors to attain at least a second year of (non-English) language proficiency.
Curriculum Overview
Students should meet with an international studies advisor to develop an appropriate course of study based on their major and areas of interest. The concentration is open to any student regardless of major or minor.
International studies includes four main components: politics, economics, foreign language, and a choice of five subjects that deal with non-United States regions or countries in the contemporary period and non-Western regions in the historical period.
We encourage students to study abroad in one of the more than 75 programs offered by Oberlin and its affiliate institutions through the Office of Study Away.
Course Sampling
POLT 120 - Introduction to International Politics
ECON 227 – International Trade and Finance
HISP 318 – Survey of Latin American Literature II
HIST 160 – Modern Japan
ENVS 222 – Local vs Global: Environmental Issues Beyond Borders
Kristina Mani
Associate Professor of Politics, Committee Chair
Phone: (440) 775-8657 / kristina.mani@oberlin.edu
Interests: international relations, Latin American politics, democratization and international security, civil-military relations, political economy of security and the military
Zeinab Abul-Magd
Assistant Professor of History
Phone: (440) 775-8657 / zenaib.abul-mag@oberlin.edu
Interests: Middle East and North Africa
Sebastiaan Faber
Professor of Hispanic Studies, Director of the Oberlin
Center for Languages and Cultures
Phone: (440) 775-8189 / sebastiaan.faber@oberlin.edu
Interests: literature of Spanish Civil War exile, constructions of Hispanic identity, contemporary Spanish fiction
Jennifer Fraser
Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology and Anthropology
Phone: (440) 775-6904 / jennifer.fraser@oberlin.edu
Interests: West Sumatra Indonesia, gong ensembles, ethnicity, gender, Islam, natural disasters
Qiusha Ma
Associate Professor of Chinese
Phone: (440) 775-8314 / qiusha.ma@oberlin.edu
Interests: Chinese language teaching, modern Chinese education and society, non-governmental organization
Darko Opoku
Assistant Professor of African American Studies
Phone: (440) 775-8590 / darko.opoku@oberlin.edu
Interests: political economic development in Africa, IMF and World Bank inspired economic reforms in Africa, state-business relations in Africa
Eve Sandberg
Associate Professor of Politics
Phone: (440) 775-8587 / eve.sandberg@oberlin.edu
Interests: comparative democratization, political party systems, non-governmental organizations, gender studies, international relations, Third World political economies, African studies, U.S. foreign policy
