International Politics
| Humanities Course | |
|---|---|
| Course Code | POLY |
| Year Opened | 1985* |
| Sites Offered | CAR, JHU, LOS, SAR |
| Previously Offered | CLN, KNE, STM, SUN |
Course Description
International Politics provides a basic overview of many of the problems in the world, such as hunger, genocide, and informational security. The course has been criticized or been given apathetically no consideration by different people considering its pacifist style of conflict resolution.
Class History
Carlisle
At CAR.05.1, many complaints were heard about the many useless geography sheets that students were required to complete after looking up large quantities of useless statistics. The same complaints were made next session, with the addition of a number of necessary poetry assignments.
International Politics was taught in Carlisle in 2007 by Dan Mumford and was TA'd by Taku Chakravarti. Taku inspired his own activity, called Taku appreciation. Dan, meanwhile, was in the Peace Corps in Africa and was an actor in an acclaimed World of Warcraft movie. Dan was frequently called D. Mums so as to differentiate between him and Dan Soltis (Diesel/D. Sol/D. Train/Dan). Dan was the RA for all of the guys in International Politics at Carlisle in 2008.1. D. Mums loves the elder god of chaos known as Cthulhu and you 'will grow to love Cthulhu by the end of the session.
At CAR.08.1, there were no more useless worksheets/poetry. The class was very interesting to those who enjoyed history/politics. A word of warning though, many of the arguments do tend to have many different sides with little difference between them and those at either end of the side were usually considered to be wrong by everyone else. As the TA, Megan, said, "There is no black or white there are only shades of gray." Some highlights included a game called Coalitions, a game about International Relations (2008.1 was the first year in which IP A and B failed the game completely resulting in the destruction of the world, a kid named Nate vetoed the peace agreement resulting in utter destruction), reading/discussing the New York Times for the first 2 hours of the day (then discussing the book/other points the teacher wanted to make for the rest of the time (you read the book/various articles during study hall in the evening)), and just the general awesomeness of the class.
At CAR 08.2, the reading/discussing of various NY Times articles resulted in one CTYer losing some of her faith in humanity, as well as other intense class ethical arguments.
At CAR.09.1, Mumford instructed and Cassie was the TA. The week and a half was highly memorable due to Race's inappropriate moments and Claire's un-PC comments. Most memorable of all was the discussion that sprung from an article in the NY Times about illegal immigration, which lasted over an hour and consisted of yelling and disintegrating friendships. Log rolling also proved to be a learning experience.
At CAR.09.2.POLY.A, Maria Vassilieva instructed and Kehan DeSousa was the TA. This dynamic duo consisted of a Georgetown professor and a very knowledgeable coffee/tea loving TA. With the most amount of information squeezed into the smallest amount of time they successfully kept their class interested in the subject. The day began with current events reading and discussion for an hour in the NYTimes, continued into a lecture, and ended with the afternoon class where projects were worked on and more studying was done. With a day to spare there was an inter-class simulation where both classes broke into groups representing made up states. Within this simulation, a made up terrorist organization called S.W.I.N.E F.L.U was admitted to the security council and proceeded to nuke the world.
At CAR.10.2.POLY.A , Maria Vassilieva instructed and Jose Iriate was the TA. Both teachers were great instructors, and Jose's lecture was fast, fluid, and conveyed hard concepts efficiently. The class read the NY times and analyzed, and played several debates, including an incredibly unrealistic Isreali-palestinian peace talk. The class also watched a horrifying documentary called Ghosts of Rwanda. At the end, the class made another simulation where another terrorist group called L.I.O. B.P. attacked the world. Turn that around and you get BP oil.
At CAR.12.1, Taku Chakravarti return to Carlisle as Dan's TA once more. After telling the class (which happened to contain the current Emperor and Jesus, as well as the next year's Emperor)that his real name was not actually Taku, the mad hunt for Taku's true identity began. The class convinced their RAs to hold a Taku Appreciation activity. On Wednesday, the last activity period of the session, Taku Appreciation was held in which the students all created their own satchels, imitating the satchel Taku always carried around. In addition, at the very end of the activity, Taku revealed his true identity to the students- Atish.
At CAR 13.1, Kevin Santos Flores joined forces with Dan and spent a lot of the time sitting in the corner of the classroom, making wildly inappropriate jokes, and then laughing at his own jokes. Study hall was very hard because the girls would always go on adventures in the library and laugh every time they made eye contact with Kevin. Apparently, according to sources, Kevin used to TA at LOS for some class or another. The simulation was done with Interpol A (B? [the younger kids]) and was really tense, intense, and horrifying. Friendships were tested. Cthulhu continued his reign and his plush body was thrown around quite a bit. Dan's shirt pocket is the greatest invention known to man. Students had a lot of internal turmoil this session so it was totally weird.
At CAR.14.1, Dan Mumford once again taught Poly B. Considered by some as the best year yet, Poly B had multiple 'important' students: Two Poetry Goddesses, one Jesus Non-Denominational Spiritual Figure, the Oldest Kid on Campus, the BAE, and the first two Imperators (although the latter is not always recognized.) Dan impressed the students with multiple simulations, modeling after the real-life events of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Gaza-Palestine conflict. Queen Pegi, the TA, was exceptional and offered valuable insight to the class. During the last Study Hall, Dan brought in his Scorpion lightsaber, wowing most of the class. Again, Cthulhu reigned supreme and the Talking Cthulhu solved many of the personal conflicts with a simple, "Hey! Who's got Cthulhu?!" With some brilliant blends with Poly A, 14.1 was a great class and was found to be important and relevant for many students.
Saratoga Springs
At SAR.05.2, Donald Rumsfeld was put on mock trial for war crimes. He was found not guilty.
At SAR.08.1, one student (also the biggest(both literally and metaphorically) douchebag of the class) discovered that Quake 3 is on the computer he's using, while at Wiecking computer lab(he fell into a destructive obsession over it. He sat on me for taking that computer once, I'm serious). The said student was also nicknamed "Doo-than the Han from Azerbaijan", as a response to his constant racism and calling a fellow classmate a Han. The rest of the class retort by downloading Combat Arms, a free online FPS that his roommate(and one of his many enemies) pulled from an ad in a gaming magazine(its site URL was kept secret). Also, the class was awesome. We saw Karl, the instructor, in a BBC documentary about the Azeri Orange Revolution (he was holding a camera, and was "duly" chased by riot police for documenting the revolt(that's what I think) as he ran around a corner).
At SAR.13.2, a paintbrush mysteriously appeared in the classroom, much to the bemusement of the class members. It was taken home by Conor Thompson, who decided to pass it on to a member of next year's Interpol class, in the hope that that student would do the same, and so on. The holder of the paintbrush from 2014-15 is Luke Farrell
The SAR 14.1 Interpol class consisted of some of the most loving and smart people anyone could ever meet.
At SAR 16.1, there was a star wars crisis council. Asajj ventress tried to murder padme by melting her face, but it was unsuccessful.
SAR 16.2 consisted of compassionate, but sometimes disruptive students. During movies, Rupa and Ben would always hand out candy, even if they offered candy 20 times already that day. John wore a hijab made from a scarf during clothing-swap day. He then became the iconic Jihadi John. We also played fun games such as Geoguesser and another game where we got to nuke the entire world. During breaks, much of the class played Egg Inc., which is a game where you spawn chickens by holding down a button. Harambe became William's idol and the rest of the class followed. He must of been a followable guy because Lauren became obsessed with flipping bottles after he did so. Chloe was a strong proponent of Communism. She also represented Russia during the class Syrian Civil War debate, which helped her cause. Radical Islam became the official religion of POLY SAR 16.2.
At SAR 18.1, there was a quote board with Christine as the Quote Board Keeper and Daisy as the Quote Scribe. The Quote Board was a magnificent being, with a new quote added everyday, quotes were voted on by the masses as Rupa and Esther are supporters of democracy. Featuring such hits as, "You can't leave the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church owns you," "Esther is our patron goddess," and "Coffee has enough calories to get me through the day." It also included savage remarks from Rupa, for she is a queen. "Quote offs" were often performed in the girls dorm, where two girls would compete to name all the quotes on the Quote Board. It should be noted that the two main quote contributors were Jackson and Helen.
There was also a Syria simulation, in which SAR 18.1 scarred Esther by not following her moderating, dissolving into fits of giggles whenever the Syrian Arab Republic made eye contact with the Free Syrian Army. Most notably, the delegate of ISIS had started off the day making incoherent threats about the "golden sword of Allah" and ended the day by surrendering and asking for amnesty. This may have been because of the unanimous decision to bomb ISIS. This was featured on the Quote Board with, "Together we killed ISIS." The delegate of ISIS also scarred Esther by constantly interrupting, but that was technically in character.
SAR 18.1 also decided to assimilate into a cult around their TA, who was way too overqualified to be a TA. This cult was called "Esthercism," there they perform ritual prayers to Esther in the middle of the Dining Hall in front of the TA table.
LMU
At LOS.09.1.POLY, David Fields instructed and William Hon was the TA. The former is an international traveler, and the latter was studying International Politics. Days included reading from the New York Times, their main textbook, and other books that had good supporting information. They also spent good amounts of time reading The Clash of Civilizations and playing the game of Diplomacy, which Will Wheaton and Courtni Addison won as Britain. Other activities included debates on international issues, mock Security Councils, and cultural simulations.
At LOS.13.2 POLY, the legendary infinite-lingual Dr. D (Solomon Dias) and his fearless TA Sam led the class of 15 into three weeks of political chaos. Within the first week, the group had established themselves as a gynecocracy ("if a society led by women is a gynecocracy, what's a society led by men?" "just a cock-racy"). In an activity meant to find solutions to current world crises, a group proposed air-dropping loose condoms onto sub-Saharan Africa to slow the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In addition to morning newspaper readings and discussions of current events, there was also a fair amount of movies: the class watched Tae Guk Gi, Hotel Rwanda, and Under the Same Moon during the session. It is a general consensus that those 15 people were some of the funniest, smartest, most talented and diverse people at the session. In some way or another, they will all change the world.
At LOS.16.2 POLY, Marsha Pacheco instructed and Rachel Davis was the TA. One student, named Matthew, never showed up to class and was quietly forgotten. For most of the first week, the other 14 weren't sure what to call their instructor, leading to an awkward avoidance of names that finally gave way to the moniker Dr. Marsha. (Incidentally, by the third week, Dr. Marsha became convinced nobody knew her full name.) Most days in class fell into a regular schedule of reading the New York Times, listening to lectures, and debating current issues in the world. Originally, debates were fairly informal; when a competition debater tried to add crossfire to the rounds, Interpol first grumbled and later rebelled. Crossfire was subsequently removed with little protest. During one debate on whether China was the aggressor in the South China Sea, a boy arguing negative pointed out that the Philippines had paid for the judges that voted against China before immediately adding that China could have helped pay, but "they didn't want to." This statement was met with groans from his own team and laughter from everyone else. The makeup of the class was fairly diverse, with CTYers hailing from various parts of the U.S., China, Canada, and Thailand. The Canadian student's unabashed national pride frequently made its way into class, where he drew a trapezoidal Saskatchewan on the board and loudly argued that Canada had tied with the U.S. in the War of 1812. The Thailand (sometimes incorrectly said The Taiwan) became a mascot of sorts for 16.2 Interpol after one girl asserted, "Let's talk about The Thailand!" prior to a group presentation. Her whiteboard drawing of The Thailand remained on the board until it was heartlessly erased on the final Thursday, and it made it onto Interpol's Closing Ceremony poster.
This class wants to remind everyone to not be afraid of participating in the Spirit Days in class. While Dr. Marsha was confused and made some comments about days such as Drag Day, Goth Day, and Love Tape Day, the class was happy to explain the meaning and history behind the days to her, and was sure to cover her and her name tag in Love Tape.
JHU
At JHU.16.2 , International Politics was taught by Dr. Jason Xidias who had an unidentifiable accent. It was TA'd by Harrison Lee, a wasian 21 year old from the University of Maryland who always wore the same three sweatshirts and loved hockey. Harrison also has seen a lot of movies and has some sort of criticism to offer about most everything. He was pretty chill and created a lot of fun simulations during study hall, including Fireside Chats, Nuclear Baseball, chaotic resolution writing, and more. A student named Eshan offered comic relief by giving ridiculous statements in order to uphold his side of liberalism, or realism ("Is communism an issue? No").The only times of conflict concerning Harrison were when he let some cuss words slip, as well as when he became angry due to the ceaseless Borat jokes the boys in the class would make (Borat is an R-rated movie that boys in JB's hall kept trying to watch, to the point where JB was going through their search history). CTYers in Interpol dreaded reading twenty page articles almost everyday that took, on average, 1.5 hours each, due to Harrison's verbal summaries and mini discussions of each paragraph, and one student (Noah) and his ceaseless questions. On the last day, the movie Bridge of Spies was viewed.
All in all, the TA and professor were very knowledgable and friendly, but if one is considering this class, you really need to be interested in the subject. If you're about to take it or are taking it now and are not interested, you're in for a rough 3 weeks. That is, unless you get a phenomenal teacher.
