Politics Department

Mohandas Gandhi, Sojourner Truth, Karl Marx

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Politics - Environmental Studies major

Dana Pribnow ’06 was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Malaysia.

Bethany Coleman ’06 was awarded a Humanity in Action Fellowship.

Samuel Spiegel ’05 is a Trudeau Scholar at the University of British Columbia.

Scott Thompson ’05 is attending Duke University Law School.

In May of 2005, Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg ’01, founded Akili Dada, an international organization that provides competitive and comprehensive secondary-school scholarships and career mentoring for young Kenyan women. Akili Dada awarded its first four scholarships in February 2006 and this year more than doubled its number of grants.

How does a critical engagement with politics help us to understand power in contemporary and historical terms? What sorts of power do we see at work in modern institutions such as states, global capital, and the media industry? How do subordinate groups and individuals resist and transform systems of power? In the Politics Department we explore these questions by exposing students to multiple perspectives on the most consequential, often controversial, issues of our times. Such issues may include questions of war and peace, democracy, the environment, the politics of development, the impact and legacy of empire, terrorism, justice, race, gender, globalization, transnational networks, immigration, and labor. As a Politics major at Whitman you will benefit from:

  • An innovative curriculum that focuses on broad areas of teaching and scholarship found at the intersection of traditional subfields such as International Relations, American Politics, Comparative Politics, and Political Theory. Students develop an interdisciplinary approach to the study of contemporary local and global politics.
  • Intellectually engaged, supportive, and open-minded professors who welcome independent thinking and encourage collaboration.
  • Classes that encourage students to engage political issues not only from a variety of methodological perspectives but also in different global and regional contexts including Latin America, South Asia, Africa, and the U.S.
  • Opportunities to have community-based and other hands-on learning experiences in such innovative programs as Semester in the West, the border studies program, and the student research project on “The State of the State for Washington Latinos.”