Topics in Culture and Globalization
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this seminar on how globalization reshapes daily life across the First and Third World. The course examines the rise of a cosmopolitan, transnational youth culture alongside the religious, social, and political movements that push back against it, using pop music, advertisements, film posters, and political cartoons as primary source material rather than abstract theory alone. Sessions work through debates on cultural homogenization versus hybridity, and how media circulates across America, Europe, Asia, and Africa to create shared reference points even amid unequal power. Materials include the full syllabus, reading list, and assignment prompts as used in the MIT classroom. There is no video lecture component, but the course structure supports independent study of globalization as a lived, everyday phenomenon rather than just an economic abstraction. Free to access under MIT's open license.