This course will introduce students to the hackneyed and complex notion of interdisciplinarity and to the ways in which it has been theorized in Interdisciplinarity Studies and practiced in Women, Digital and Translation Studies. It will invite students to develop their interdisciplinary skills in critical and reflexive ways.

This course prepares students embarking on social science research with the necessary research methods and techniques to conduct, evaluate and communicate research. The course examines the epistemological foundations of qualitative and quantitative research, in addition to ethical and political factors in research. It familiarizes students with research design, research methods and data collection. It also introduces linkages between broader theoretical and conceptual issues and alternative hypothesis through which to organize knowledge, construct ideas and present various arguments.

This course analyses the contemporary Gulf States from the perspectives of politics, political sociology, economics and international relations. It seeks to locate the states in an international context in order to identify and evaluate the manner in which their policies have evolved. This course will seek to achieve this through an interdisciplinary analysis of the subject manner. It gives focus to the challenges faced and policy responses. The course will conclude with an examination of the challenges of economic, political and security reform in the Gulf States.