Course Description:

There are many approaches to the study of "International Affairs," a term that encompasses countless activities, ranging from issues dealing with human rights to nuclear non-proliferation.  The course focuses on one aspect of this complex topic -- public diplomacy -- in order to provide us with a concrete example of what "International Affairs" entails. In the twenty-first century, public diplomacy -- first coined as a term in the mid-1960s in the United States -- is playing an increasingly important role in the world. Public diplomacy is used not only by the US State Department -- which defines it as "engaging, informing, and influencing key international audiences" -- as a tool of foreign policy, but also, increasingly, by other organizations -- governmental and non-governmental -- globally, which characterize it in their own specific ways.

The purpose of the course is to examine the nature, history, purpose, use, and morality of public diplomacy, as well as its relationship to international affairs, and especially to traditional diplomacy and overseas propaganda.  The course is divided into two parts:

PART I: The history of public diplomacy, with a focus on how the United States has implemented it throughout the years;

PART II: U.S. public diplomacy today, with an emphasis not only on how it is currently carried out by the State Department (including by its diplomats overseas), but also by other US organizations, both governmental and non-governmental, and (increasingly) by other countries in the world.

Throughout the course students are expected to read not only historical/scholarly/official texts on public diplomacy, but also cover items in the daily media that pertain to public diplomacy and international relations, including on such issues such as anti-Americanism.