International Relations in Movies

Films become the primary text here: you watch 6-8 movies across the semester—Fog of War, Dr. Strangelove, 13 Days, Wag the Dog and the like—and read them alongside Nye, Goldstein/Pevehouse and other IR staples to see how cinema frames war, deterrence, foreign-policy decision-making, ethnic conflict and intervention. The work is discussion-driven rather than lecture-driven, so you're expected to come in having done the chapter and the screening, then argue about what the film actually shows about decision-makers, public opinion or Cold War logic versus what theory predicts. It sits as an upper-level elective that assumes you already know the core IR vocabulary from earlier courses; the payoff is practice translating abstract concepts into how real and fictional actors behave under pressure, which is useful prep for simulation-heavy senior seminars.