Areas of Focus | Atlanta Global Studies Center

Global Languages

Instruction

We support course offerings in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Portuguese, and Swahili. Find out more about where you can study these languages with us.

Faculty Communities

With additional funding from QFI, AGSC supports the organization and operation of the Arabic Teachers Council of the South, which brings together teachers at both the K-12 and college level. We also host a Community of Practice on Luso-Brazilian Studies to promote the learning of Portuguese language and culture.

Conference Tracks

Each year, we organize a full day conference track on the teaching and learning of global languages as part of the annual Atlanta Global Studies Symposium. We also run a full day workshop on global languages for K-12 teachers.

Curriculum Development

Through the award of faculty grants, AGSC supports curriculum development for global languages. Projects currently in progress are working on: translating CODE.org teaching materials for use in Dual Language Immersion schools; building skills in linguistics for high school students; testing the design and impact of speech-learning toolkits in Chinese classes; using Manga to teach Japanese language and culture; testing Virtual Exchange for students of Korean; and exploring the case study methodology in the global language classroom.

Resources

Previous curriculum development projects have produced a wide array of course materials and sample syllabi which are freely available for you to integrate into your own teaching. Examples include courses on K-12 Arabic through food culture, K-12 Russian through travel, and many others.

Global Cultures

Instruction

At Georgia Tech, AGSC helps to enhance the African Studies Minor and supports the Rwanda Study Abroad program. At GSU, we provide faculty grants to help launch and operate a number of courses integrating virtual exchange.

Speaker Series

AGSC supports the Georgia Council of International Visitors to offer its Great Decisions lecture series on topics set by the Foreign Policy Association. We also host a consortium, Race Beyond Borders, which invites speakers to present on topics of race and diaspora in the modern world.

Conference Tracks

Each year, we organize a full day conference track on the teaching and learning of global cultures as part of the annual Atlanta Global Studies Symposium.

Curriculum Development and Research

The Voice+ initiative is exploring the role of language and identity in shaping global cultural production, and how we can integrate this into teaching, while the Media Arts project is developing a new curriculum for engaging students in understanding digital media and its contribution to global media cultures.

Podcasts and Publications

AGSC supports HIVEMIND, a bi-annual publication on speculative fiction across global languages and cultures, as well as two podcasts, one by the Latin American Environmental Humanities Lab addressing issues of sustainability throughout Latin America, and Global Atlanta's Authors Amplified, which highlights new books by Atlanta academics on global issues.

Public Events

Georgia Tech's annual Global Media Festival presents films from our around the world, focused each year on a particular UN Sustainable Development Goal. Off The Wall @ 725 Ponce showcases global cultures by projecting films on the facade of a high rise in the urban setting of Atlanta's Beltline. The annual Urban Media Fest at Georgia Tech highlights issues of gender, race, and politics in public discourse around the world.

Intercultural Communication

Curriculum Development

In partnership with the GT School of Modern Languages, AGSC is co-designing a new curriculum for Intercultural Communication.

Sustainable Development

Speaker Series, Faculty Communities, and Conference Track

Speaker Series, Faculty Communities, and Conference track

As host of the RCE Greater Atlanta's Higher Education Learning Community (HELC), AGSC helps to coordinate a Research Seminar on Sustainable Development. This group also offers a Community of Practice on Teaching with the SDGs. At Georgia Tech, we also provide support for a program of speakers on Global Health Humanities and Well-Being. Each year, we organize a full day conference track on issues of sustainable development as part of the annual Atlanta Global Studies Symposium.

Curriculum Development and Research

In addition to the above, AGSC supports a number of initiatives advancing sustainable development in K-12 and higher education curricula. The Rwanda Study Abroad program at Georgia Tech is focused on issues of climate change and clean energy in East Africa. A roleplay simulation event at Emory University on AI and Health Disparities on the Global Stage helped students explore issues of global health equity. A research project on Enhancing the GA Standards of Excellence Social Studies Curriculum is working to improve the K-12 curriculum. The Pollitik Project Lab directly engages students in issues of political culture in cross-cultural contexts, and is also a research project examining issues of governance around the world.

Resources for Teachers and Students

Previous curriculum development projects have provided materials which are now freely available for faculty to integrate into their teaching, including a K-12 Syllabus on Teaching Environmental Activism using MovieTalk - Five Units for World Language Teachers and the extensive resources produced by workshops and Faculty Learning Communities at Georgia Tech.

Community Collaborations

Through AGREC, AGSC provides extensive support for research and service learning projects which directly benefit Atlanta's global communities. In the diverse area of Clarkston, current projects are working to translate vital health resource into local languages, build capacity for small businesses, and promote college readiness for young people. Other projects work to support undocumented students in Georgia, create a community science collaboratory advancing the UN SDGs, and engage students in the RCE Greater Atlanta SDG Futures Fellowship program. Meanwhile, the Praise House Project seeks to recover and re-assert African cultural traditions as a way to confront the racial history of places throughout the South.

Podcasts, Publications, and Public Events

The podcast by the Latin American Environmental Humanities Lab looks at issues of sustainable development throughout Latin America, and many episodes of Global Atlanta's Authors Amplified consider such questions both in the US and around the world. Each year, the Global Media Fest focuses on one of the 17 SDGs and how it is addressed in film from different cultures. The Praise House Project, noted above, includes public art installations which are available for the public to visit.