09/02/2026
Sabancı University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences is introducing three new courses for the Spring Semester, bringing students together with the most important political, social, and cultural issues of the contemporary world. Spanning from religion-politics relations to gender and popular culture, from the historical origins of global crises to the transforming world of today, these courses aim to strengthen critical thinking, interdisciplinary analysis, and historical context-building skills.
The new courses enable students to gain a deeper understanding of transformations on both global and local scales, while offering an academic perspective on current debates through content that combines theory with empirical examples.
Intersections of Religion and Politics in the Muslim World
POLS 408 – Religion and Politics in the Muslim World (Tahir Kılavuz)
POLS 408 examines the multifaceted relationship between religion and politics, focusing on the Muslim world. The course explores how religious beliefs, ideologies, institutions, and movements shape political behavior, forms of governance, and state-society relations.
Topics such as secularization, democracy, authoritarianism, nationalism, social movements, and conflict are discussed using both theoretical and case-based approaches. The first half of the semester offers a comparative perspective on the religion-politics relationship, while the second half focuses on the historical development of political Islam, Islamist movements, governance debates, and post-Islamism.
The course aims to equip students with the theoretical and empirical tools to analyze the dynamic relationship between religion and political systems in greater depth.
Discussions on Gender and Sexuality Through Popular Music
GEN 343 – Topics in Gender & Sexuality Studies (Kenan Sharpe)
GEN 343 approaches gender and sexuality studies from a historical and contemporary perspective, focusing on popular music. Using examples from the USA, the UK, and Türkiye, it examines a wide range of musical content, from blues to rock, disco to rap.
The course discusses concepts such as hegemony, performativity, power, and social construction within the framework of cultural studies, examining how popular music reproduces or transforms social norms. It offers students the opportunity to critically evaluate the impact of popular culture on gender representations.
Six Key Global Challenges: A Historical Perspective
SPS404/HIST504 – Six Key Global Challenges: A Historical Perspective (Emre Erol)
This course, taught by Emre Erol, addresses the historical origins and potential future trends of six key global challenges shaping the contemporary world.
The course covers the following topics:
- Demographic change
- Poverty and inequality
- Digitalization and disruptive technologies
- Global warming and climate change
- Globalization and its decline
- Migration and global mobility regimes
The course is based on historical methods and offers an interdisciplinary analysis using theoretical frameworks from political science and economics. It encourages students to critically evaluate global issues not only in their current context but also within long-term historical processes.
