The liberal arts is under fire. In fact, higher education as a whole is under fire. With high unemployment rates, increasing student loan debt and the rising cost of college, many people are asking if a college degree is worth it? Carey Sargent, a sociologist and head of instruction and research, thought who better to pose the question to than students who chose a liberal arts education. Her spring semester course, CSP 61: Liberal Arts at the Brink? Navigating the Crisis in Higher Education, asks students "to reflect on the fate of liberal arts education through a focused analysis of its past and present. Specifically, how do economic pressures and technological innovations impact the sustainability of liberal arts values such as social justice, serving the public good, and cultivating a 'life of the mind'?"

Her students' responses are candid and complex -...

In an op-ed in today's Los Angeles Times, "Why Iran Says No," Hussein Banai argues that reaching a lasting deal with Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has never been about Iran's nuclear program but rather the political legitimacy - and thereby survival - of the Islamic regime. 

Hussein is an assistant professor of diplomacy and world affairs and the coauthor of “Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979-1988.” You can read more of Hussein’s work on his...

In honor of all the heart-shaped boxes flying off the shelves on this Valentine's Day, we look back at the work of former student Jamal Fahim, who in 2010 wrote his senior comprehensive project in sociology on the marketing of chocolate. Jamal, who won distinction for his project, argues that chocolate marketing exemplifies the way a commodity’s fetish status may be created and intensified through the promise of an object’s capacity to transform the consumer’s deepest aspects of his or her self. 

You can read Jamal's paper "Beyond Cravings: Gender and Class Desires in Chocolate Marketing...

Let Marla Stone introduce you to Benito Mussolini’s Fascist dictatorship. Stone is a professor of Modern European history with a focus on Fascism and Nazism and the cultural history of Fascist Italy. Which is why her new book The Fascist Revolution in Italy: A Brief History with Documents is the perfect resource for understanding how Italian Fascism became the model and inspiration for violent anti-democratic and anti-socialist forces that swept Europe between 1919 and 1945....