technology, globalization, and culture

I'm pretty excited about a course I am taking this semester, Technology, Globalization, and Culture. It's being taught at Iowa State University and I'm tuning in via their Engineering Distance Education program over the Web. The reading list is interesting already:

• Thomas Friedman, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century


• Naomi Klein, No Logo


• Robert Reich, The Work of Nations


• Pietra Rivoli, Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy


• Frank Lechner and John Boli, The Globalization Reader

The list of speakers is downright amazing, the two most well-known being Robert Reich and Ray Kurzweil! I think I'm really going to enjoy the interdisciplinary topics as well: "Global Hollywood," "The Middle East, Energy, Terrorism and Oil Markets," and “Global Environmental Change: Technology and the Future of Planet Earth” just to name a few. It's going to be one busy semester, but one I'm definitely looking forward to writing more about.

On a lighter and more amusing note, I recently saw a skit on Late Night with Conan O'Brien that featured Conan and Robert Reich in a summer movie preview of "Detective Conan O'Brien and Detective Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich." Well worth checking out (in QuickTime or in Windows Media) for a pretty good laugh.