CRN	94301	Distribution	A/C / * (Lit in English)
Course No.	HR / LIT 218
Title	Free Speech
Professor	Thomas Keenan
Schedule	Mon Wed 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm OLIN 205

An introduction to the intersections between literature and human rights, from the Greeks to the French Revolution, Salman Rushdie, hate speech and censorship on the Internet. The course will examine the ways in which rights, language, and public space have been linked together in ideas about democracy. What is 'freedom of speech'? Is there a right to say anything? We will investigate who has had this right, where it has come from, and what it has had to do with literature. Why have poetry and fiction always been privileged examples of freedom and its defense? What powers does speech have, who has the power to speak, and for what? Is an encounter with the fact of language, which belongs to no one and can be appropriated by anyone, at the heart of democracy? In asking about the status of the speaking human subject, we will ask about the ways in which the subject of rights, and indeed the thought of human rights itself, derives from a 'literary' experience. These questions will be examined, if not answered, across a variety of literary, philosophical, legal and political texts, including case studies and readings in contemporary critical and legal theory (Foucault, Derrida, Butler, Spivak, Fish, Agamben).

CRN	94308	Distribution	D / * (FLLC)
Course No.	SPAN 220 *Rethinking Difference
Title	The Hispanic Presence in US
Professor	Melanie Nicholson
Schedule	Mon Wed 10:00 am - 11:20 am LC 208

Cross-listed: Human Rights, LAIS, SRE

This multidisciplinary course is designed to provide an in-depth study of the historical, social, political, legal, and linguistic issues surrounding the Hispanic presence in the United States. It will also give advanced Spanish students an opportunity to utilize and improve their communication skills and broaden their cultural perspectives. The first four weeks of the semester will be devoted to instruction in ESL (English as a Second Language) pedagogy. At the end of this period, Bard students will be matched with Spanish speakers in the surrounding community and will begin providing instruction in conversational English. For the remainder of the semester, students will meet in seminar format to discuss course readings. Guest lecturers, both from within the Bard faculty and from other community agencies, will be invited to address students on particular issues, including the history of Hispanic immigration in the US (with a focus on New York state), economic issues regarding immigrants and migrants, particularly as they relate to the Hudson Valley in the past decade; political conflicts arising out of illegal immigration; legislation and the role of the INS; attitudes toward Hispanics (stereotyping; conflation of racial, linguistic, and class issues in relations among Hispanics, other minority groups, and the English-speaking majority); and issues surrounding bilingualism. Conducted in Spanish and English. Students must have at least one year of college-level Spanish, and must have approval of instructor prior to registration.

CRN	94467	Distribution	B/C / * (Lit in English)
Course No.	LIT 328
Title	Ideology and Politics in Modern Literature
Professor	Justus Rosenberg
Schedule	Tu 10:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 305

Cross-listed: Human Rights
We examine how political issues and beliefs, be they of the left, right, or center, are dramatically realized in literature. Works by Dostoyevsky, Ibsen, T.S. Eliot, Kafka, Thomas Mann, Brecht, Sartre, Malraux, Gordimer, Kundera, Neruda, and others are analyzed for their ideological content, depth of conviction, method of presentation, and the artistry with which these writers sythesize politics and literature into a permanent aesthetic experience. We also try to determine what constitutes the borderline between art and propaganda and address the question of whether it is possible to genuinely enjoy a work of literature whose political thrust and orientation is at odds with our own convictions. The discussions are supplemented by examples drawn from other art forms such as music, painting, and film.

CRN	94123	Distribution	C / * (Social Science)
Course No.	PS 239
Title	The United Nations and Model UN
Professor	Jonathan Becker
Schedule	Alternate Wed 4:30 pm - 5:50 pm OLIN 303

1 credit* The course will be divided into two parts. The first part will explore the history of the United Nations and will introduce students to its structure and principal aims. It will also focus on the role of specialized agencies and the ways in which alliances impact on the UN’s day-to-day operations. The second part of the course will focus on an assigned country (for each Model UN, each college is assigned a country to represent: this year Bard represented Azerbaijan and Moldova). It will entail a study of the country’s history, politics and economics and will conclude with the writing of ‘position papers’ that reflect that country’s approach to issues confronting the UN. In addition, there will be a public speaking component. Students taking the course will have the opportunity to participate in a Model United Nations. Students wishing to participate should e-mail [email protected] with 1-2 paragraphs indicating why they would like to participate.

*One credit per semester, two-credit course. Students must take both halves to obtain credit.

CRN	94031	Distribution	C / *(Social Science)
Course No.	SOC 242 *Rethinking Difference
Title	Historical Sociology of Punishment
Professor	Michael Donnelly
Schedule	Mon Wed 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm OLIN 203

Cross-listed: Human Rights

An analysis of punishment, and the rationales for punishing, in a variety of historical circumstances. Cases are drawn from primitive societies, Puritan New England, 18^th and 19^th century western Europe, the American South, and the recent period in the United States and Great Britain. Comparisons among such disparate cases will suggest broad developmental patterns in punishment, and more specific queries about the connections between culture, social structure, and penal strategies. The case materials also offer a historical perspective on such contemporary issues and controversies as the scope of criminal responsibility, the appropriateness of retribution, the declining concern for rehabilitating offenders, and the rationales for, and uses of, the death penalty.

CRN	94059	Distribution	C / * (History)
Course No.	AADS / ANTH 262 *Rethinking Difference
Title	Colonialism, Law, and Human Rights in Africa
Professor	Jesse Shipley
Schedule	Mon Wed 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm OLIN 204

Cross-listed: Human Rights

This course examines the colonial and missionary legacies of contemporary discourses of human rights and development. We will take a rigorously critical eye to examining how why and to what effect Western donor agencies, states, and individuals unwittingly draw on centuries old tropes of poverty, degradation, and helplessness of non-Western peoples. Specifically we will use historical descriptions of the encounters between Europeans and Africans in West Africa and South Africa to show how Western assumptions about African societies reveal the contradictions at the root of liberal discourses of aid and development. In this way we will interrogate how “aid” implies the idea of a Western individual, rights-bearing economic subject which has implications for the development of global capitalism. We will also look at case studies from Ghana, Nigeria, and post-Apartheid South Africa to examine the real legacies of human rights and development causes for the people involved. We will look at the dual legacy of British colonial law, and the relationship between customary law and state courts as a primary site for understanding conflicts over rights, citizenship, and the role of the individual in society. We will posit a complex historical and cultural ways of understanding particular case. This class is designed for students actively involved in programs in Africa and will provide some of the theoretical and empirical information for the students to approach their own projects with an informed eye.

CRN	94157	Distribution	B/C / * (Lit in English)
Course No.	LIT 276
Title	The Holocaust & Literature
Professor	Norman Manea
Schedule	Mon 1:30 pm - 3:50 pm OLIN 308

Cross-listed: Human Rights

Reading and discussion of selected short fiction and novels by such major writers as Franz Kafka, Primo Levi, Tadeusz Borowski, W.G Sebald, Aleksandar Tisma, Danilo Kis, and by two Nobel Laureates for literature, I. B. Singer and Imre Kertesz. The Holocaust will be considered in comparison with such other genocides of the twentieth century as the Gulag, communist China and Cambodia and Rwanda etc. We will debate questions about the boundaries of art incorporating unprecedented cruelty and despair, about literature of extreme situations (the traditional and the more experimental modes of narrative representation). We will also pay attention to post-Holocaust reality, to the trivialization of tragedy in fashionable, simplistic melodramas of the current mass-media culture or in political-ideological manipulation (especially in former East European socialist countries).

CRN	94089	Distribution	C
Course No.	SST 318
Title	Constitutional Law: Civil Rights and Liberties
Professor	Alan Sussman
Schedule	Tu 1:30 pm - 3:50 pm OLIN 107

Cross-listed: Human Rights

This course will focus on the legal boundaries between individual autonomy and state control. These boundaries, however, are never static, as the Constitution is an organic document, subject to continual interpretation by the Supreme Court. Topics of study will include the nature and limits of freedom of speech and religion, complex questions of equal protection (including affirmative action), intimacy and privacy (including abortion), and due process in criminal law. Landmark Supreme Court cases and opinions will be examined, enabling the student to consider the process of legal reasoning and the court’s reliance upon or deviation from prior legal authority. Relevant commentaries and historical documents will be read and discussed as well.

CRN	94065	Distribution	C / * (Social Science)
Course No.	PS 337 *Rethinking Difference
Title	Civil Society in World Politics
Professor	Omar Encarnacion
Schedule	Tu 10:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 307

Cross-listed: Human Rights

This seminar examines the rise and politics of civil society at home and abroad. It explores, first, debates over the meaning of civil society and related terminology such as "social capital" and "civic engagement," and the importance of civil society organizations, from civic associations to protest groups, to democratic performance and stability. The seminar then looks at the configuration of civil society across a wide range of states, from the United States to Western Europe to Latin America to the post-Communist world. The aim is to compare and contrast how civil society affects the nature and quality of democracy in different countries. The final part of the seminar examines the economic and political effects of what has been termed "global civil society,” from the Internet to the rise of international NGOs. Readings include Omar G. Encarnación, The Myth of Civil Society: Social Capital and Democratic Consolidation in Spain and Brazil (2003), Bob Edwards and Michael W. Foley, ed., Beyond Tocqueville: Civil Society and the Social Capital Debate in Comparative Perspective (2001), Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (1992), Grzegotz Ekiert and Jan Kubik, Rebellious Civil Society: Popular Protest and Democratic Consolidation in Poland (1999), and Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikking, Activists Without Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (1998).

CRN	94068	Distribution	C / * (Social Science)
Course No.	PS 360
Title	War is Hell: The Use of Force in International Relations
Professor	James Ketterer
Schedule	Th 10:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 307

Cross-listed: Global & Int’l Studies, Human Rights

"War is the continuation of politics by other means." So said the Prussian military theorist Karl von Clausewitz more than 170 years ago, and it remains true today. But what has changed is the nature of conflicts that oftentimes fail to adhere to classical principles of great power battles. This course introduces students to the major debates and issues concerning the use of or threat of using force in international politics, with a focus on the changing nature of security studies. Some of the issues to be studied are: how wars start and end; how wars are influenced by various political and other factors; civil-military relations; asymmetrical conflict; interventions; ethnic conflict; the role of non-state actors; responses to terrorism; and weapons of mass destruction. This course will help students develop a broad theoretical context as well as the opportunity to apply those theories to specific case studies including Iraq, Somalia, Congo, India-Pakistan, Algeria, Afghanistan and Ireland.

Courses cross-listed in Human Rights:

PS 125 West European Politics and Society

ITAL 209 Myth and Fascism in Italian Literature

ECON 214 Economic Transition

HIST/SOC 214 American Immigration

SST 220 Foundations of Marxism

HIST 2530 China in Revolution: Nationalism to Maoism

ANTH 257 Gender and Sexuality:Contemporary Brazil

ANTH 265 Race & Nature in Africa

LIT 238 Modern African Fiction

LIT 3191 Contemporary Masters: Terror and Beauty

SST 332 The Ecological Crisis

HIST 340 The Politics of History

ANTH 345 Anthropology:Capitalism/Transnationalism

PHIL / ECON 351 Economic Justice

Courses of related interest to Human Rights:

PS 115 Intro to Political Thinking

LIT 2116 The Literature of Private Life

PS 214 US-Latin American Relations

LIT 2156 Romantic Literature

SOC 227 Culture Wars

HIST 306 Intellect’l Trad. African-American Women

HIST 3127 Crime and Punishment

FREN 327 Genealogy of French Morals

ANTH 350 Contemporary Cultural Theory

HIST 3681 Modern Jewish Identity

PHIL 389 Philosophy/Literature of Jean Paul Sartre