Course	HR 101 Introduction to Human Rights
Professor	Thomas Keenan
CRN	15345
Schedule	Mon Wed 11:30 - 12:50 pm ASP 302
Distribution	OLD: C	NEW: Humanities

Human Rights Core Course

An intensive introduction to contemporary discussions of human rights in a broad context. The courses mixes a basic historical and theoretical investigation of these contested categories, 'human' and 'right,' with some difficult examples of the political, social, cultural, and aesthetic dimensions of claims made in these terms.  What are humans and what count as rights, if any? We will ask about the foundations of rights claims; about legal and violent ways of advancing, defending and enforcing them; about the documents and institutions of the human rights movement; and about the questionable 'reality' of human rights in our world.  Is there such a thing as 'our' world? The answers are not obvious. They are most complicated when we are talking, as we will for most of the semester, about torture (from the ancient world to Gunataamo Bay and Abu Ghraib), so-called humanitarian intervention (from Somalia and Bosnia to Iraq and Darfur), truth commissions and war crimes tribunals (Milosevic, Hussein, South Africa, Peru), testimony and information (from Shoah to the CNN effect) and the challenges  to human rights orthodoxy posed by terrorism and the wars against it. Using texts from philosophy, history, literature, and politics, as well as contemporary news media, including screenings and the Internet, we will examine some tricky cases and troubled places, among them our own. 

Course	HR 210 The Great Dictators
Professor	Ian Buruma
CRN	15480
Schedule	Mon Wed 11:30 – 12:50 pm OLIN 107
Distribution	OLD: C	NEW:

By the end of the 20th century, many dictators had been deposed, had stepped down, or died: Chairman Mao, the Shah of Iran, Ferdinand Marcos, 'Baby' Doc, Emperor Bokassa, General Pinochet, and more. New ones have been slow to emerge. This seminar will investigate whether we have seen the last of the great dictators, or whether they will reemerge, and if so, in what form. We will review the history of great dictators, starting with the first emperor of China, Qin Shih Huangdi, and ending with the post-colonial dictators in our own time. We will read history, as well as literature, to provide a picture of what kinds of strongmen ruled in different times and cultures, and how they have gone down in history. We would also look at the reasons why people allowed themselves to be ruled by priest-kings, Big Daddies, Fuehrers, and other types of dictator. This will be an investigation into political legitimacy: religious, nationalistic, cultural, economic, and so forth. By looking at dictators of the past, the seminar also seeks to offer a sharper sense of contemporary politics, its dangers and pitfalls. This should lead to discussions - more topical than ever now - on how to defend democratic freedoms, on the dangers of media monopolies, and on the nature of human rights in different historical and cultural contexts.

Course	ANTH 261 The Anthropology of Violence and Suffering
Professor	Laura Kunreuther
CRN	15207
Schedule	Mon Wed 3:00 -4:20 pm OLIN 204
Distribution	OLD: A / C	NEW: Humanities / Rethinking Difference

Human Rights Core Course

Cross-listed: Gender and Sexuality Studies

Why do acts of violence continue to grow in the ‘modern’ world? In what ways has violence become naturalized in the contemporary world? In this course, we will consider how acts of violence challenge and support modern ideas of humanity, raising important questions about what it means to be human today. These questions lie at the heart of anthropological thinking and also structure contemporary discussions of human rights. Anthropology’s commitment to “local culture” and cultural diversity has meant that anthropologists often position themselves in critical opposition to “universal values,” which have been used to address various forms of violence in the contemporary world. The course will approach different forms of violence, including ethnic and communal conflicts, colonial education, torture and its individualizing effects, acts of terror and institutionalized fear, and rituals of bodily pain that mark individuals’ inclusion or exclusion from a social group. The course is organized around three central concerns. First, we will discuss violence as a means of producing and consolidating social and political power, and exerting political control. Second, we will look at forms of violence that have generated questions about “universal rights” of humanity versus culturally specific practices, such as widow burning in India and female genital mutilation in postcolonial Africa. In these examples, we explore gendered dimensions in the experience of violence among perpetrators, victims, and survivors. Finally, we will look at the ways human rights institutions have sought to address the profundity of human suffering and pain, and ask in what ways have they succeeded and/or failed. Readings will range from theoretical texts, anthropological ethnographies, as well as popular representations of violence in the media and film. This course fulfills a core class requirement for the Human Rights program.

Course	ARTH 289 Rights and the Image
Professor	Susan Merriam
CRN	15124
Schedule	M W 11:30 - 12:50 pm Preston Theater
Distribution	OLD: A	NEW: Analysis of Arts

Human Rights Core Course

This course examines the relationship between visual culture and human rights. It considers a wide range of visual media, as well as aspects of visuality (surveillance, profiling). The course is taught using case studies ranging in time from the early modern period (practices in which the body was marked to register criminality, for example) to the present day (the images at Abu Ghraib). Within this framework, we will study how aspects of visual culture have been used to advocate for human rights, as well as how images and visual regimes have been used to suppress human rights. An important part of the course will consider the role played by reception in shaping a discourse around human rights, visuality, and images. Subjects to be addressed include: evidence; documentation and witness; the aestheticization of violence; disaster pornography; censorship; surveillance; profiling; advocacy images; signs on the body; visibility and invisibility. Requirements include response papers, a research paper, and two exams.

Course	HIST 1001 Revolution
Professor	Robert Culp / Gregory Moynahan
CRN	15010
Schedule	Mon Wed 10:00 - 11:20 am OLIN 202
Distribution	OLD: C	NEW: History

Cross-listed: Human Rights

What is revolution? Why does it happen? Where and when have revolutions occurred, and to what effect? This course addresses these questions by exploring a range of revolutions in Europe and Asia during the past five centuries. A primary focus of the course will center on analyzing and comparing some of the most iconic and influential revolutions in world history: the French Revolution of 1789, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, and the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1921-1949. In addition, we will analyze the causes and impact of a range of other revolutionary moments, including the German Peasant Revolt of 1525, the Taiping Rebellion, the Meiji Restoration, the 1905 Revolution in Russia, the 1911 Revolution in China, China's Cultural Revolution, the protests by students and intellectuals that rocked continental Europe in 1968, and the "velvet revolutions" and near revolutions that transformed state socialism in 1989. As we compare revolutions over time, we will try to discern links or lines of influence between revolutionary movements. We will also explore how particular revolutionary movements contributed to a shared repertoire of revolutionary thought and action. No previous study of history is necessary for this course; first-year students are welcome.

Course	CLAS / History 201 Alexander the Great and the Problem of Empire
Professor	James Romm
CRN	15136
Schedule	Tu Th 1:30 2:50 pm Olin 202
Distribution	OLD: C	NEW: History

Cross-listed: Classics, Human Rights

Alexander the Great changed the world more completely than any other human being, but did he change it for the better? How should his project of extending western power into Asia be regarded, especially in light of recent attempts by the U.S. to project power into the same regions once conquered by the Macedonians? And how should Alexander himself be understood -- as a tyrant of Hitlerian proportions, or as a philosopher-king seeking to save the Greek world from self-destruction, or as an utterly deluded madman? Such questions remain very much unresolved among modern historians. In this course we will attempt to find our own answers (or lack of them) after reading thoroughly in the ancient sources concerning Alexander and examining as much primary evidence as can be gathered. Students hopefully will attain insight not only into a cataclysmic period of history but into the moral and ideological complexities that surround the issue of empire, whether in antiquity or in the modern world. No Prerequisite, but students will be greatly helped by some familiarity with Greek history or prior exposure to Herodotus and/or Thucydides.

Course	HIST 2122 The Arab-Israel Conflict
Professor	Joel Perlmann
CRN	15134
Schedule	Tu Th 4:30 -5:50 pm OLIN 202
Distribution	OLD: C	NEW: History

Cross-listed: Human Rights, Jewish Studies

This course is meant to provide students with an understanding of this conflict from its inception to the present. Considerable attention will be given to the present; nevertheless, the conflict is simply incomprehensible without a solid understanding of its evolution – incomprehensible not merely in terms of details, but in terms of broader themes and aroused passions. Among the themes to be discussed are the following. A Jewish national movement arose in the late nineteenth century to oppose the conditions of Jewish life in Europe, and an Arab national movement (as well as a specifically Palestinian movement) arose to oppose Ottoman and European rule of Arab peoples. Out of the clash of these movements emerged the State of Israel and the Palestinian refugees in 1948. The political character of the conflict has changed over the decades: first it involved competing movements (before 1948), then chiefly a conflict of national states (Israel vs. Egypt, Syria, Jordan, etc), and now it is conceived as chiefly a conflict between Israeli military rule of territories (occupied since the 1967 war) and an insurgent Palestinian independence movement. Military realities also changed greatly, as did the accusations about the role of “terror” as a tactic (from the Jewish Irgun to Hamas). And not least, the conflict has been shaped by strategic and economic considerations of the great powers (Ottoman, British, American/Soviet, hegemonic American) as well as by considerations of domestic political culture in Israel and in the Arab world.

Course	HIST 2701 The Holocaust, 1933-1945
Professor	Cecile Kuznitz
CRN	15112
Schedule	Tu Th 3:00 -4:20 pm OLIN 310
Distribution	OLD: C	NEW: History / Rethinking Difference

Cross-listed: German Studies, Human Rights, Jewish Studies This course will provide an overview of the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jewish people during the Second World War. We will examine the background of modern antisemitic movements and the aftermath of World War I; the experience of German Jews during 1933-1938; the institution of ghettos and the cultural and political activities of their Jewish populations; the turn to mass murder and its implementation in the extermination camps; and the liberation and its immediate aftermath. Emphasis will be on the development of Nazi policy and Jews’ reactions to Nazi rule, with special attention to the question of what constitutes resistance or collaboration in a situation of total war and genocide. Previous coursework in Jewish and/or European history helpful but not required.

Course	LIT 3070 Medieval Human Rights
Professor	Karen Sullivan
CRN	15070
Schedule	Fr 1:30 -3:50 pm LC 118
Distribution	OLD: B	NEW: Rethinking Difference

Cross-listed: Human Rights, Medieval Studies

Anyone who has encountered the media’s constant references to Afghanistan’s Taliban as “medieval” knows that the Middle Ages represents a time of religious fanaticism, intellectual obscurantism, and rampant violence. The “medieval,” more than any other category, continues to be used as the other against which modern society defines itself, and the Enlightenment, which popularized the concept of the rights of man, continues to perceived as the barrier protecting us against a barbaric and oppressive past. Yet is it fair to assume that just because a society had no notion of human rights, as we understand them, that there were no human rights? To what extent did medieval political concepts, such as the just war, feudalism, or chivalry, provide protections similar to those that we enjoy today under different terms? In this course we will read a series of classic medieval texts, such as Augustine's City of God, Aquinas's Summa Theologica, troubadour poetry, The Song of Roland, The Death of King Arthur, Egil's Saga, and the chronicles of Vlad the Impaler, in conjunction with some modern theoretical writings.

Course	PS 230 Political Theories of Human Rights
Professor	Elaine Thomas
CRN	15131
Schedule	Wed Fr 3:00 -4:20 pm OLIN L.C. 208
Distribution	OLD: C	NEW: Social Science

Human Rights Core Course

Through critical discussion of key recent works by liberal rights theorists and their critics, this course examines some basic questions regarding the nature of human rights claims and their theoretical foundations. The first part of this course examines the nature of human rights claims and the assumptions behind them. What does it mean to say that something is a “human right”? What assumptions does such a statement require us to make, and what sorts of claims does it make on other people? To what extent do human rights claims require us to make a quasi-religious “leap of faith,” and to what extent are they subject to rational argument and dispute? The second part of the course will then consider some of the main arguments among political theorists and philosophers about what sorts of human rights people have and how extensive they are. What would be the entailments of some of the more radical human rights claims in terms of global distribution and social welfare policy? Do human rights apply only to individuals, or also collectively to certain groups? Finally, in the last part of the class, we will turn to critical reflection on the power and possible hidden problems with relying on “human rights talk” as a language for addressing social and political issues. Why are human rights sometimes seen as just the unfortunate lot of second-class citizens?

Course	PS 320 The Spread of Democracy
Professor	Omar Encarnacion
CRN	15372
Schedule	Tu 10:30 - 12:50 pm OLIN 310
Distribution	OLD: C	NEW:

Cross-listed: Human Rights, LAIS

Since the mid-1970s, over forty nations in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia have exited authoritarian rule and inaugurated democratic government, occasioning a global democratic revolution of unprecedented proportions. The rise of open and competitive political systems in parts of the world once seemingly condemned to dictatorship raises at least two critical questions to students of political development in general and democracy in particular. What accounts for the triumphant rise of democracy at the end of the twentieth century? And what are the prospects for democratic consolidation among fledgling democracies? These questions provide the anchor for this seminar on the politics of democratization. They frame a wide range of issues and theoretical questions in the study of the politics of democratization such as whether democracy is the outcome of material prosperity or skillful political actors, which kinds of political institutions and arrangements are best suited to a new democracy, how democratizing societies settle the legacies of repression of the retreating authoritarian regime, and the links between democratization and political violence. The cases covered by the seminar include Spain, Argentina, Russia and South Africa. Open to students with a background in the social sciences.

Course	PS 357 Theories of Political and Social Change
Professor	Pierre Ostiguy
CRN	15132
Schedule	Mon 7:30 – 9:50 pm OLIN 205
Distribution	OLD: C	NEW: Social Science

Cross-listed: Human Rights, Sociology

How can we change the political condition of our society? A century ago, Lenin concisely asked “What is to be Done?”. Can we achieve political change through force of will and political strategies, as “Che” Guevara or Sorel on the left, Hitler on the right, and most of the democratic transition literature in the “center” argue? Or is long-lasting political change a product of slower, more “passive” transformations of the social fabric, such as industrialization, increased literacy and education, or the rise of so-called “post-materialist values”? Somewhere between will and structure, sociologists have highlighted the importance of historical repertoires of collective action for achieving radical transformation, while Gramscians have stressed the need to think about hegemony, the “role of the party” and cultural traditions. This course examines various theories that have sought to explain –and at times trigger—social and political change. With regard to means of political change, the course will examine electoral democratic paths, as well as non-liberal ones seeking to use violence and mobilization to achieve change. The course will compare three sorts of theories: radical theories associated with political will, from Lenin to Gramsci, “Che,” and Maoism; socially-induced theories of political change, from modernization theory to Inglehart; and actor-centered theories, from macro institutionalist theories to the contras-ting perspectives of individualist rational choice and the sociology of collective action.

Additional courses cross-listed in Human Rights:

Course	AFR 148 African Encounters
Professor	Jesse Shipley
CRN	15108
Schedule	Tu Th 11:30 - 12:50 pm OLIN 305
Distribution	OLD:	NEW:

Course	ANTH 337 Anthropology of Animals
Professor	Yuka Suzuki
CRN	15212
Schedule	Th 10:30 - 12:50 pm OLIN 303
Distribution	OLD: A / C	NEW: Social Science / Rethinking Difference

Course	ECON 260 Religion and Economics
Professor	Tamar Khitarishvili
CRN	15412
Schedule	Tu Th 10:00 - 11:20 am HDR 302
Distribution	OLD: A / C	NEW: Social Science

Course	LIT 2159 Into the Whirlwind: Literary Greatness and Gambles under Soviet Rule
Professor	Jonathan Brent
CRN	15381
Schedule	Th 7:00 – 9:20 pm OLIN 201
Distribution	OLD: B	NEW: Literature in English

Course	PS 130 Chinese Politics
Professor	Nara Dillon
CRN	15146
Schedule	Wed Fri 11:30 - 12:50 pm OLIN 101
Distribution	OLD: C	NEW: Social Science

Course	REL 282 America and the Muslim World
Professor	Nerina Rustomji
CRN	15005
Schedule	Mon Wed 11:30 - 12:50 pm OLIN 201
Distribution	OLD: A / C	NEW: Humanities

Course	SOC 120 Inequality in America
Professor	Yuval Elmelech
CRN	15013
Schedule	Tu Th 11:30 - 12:50 pm OLIN 201
Distribution	OLD: C / E	NEW: Social Science

Course	SOC 203 The History of Sociological Thought
Professor	Michael Donnelly
CRN	15014
Schedule	Mon Wed 11:30 - 12:50 pm OLIN 202
Distribution	OLD: A / C	NEW: Social Science

Course	SOC 210 Racism / Resistance / Reaction
Professor	Amy Ansell
CRN	15016
Schedule	Mon Wed 1:30 -2:50 pm OLIN 310
Distribution	OLD: A / C	NEW: Social Science

Course	SOC 338 Welfare States in Comparative Perspective
Professor	Michael Donnelly
CRN	15018
Schedule	Tu 1:30 -3:50 pm OLIN 303
Distribution	OLD: C	NEW: Social Science

Related interest:

ANTH 263 Language and Mass Media
ARTH 110 Art and Nation-Building
HIST 102 Europe since 1815
HIST 115 Race as a Variable in History

HIST 141 A Haunted Union

HIST 3125 Immigration/American Society

HIST 3230 Infrastructure History

SOC 205 Intro to Research Methods