Course |
HR 210 The Great Dictators |
|
Professor |
Ian Buruma |
|
CRN |
16426 |
|
Schedule |
Mon Wed 12:00
-1:20 pm OLIN 205 |
|
Distribution |
OLD: n/a |
NEW:
|
Cross-listed: GISPBy
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 seenthe 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.
Thiswill 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 |
PS 267 The Foundation of the Law: The Quest for Justice |
|
Professor |
Roger Berkowitz |
|
CRN |
16126 |
|
Schedule |
Mon Wed 10:30
- 11:50 am PRE 128 |
|
Distribution |
OLD: C |
NEW: Social
Science
|
Cross-listed: Human Rights
Corporate executives hire high-priced
lawyers to flout the law with impunity. Indigent defendants are falsely
convicted, and even executed for crimes they did not commit. We say that law is
the institutional embodiment of justice. And yet, it is equally true that law,
as it is practiced, seems to have little connection to justice. As the novelist
William Gaddis writes: “Justice? You get justice in the next world. In this
world, you have the law.” This course explores the apparent disconnect between
law and justice. Can contemporary legal systems offer justice? Can we, today,
still speak of a duty to obey the law? Is it possible to do justice?
Through readings of legal cases as well as political, literary, and
philosophical texts, we seek to understand the problem of administering justice
as it emerges in the context of contemporary legal institutions. Texts will
include selections from Dostoyevsky, Kant, Twain, Melville, Plato, Blackstone,
Holmes, Milton, and others. Required texts: Immanuel Kant, Groundwork
of a Metaphysic of Morals. All other material is available on the Reserve
Web website. On-line
Course |
HIST 2702 Liberty, National Rights and Human Rights: The Origins and Implications of Human Rights Law, Institutions and Policy in the Modern Period |
|
Professor |
Gregory Moynahan |
|
CRN |
16028 |
|
Schedule |
Tu Th 10:30 - 11:50 am OLIN 204 |
|
Distribution |
OLD: C |
NEW: History
|
Human Rights core course.
The history of 'human rights' can formally be said to come into
existence only with the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the successor
conventions that ultimately formed the International Bill of Human Rights. Both
the declaration and its later instantiations were created in reaction to the
problems of genocide and mass population transfers (and consequent loss of
citizenship) during the Second World War. This course will begin by examining
the fatal gaps in the previous system of nationally instantiated “universal”
rights as they were initially developed in Europe and selectively applied to or
adopted by its colonies. Beginning with the pursuit of liberties in peasant
communes and early modern law, we will examine the creation of national rights
from the treaty of Westphalia through the British, American, and French
revolutions, and the relation of these rights to colonial administration. The
post-war institutions of human rights provided a new justification for a
universal and 'open' standard of laws and fealty (often compared to imperial
Rome) and ultimately provided new legitimation for the selective intervention
of stronger powers in the affairs of weaker political or legal entities. By
focusing on case studies, particularly those from the contrasting cases of the
European Union and United States, the relation of human rights to hegemonic
power will be examined in detail. The course will also examine the relation of
politics to the infrastructures that made both widespread human rights
infractions and their curtailment possible. The role of media (telegraph,
radio, etc.), systems of organization (passports, criminal archives) and police
(secret police, international monitors) will be considered as modern
transnational phenomenon that are intimately connected with the development and
fate of enforcing human rights norms. The final section of the course will look
at the role of international NGO's in both monitoring human rights and
criticizing the state of existing human rights law, particularly in their
criticism of human rights as a product of a particular north Atlantic
perspective and set of biases. On-line
Course |
THTR 310F Dissent and its Performance |
|
Professor |
Thomas Keenan / Chiori Miyagawa |
|
CRN |
16415 |
|
Schedule |
Wed 9:30 - 11:50 am Fisher P. Arts |
|
Distribution |
OLD: A/B |
NEW: Analysis
of Arts
|
Cross-listed: Human Rights, Literature, & Theater
What is
dissent and how does it manifest itself? What counts as disagreement? Are there
boundaries to legitimate dissent? How do we recognize, and engage in,
fundamental debates? We will explore
the possibilities, strategies, and limits of dissent in a wide range of plays,
ethical and political statements, and theoretical texts. We will spend most of
the semester on four topics: ancient Greece, recent tyrannies and repressive
societies, war and the opposition to it, and contemporary terrorism and
counter-terrorism. After reading
selections from Greek drama -- one of the oldest known forms of dissent -- we
will focus on politics and theater from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
We will discuss freedom of expression (from samizdat to hate speech to jihadi
internet sites), antiwar protests in 20th century America, and the distinction
between speaking and acting, drawing from extreme forms of expressions as well
as texts in contemporary human rights theory. In addition to analyzing dissent,
the course examines the relationship between oppositional belief and its
manifestation in the form of performances. We will be especially interested in
what difference performance makes, in order to understand the relation between content
and form in dissent. Among the authors considered are Euripides, Sophocles,
Langston Hughes, Tony Kushner, Ariel Dorfman, Vaclev Havel, Emily Mann, Arthur
Miller, Naomi Wallace, Suzan-Lori Parks, Athol Fugard, August Wilson, Susan
Sontag, Arundhati Roy, Emma Goldman, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Ranciejjre. On-line
This course is open to upper college
students and some sophomores with a permission of the instructors.
Course |
LIT 3023 Poetry and Society |
|
Professor |
Joan Retallack |
|
CRN |
16139 |
|
Schedule |
Tu 4:00 -6:20 pm OLIN 101 |
|
Distribution |
OLD: B |
NEW: Literature
in English
|
See
Literature section for description.
Course |
SOC 246 Race & Ethnicity: The Key Concepts |
|
Professor |
Amy Ansell |
|
CRN |
16051 |
|
Schedule |
Tu Th 1:00 -2:20 pm ASP 302 |
|
Distribution |
OLD: A |
NEW: Social
Science / Rethinking Difference
|
See Sociology section for description.