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.