Course	HR 227 Dissent and Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe
Professor	Helena Gibbs
CRN	18489
Schedule	Tu Th 10:30 – 11:50 am OLIN 304
Distribution	Social Science

(Human Rights core course)

Cross-listed: GISP

Václev Havel, in his seminal essay “The Power of the Powerless” (1978), defined Eastern European dissidents as “those who decided to ‘live in truth’.” Reading a variety of philosophical, political, and literary texts by such prominent dissidents as Havel, Jan Patočka, Andrei Sakharov, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, Czeslav Milosz, Joseph Brodsky, and Miclós Haraszti, we will consider the modes of resistance against the totalitarian systems in the former Soviet Block countries. Czechoslovakia’s dissident movement, Charter 77, and its conceptual basis, “moral politics,” will serve as a foil against which we shall discuss such issues as strategies of resistance, mechanisms of political identification, the role of intellectuals and writers, and the phenomenon of underground publishing. The ethical dimension of resistance to abuses of power will constitute the central thread of our inquiry, which we will follow beyond the framework of Eastern European totalitarianism and into the contemporary silencing of dissent in the U.S. To guide our discussions, the readings will include excerpts from philosophy and contemporary theory. On-line registration

Course	ANTH / HR 233 Problems in Human Rights
Professor	John Ryle
CRN	18172
Schedule	Mon Wed 12:00 -1:20 pm Olin 203
Distribution	Social Science

HRP Core course

This course approaches a set of practical and ethical human rights issues through the study of historical and contemporary campaigns, starting with the British anti-slavery movement of the 18th and 19th centuries.  Emphasis on practical questions of strategy and organization and the problems that arise from these. What were the challenges these early campaigners faced?  How did they resolve them?  What alliances of interest did they confront? And what coalitions did they form to combat them?  The course also considers how human rights campaigners have engaged with - and been part of - wider political, religious and economic changes. It continues with examinations of the landmine ban campaign,  female genital mutilation/modification and child soldiers - and the ideological challenges these issues present to the international regime of human rights. When, if ever, are indigenous values more important than universal principles? What is the relation of human rights to religious values?  Is human rights itself a quasi-religious belief system? Finally the course considers some contemporary challenges facing the human rights movement: the return of slavery and slave-like practices, the question of genocide in Darfur and the rights of animals. On-line registration

Course	HR 235 A New Law on Earth: Dignity and the Human Rights Tradition
Professor	Roger Berkowitz
CRN	18220
Schedule	Mon Wed 1:30 -2:50 pm PRE 128
Distribution	Social Science / Rethinking Difference

Cross-listed: Political Studies

We live at a time when the claim to human rights is both taken for granted and regularly disregarded. One reason for the disconnect between the reality and the ideal of human rights is that human rights have never been given a secure philosophical foundation. Indeed, many have argued that absent a religiously grounded faith in human dignity, there is no legal ground for human rights. Might it be that human rights are simply well-meaning aspirations without legal or philosophical foundation? And what is dignity anyway? Ought we to abandon talk about dignity and admit that human rights are groundless? Against this view, human rights advocates, international lawyers, and constitutional judges continue to speak of dignity as the core value of the international legal system. Indeed, lawyers in Germany and South Africa are developing a "dignity jurisprudence" that might guarantee human rights on the foundation of human dignity. Is it possible, therefore, to develop a secular and legally meaningful idea of dignity that can offer a ground for human rights? This class explores both the modern challenge to dignity and human rights as well as attempts to resuscitate a new and more coherent secular ideal of dignity as a legally valid guarantee of human rights. In addition to texts including Hannah Arendt's book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, we read legal cases, and documents from international law.

On-line registration

Course	HR 237 Religion and Democracy
Professor	Ian Buruma
CRN	18492
Schedule	Mon Wed 10:30 – 11:50 am OlinLC 115
Distribution	Social Science

Cross-listed: GISP; Religion

The course will look at the destructive and constructive roles of religion in politics. We will investigate the impact on European democracies of Muslim immigration, the influence of the religious right in the US, and the ways traditionally polytheistic societies, like China and Japan, have dealt with religion. The approach will be historical as well as cultural, giving the students different perspectives on a perennial problem: how to tame the aggressive potential in religious and utopian dreams. Among other things, we will read Tocqueville on democracy in America, Olivier Roy on European Islam, Levinson on Confucianism in China, and such literary works as Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry.

Course	HR / ARTH 240 Observation and Description
Professor	Gilles Peress
CRN	18498
Schedule	Tu Th 2:30 – 3:50 pm OLIN 205
Distribution	Social Science

Cross-listed: Art History

We will study the observation and description of reality as a fundamental and daunting problem for human rights. Pain, violence, victimization, and injustice have long been a part of human reality. Can we change, or are we doomed to repeat ourselves and kill and torture one another until the end of time? The answer is not obvious. But one thing is certain: as long as we stay in the cave, in obscurity, and only look at shadows, we are not going to resolve this conundrum. Going into the world, trying to look at it and describe it, is the only way for us to escape that cavern of ideology, of disempowering shadows and ghosts. And while there is no such a thing as truth or objectivity, this process of trying to understand what we see, how we see it and how to describe it, brings us closer to a resolution -- by action -- of this fundamental question. In order to reach the point of rawness where we reformulate for ourselves what observation and description are, we must escape the predicament and predictability of known methods and forms. We need to position ourselves in a no-man’s land, beyond traditional specializations in knowledge and practice. In this seminar, we are out to re-appropriate reality, to get at perception before it has been shaped as expression, to see images in the heart and eye before they harden as categories, styles, definitions -- and if it is possible to do so, to reconcile the layers of meanings and to pull from all these contradictions some organized process, where the documentary act begins. We will focus on visual awareness, not as an illustration of ideas, but as a seed for ideas in themselves. We will try, through examples and assignments, to investigate how non-professionals can use not only current technologies but also new visual attitudes, so that reports and communications can escape their usual dreariness, so that human rights reporting can be formalized in such a way as to escape its own ghetto and be made attractive, visually and emotionally engaging to the largest possible audience. On-line registration

Course	HR 330 Biopolitics Today
Professor	Olivia Custer
CRN	18491
Schedule	Tu 1:30 – 3:50 pm OLIN 302
Distribution	Social Science

From the death penalty or abortion, to Guantanamo or Katrina, many contemporary debates about the State’s prerogatives and responsibilities hinge, at least in part, on claims about its obligation not only to protect life, but also to protect a certain quality of life. In this context, the concepts of “biopower” and “biopolitics” may allow new ways of framing some basic questions in politics and ethics. This course will examine the genealogy and implementations of the concept of “biopolitics” with special attention to the work of Michel Foucault, and explore the different uses which have been made of it. Under what conditions does a problem involving life and politics become a problem or for biopolitics? How does this reflect, or serve, a change in the ways sovereignty is conceived and exercised? Do the specifics of biopolitics imply a redefinition of the human life to which rights refer? We will examine how Foucault’s original analyses of “biopower” have been contested and recast by more recent theorists, particularly Giorgio Agamben and Wendy Brown. Additional readings will be chosen from the tradition which constitutes the theoretical background to these discussions (Arendt, Aristotle, Derrida, Nietzsche), from recent academic work (Henry Giroux, Antonio Negri, Jacques Ranciere, Eugene Thacker), and from contemporary texts produced in the public sphere. On-line registration

Course	HR / HIST 3143 Perspectives of War: The Pacific War through Japanese and American Eyes
Professor	Ian Buruma
CRN	18493
Schedule	Tues 1:30 – 3:50 pm RKC 102
Distribution	Social Science

In this course we will look at the same historical period through Japanese as well as US eyes. This will include histories, eye-witness accounts, novels, and films made during the war itself and afterwards. Various types of propaganda, as well as national and political biases, will be analyzed. Controversial events, such as the Nanjing Massacre, Pearl Harbor, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, will be looked at from different national and political perspectives, giving the student a grounding in history, as well as culture. US debates on the first atom bombing will be part of the course, as will the continuing controversies in Japan over school textbooks and memorials. Although classified as a history course, the students are expected to attend the film screenings even when they take place outside normal class hours. Individual research will be encouraged, and participation in class discussions will be valued as highly as written work. Books to be used will include John Dower’s War Without Mercy, Ian Buruma’s Inventing Japan, as well as novels by Endo Shusaku, and Oe Kenzaburo. Wartime Japanese films, such as Sea Battle in Hawaii and Malaya (about Pearl Harbor), will be analyzed, as well as postwar anime films, such as Grave of the Fireflies (about US bombing), Hell in the Pacific, Hiroshima’s Children, and The Burmese Harp.

(Descriptions of courses cross-listed in Human Rights can be found in the primary section.)

Course	AFR 148 African Encounters
Professor	Jesse Shipley
CRN	18175
Schedule	TuTh 2:30 -3:50 pm Olin 203
Distribution	History/ Rethinking Difference

Course	ANTH 213 Anthropology of Medicine
Professor	Diana Brown
CRN	18167
Schedule	Mon Wed 1:30 -2:50 pm Olin 203
Distribution	Social Science

Course	ANTH 248 Colonials in Africa
Professor	Mario Bick
CRN	18169
Schedule	TuTh 9:00 - 10:20 am Olin 107
Distribution	Humanities/ Rethinking Difference

Course	ANTH 268 War, Culture, and Politics in Sudan
Professor	John Ryle
CRN	18483
Schedule	Mon Wed 3:00 -4:20 pm Olin 204
Distribution	Social Science

Course	ANTH 337 Cultural Politics of Animals
Professor	Yuka Suzuki
CRN	18176
Schedule	Th 1:30 -3:50 pm RKC 200
Distribution	Social Science / Rethinking Difference

Course	ANTH 343 Middle Eastern Modernities
Professor	Jeffrey Jurgens
CRN	18170
Schedule	Mon 9:30 - 11:50 am Olin 307
Distribution	Social Science/ Rethinking Difference

Course	ARTH 225 Contested Images and Iconoclastic Acts: A History of Image Destruction
Professor	Susan Merriam
CRN	18336
Schedule	Wed Fr 12:00 -1:20 pm Olin 102
Distribution	Analysis of Art

Course	ITAL 220 Forbidden Books, Prohibited Knowledge
Professor	Nina Cannizzaro
CRN	18069
Schedule	Tu Th 1:00 -2:20 pm Olin 301
Distribution	Literature in English

Course	HIST 102 Europe from 1815 to present
Professor	Gennady Shkliarevsky
CRN	18215
Schedule	Mon Wed 1:30 -2:50 pm RKC 101
Distribution	History

Course	HIST 115 Race as Variable in History
Professor	Myra Armstead
CRN	18195
Schedule	TuTh 10:30 - 11:50 am Olin 203
Distribution	History/ Rethinking Difference

Course	HIST 2356 Native Peoples of North America
Professor	Christian Crouch
CRN	18199
Schedule	Mon Wed 1:30 -2:50 pm HEG 102
Distribution	History/ Rethinking Difference

Course	HIST 2530 China in Revolution: Nationalism to Maoism
Professor	Robert Culp
CRN	18203
Schedule	TuTh 10:30 - 11:50 am RKC 102
Distribution	History/ Rethinking Difference

Course	HIST 3107 Fugitives, Exile, Extradition
Professor	Tabetha Ewing
CRN	18206
Schedule	Fr 9:30 - 11:50 am RKC 200
Distribution	History/ Rethinking Difference

Course	HIST 3142 Violence in Colonial America
Professor	Christian Crouch
CRN	18198
Schedule	Th 9:30 - 11:50 am Olin 305
Distribution	History/ Rethinking Difference

Course	HIST 3234 Your Papers Please? Technocracy, Technology, and Social Control in Nazi Germany, the DDR and BRD
Professor	Gregory Moynahan
CRN	18212
Schedule	Tu 1:30 -3:50 pm RKC 200
Distribution	History

Course	HIST 347 1917 Revolution in Russia
Professor	Gennady Shkliarevsky
CRN	18216
Schedule	Th 4:00 -6:20 pm Olin 107
Distribution	History

Course	LIT 234 Literature of the Crusades
Professor	Karen Sullivan
CRN	18053
Schedule	Tu Th 4:00 -5:20 pm Aspinwall 302
Distribution	Literature in English

Course	LIT 246 African Women Writers
Professor	Chinua Achebe
CRN	18033
Schedule	Wed 1:30 -3:50 pm Olin 101
Distribution	Literature in English/ Rethinking Difference

Course	LIT 2482 Narratives of Suffering
Professor	Geoffrey Sanborn
CRN	18051
Schedule	Tu Th 10:30 - 11:50 am Olin 201
Distribution	Literature in English

Course	LIT 2430 Quarrel of Reason and Faith
Professor	Karen Sullivan
CRN	18104
Schedule	Tu Th 10:30 - 11:50 am Olin 101
Distribution	Literature in English / Rethinking Difference

Course	LIT 3209 Media and Conflict
Professor	Thomas Keenan
CRN	18040
Schedule	Tu 1:30 -3:50 pm Olin 204
Distribution	Humanities

Course	PHOT 316 Art and the Uses of Photography
Professor	Barbara Ess
CRN	18501
Schedule	Wed 9:00 – 12:00 pm Woods
Distribution	Practicing Arts

Course	PS 104 International Relations
Professor	Jonny Cristol
CRN	18223
Schedule	Mon Wed 3:00 -4:20 pm Olin 205
Distribution	Social Science

Course	PS 125 West European Politics and Society
Professor	Elaine Thomas
CRN	18014
Schedule	TuTh 1:00 -2:20 pm Olin 202
Distribution	Social Science / Rethinking Difference

Course	PS 261 Development for Empowerment
Professor	Takeshi Ito
CRN	18231
Schedule	Tu Th 4:00 -5:20 pm Olin 305
Distribution	Social Science/ Rethinking Difference

Course	PS 349 The Nature of Power
Professor	Jonny Cristol
CRN	18224
Schedule	Mon 4:30 -6:50 pm Olin 202
Distribution	Social Science

Course	PS 380 Advanced Topics in Political and Legal Thinking
Professor	Roger Berkowitz
CRN	18221
Schedule	Tu 4:00 -6:20 pm RKC 200
Distribution	Social Science

Course	PSY 348 The Man and the Experiment that Shocked the World: Work and Legacy of Stanley Milgram
Professor	Stuart Levine
CRN	18245
Schedule	Mon 3:00 -6:00 pm .
Distribution	Social Science

Course	REL 321 Seminar in Islamic Law: Jihad
Professor	Ismail Acar
CRN	18160
Schedule	Tu 9:30 - 11:50 am RKC 200
Distribution	Humanities/ Rethinking Difference

Course	SPAN 260 Writing Wrongs: The Literature of the Spanish Civil War
Professor	Gabriela Carrion
CRN	18084
Schedule	Mon Wed 10:30 – 11:50 am OLIN L.C. 120
Distribution	Foreign Language, Literature, and Culture

Course	SOC 203 The History of Sociological Thought
Professor	Michael Donnelly
CRN	18261
Schedule	Mon Wed 1:30 -2:50 pm Olin 201
Distribution	Social Science

Course	SOC 205 Introduction to Research Methods
Professor	Yuval Elmelech
CRN	18260
Schedule	TuTh 2:30 -3:50 pm Olin 305 / HDRANX 106
Distribution	Mathematics & Computing

Course	SOC 244 Current Issues in Israeli Society, Politics and Culture
Professor	Yuval Elmelech
CRN	18219
Schedule	TuTh 10:30 - 11:50 am Olin 308
Distribution	Social Science / Rethinking Difference

Course	SOC 254 Social Movements
Professor	Roberto Vélèz-Vélèz
CRN	18258
Schedule	Mon Wed 9:00 - 10:20 am Olin 309
Distribution	Social Science