11882

HUM 245 Drones

Thomas Keenan

. T . . .

4:40 pm – 7:00 pm

HEG 308

HUM

Cross-listed: Computer Science, Human Rights (2 credits) Drones are, literally and figuratively, everywhere. To most, drones watch and attack militants -- among others -- in the War on Terror, sometimes with alarming results. But soon, drones will be patrolling our own skies. What exactly is the drone, why does it matter, and how should we, as a society, respond to it? This seminar is an interdisciplinary bid to answer that question. We will explore the drone in literature, beginning with harpies and demigods in ancient Greek mythology, to consider our millennial fear of, and fascination with, the sky. We will consider the drone in the history of warfare, comparing it to previous technological advancements, from the long bow to the hydrogen bomb. We will ask about the ethics and politics of surveillance, and explore the emergence of automated devices for seeing and fighting at a distance. We will complicate the prevailing sinister image of the drone by studying how it can be used as a social good in activism, art, conservation, and disaster relief. The seminar will feature regular guest speakers across a range of disciplines, including faculty members from computer science, human rights, electronic arts, politics, and philosophy, as well as activists and professional analysts. We will examine the contemporary public debate about the drone and, drawing on our broad approach, attempt to intervene in it. Participants will be expected to develop original insights on the topic based on their own academic interests, and articulate those insights in writing. This seminar is the first organizational phase of a new student-initiated interdisciplinary research project on autonomous technology. Students from all academic divisions are encouraged to apply. Class size: 25

 

11511

PS 231 Humanitarian Military Intervention

Michelle Murray

M . W . .

1:30 pm -2:50 pm

OLINLC 210

SSCI

Cross-listed: Global & Int'l Studies, Human Rights (core course) When should states use military force to alleviate human suffering? Does the need to intervene to stop human rights violations outweigh the right of states to maintain control over territory? The international states system is built upon the principles of sovereignty and nonintervention. Yet over the past two decades human rights have emerged as an increasingly accepted justification legitimizing the use of force. This apparent tension between the respect for state sovereignty and the inevitable violations that result from the use of military force for humanitarian purposes is at the center of the debate over human rights in the field of international relations. This course explores the dilemmas and controversies surrounding the use of force for humanitarian purposes. The first part examines the major ethical, political and strategic arguments for and against humanitarian military intervention. The second part focuses on specific instances where states undertook, or failed to undertake, a humanitarian military intervention (for example, Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Sudan, Libya and Syria, among others). Through an examination of particular case studies, we will better understand why the international community has such an inconsistent record of stopping humanitarian crises and what the limitations and possibilities of human rights are in international politics. Class size: 20

 

11365

ANTH 233 Problems in Human Rights

John Ryle

M . W . .

10:10am - 11:30am

OLIN 201

SSCI/DIFF

Cross-listed: Global & Int'l Studies; Human Rights (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. The emphasis is on practical questions of strategy and organization and the problems that arise from these. What were the challenges that 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 examines the negotiations and compromises that led to a key event in the twentieth-century human rights history: the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Has the subsequent success of the human rights movement - particularly the expansion of international human rights legislation - changed its character? The course examines the landmine ban campaign, the campaign against female genital cutting and the campaign against child soldiers - and considers the ideological challenges these issues present to the international human rights regime. 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 and the question of genocide in Darfur, in particular the role of the International Criminal Court. Class size: 22

 

11706

HR 241 Law & Society: Constitutions

Peter Rosenblum

. T . Th .

1:30pm - 2:50 pm

ALBEE 106

HIST

(HRP Core course) The constitution stands at the intersection of law and society. It is many things: a basic law, a social contract, a statement of aspirations and a road map for governance. It application reflects the continuing struggles of a society to define itself through law. Constitutionalism has been a feature of the modern state for several centuries. Written constitutions with elaborate human rights provisions enforced by 'courts' are a very recent innovation. In the course of 50 years, they have gone from being a relative rarity to a widespread norm. This class will look at the theory and practice of constitutionalism across different countries and regions, focusing particularly on the recent decades. After anchoring the discussion in historical sources and the peculiar role of the US constitution, we will look at 'cases and controversies' from other countries, including France, Germany, India, South Africa, Israel and parts of South America. Class size: 20

 

11707

HR 244 Reproductive Health and Human Rights

Helen Epstein

. T . Th .

1:30pm - 2:50 pm

RKC 115

SSCI

Cross-listed: Gender & Sexuality Studies This course will cover population growth and family planning, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, prostitution and sex trafficking, maternal mortality, gender violence, female genital mutilation, abortion and LGBT rights. Emphasis will be placed on how public policies concerning these issues have evolved over time in relation to historical events such as the Cold War, decolonization, immigration and changing attitudes to the family.

Class size: 20

 

11575

ARTH 289 Rights and the Image

Susan Merriam

M . W . .

11:50 am -1:10 pm

OLIN 102

AART

Cross-listed: Experimental Humanities, Human Rights (Core course) An examination of the relationship between visual culture and human rights, using case studies that range in time from the early modern period (marking the body to register criminality, for example) to the present day (images from Abu Ghraib). Subjects addressed include evidence, disaster photography, advocacy images, censorship, and visibility and invisibility. Class size: 22

 

11709

HR 303 Research in Human Rights

Peter Rosenblum

. . . Th .

10:10am - 12:30 pm

OLIN 306

HUM

What is it to do research, academic or otherwise, in the field of human rights? What are the relevant methods, and tools? How do the political and ethical considerations central to the discourse of human rights enter into the actual conduct of research? The seminar, required for junior Human Rights majors, will explore a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to the field, reading a variety of examples across an interdisciplinary landscape. Readings include texts in continental philosophy, political and social theory, literary and cultural studies, international law, media and visual culture, gender and identity research, documentary and testimony, quantitative analysis including GIS and statistical data, oral and archival history, among others, and many case studies in actual human rights reporting. The seminar is required for Juniors in Human Rights, and is also open to others if there is space.

Class size: 15

 

11708

HR 318 Persons and Things

Ann Seaton

M . W . .

1:30pm - 2:50 pm

OLIN 107

ELIT

Cross-listed: Experimental Humanities The course will explore the question of personhood in law, aesthetics, and culture, focusing on the relations between persons and things. The fragility of the boundary between persons and things is a recurring structure in the history of human rights. How do persons become things, and vice versa? How can things have rights, and how do they claim and exercise them? Topics include the legal definition of "person", gender and personhood, "illegal"/undocumented aliens, structures of personification, reification, and anthromorphism, poetry and sculpture, personhood as property, internet avatars and profiles, and the Pygmalion complex. Texts by Ovid, Locke, Kleist, Hawthorne, Heidegger, Lacan, Baudelaire, Plath, Harriet Jacobs, and Barbara Johnson, as well as films, videos, and websites. Student assignments will consist of response papers, one 7-10 page essay, and a final project. Final projects may use various forms of media (music, animation, performance, sculpture, photography, personal narrative) to respond to a conceptual question that students develop. Class size: 15

 

11710

HR 343 Empathy, Photography, and

Human Rights

Gilles Peress

. T . . .

1:30pm - 3:50 pm

HDR 101A

HUM

Starting with influential historical accounts by Lynn Hunt and others, we will explore the ways in which empathy has played a defining role in the establishment of human rights, both as consciousness and as constitutional and international law. We will explore how, in the late 19th- and early 20th-century, this notion of empathy becomes expressed and formalized increasingly through the usage of photography. We will then examine how, today, within the post-modernist framework of writers like Susan Sontag (Regarding the Pain of Others) and Ingrid Sischy (Good Intentions), this process of empathy through photography is being challenged at the very core of its various stylistic interpretations. This creates a conundrum of representation at the heart of both the human rights and humanitarian movements. For without photography -- which is to say, the vector by which NGOs generate knowlege, evidence, and funding, based on a sense of empathy and urgency -- there would probably be fewer human rights and no humanitarian movement.

Class size: 18

 

11711

HR 412 Re-reading "The Family of Man"

Thomas Keenan

. T . . .

10:10am - 12:30 pm

CCS

AART

Cross-listed: Experimental Humanities Ever since its inaugural exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1955, the 503 photographs in "The Family of Man" have been a topic of fascination and debate, critique and enthusiasm. The seminar will explore the images and the debates in order to re-examine the exhibit as a sort of archive of the human rights imagination, and to investigate the powerful relation between contemporary human rights discourse and the photographic image. The exhibition can be seen as an effort to stage a visual parallel to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) adopted in 1948. The photos collected and shown in it attempt to establish a common visual standard for measuring right and wrong on a global scale. Most of the photos chosen serve this goal successfully, but what is seen in them, or what can be learned through them, is not only this. After the famous critiques of the exhibition's de-historicizing universalism by Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag, among others, and after numerous attempts to re-exhibit and re-frame the photographs in exhibitions and counter-exhibitions, what remains striking is how little attention has been paid to reading and interpreting the images themselves. We will focus on producing detailed research and analysis of some images from the show, as part of a larger international project at a number of universities inspired by an idea from Ariella Azoulay. Class size: 18

 

 

Cross-listed courses, see primary section for descriptions:

 

11568

ARTH 244 Contemporary African Art

Teju Cole

M . W . .

3:10 pm -4:30 pm

HEG 102

AART/DIFF

 

11565

ARTH 353 Outsider Art

Susan Aberth

. . W . .

1:30 pm -3:50 pm

HDR 101A

AART

 

11802

ARTH 388 Contemporary Queer Theory

Jeannine Tang

. . W . .

10:30am - 1:00 pm

CCS

AART

 

11331

CHI / ASIA 205 Representations of Tibet

Li-Hua Ying

. T . Th .

3:40 pm -5:00 pm

OLINLC 120

ELIT/DIFF

 

11811

HIST 190 The Cold War:

Enemy/Globalism

Gennady Shkliarevsky /

Mark Lytle

. T . Th .

3:10 – 4:30 pm

RKC 103

HIST/DIFF

 

11882

HUM 245 Drones

Thomas Keenan

. T . . .

4:40 pm – 7:00 pm

HEG 308

HUM

 

11697

LIT 2195 Why Do They Hate Us? Representing the Middle East

Dina Ramadan

. T . Th .

10:10am - 11:30am

OLIN 107

FLLC

 

11756

LIT 358 Exile & Estrangement Fiction

Norman Manea

M . . . .

3:10 pm -5:30 pm

OLIN 303

ELIT

 

11370

PSY 246 Psychology of Good and Evil

Kristin Lane

M . W . .

3:10 pm -4:30 pm

OLIN 203

SSCI

 

11461

PSY 261 Child Survival and Human Rights

Helen Epstein

. T . Th .

3:10 pm -4:30 pm

OLIN 201

SSCI

 

11364

ANTH 218 Africa: The Great Rift

John Ryle

M . W . .

1:30 pm -2:50 pm

OLIN 305

SSCI/DIFF

 

11459

ANTH 235 Economies of Gift & Sacrifice

Robert Weston

. T . Th .

11:50 am -1:10 pm

OLIN 204

SSCI

 

11457

ANTH 326 Urban Guerrillas:

Anthropology of Political Resistance

Neni Panourgia

. T . . .

1:30 pm -3:50 pm

OLIN 306

HUM/DIFF

 

11456

ANTH 342 Post-Secular Aesthetics?

Abou Farman Farmaian

. . . Th .

10:10am - 12:30pm

OLINLC 206

HUM/DIFF

 

11812

HIST 102 Europe from 1815 to the Present

Gennady Shkliarevsky

M . W . .

11:50am - 1:10 pm

HEG 201

HIST

 

11486

HIST 178 Africa South of the Sahara,

1800 to the Present

Wendy Urban-Mead

. T . Th .

1:30 pm -2:50 pm

OLIN 203

HIST

 

11487

HIST 185 History of Modern Middle East

Charles Anderson

. T . Th .

11:50 am -1:10 pm

HEG 106

HIST/DIFF

 

11488

HIST 215 Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism

and the Contemporary Middle East

Charles Anderson

. T . Th .

3:10 pm -4:30 pm

OLIN 305

HIST

 

11480

HIST 2133 Making of the Atlantic World

Christian Crouch

M . W . .

1:30 pm -2:50 pm

OLIN 202

HIST/DIFF

 

11478

HIST 269 Encounters in the American Borderlands

Christian Crouch

M . W . .

11:50 am -1:10 pm

OLIN 202

HIST

 

11813

HIST 2701 The Holocaust, 1933-1945

Cecile Kuznitz

M . W . .

10:10am-11:30am

RKC 200

HIST/DIFF

 

11361

HIST / PS 283 Environmental Politics

in East Asia

Robert Culp / Ken Haig

. T . Th .

10:10am - 11:30am

OLIN 202

SSCI

 

11479

HIST 314 Violent Cultures and Material Pleasures in the Atlantic World

Christian Crouch

. . . Th .

10:10am - 12:30 pm

OLIN 303

HIST

 

11490

PHIL 118 Human Nature

Kritika Yegnashankaran

M . W . .

11:50 am -1:10 pm

OLIN 205

HUM

 

11504

PS / PHIL 167 Foundations of the Law

Roger Berkowitz

M . W . .

1:30 pm -2:50 pm

ASP 302

HUM

 

11495

PHIL 251 Ethical Theory

William Griffith

. T . Th .

1:30 pm -2:50 pm

ASP 302

HUM

 

11496

PHIL 256 Environmental Ethics

Daniel Berthold

M . W . .

10:10am - 11:30am

OLIN 301

HUM

 

11510

PS 104 International Relations

Michelle Murray

M . W . .

3:10 pm -4:30 pm

RKC 103

SSCI

 

11507

PS 249 War, Sovereignty, and the Subject

of International Politics

Christopher McIntosh

M . W . .

10:10am - 11:30am

OLIN 204

SSCI

 

11514

PS 263 Democracy and the Rise

of Fascism: The "Twenty Years' Crisis"

Ian Storey

. . W . F

11:50am-1:10 pm

HEG 308

SSCI

 

 

11361

PS 283 Environmental Politics in East Asia

Robert Culp / Ken Haig

. T . Th .

10:10am - 11:30am

OLIN 202

SSCI

 

11788

PS 314 Political Economy of Development

Sanjib Baruah

. . W . .

10:10am - 12:30pm

OLIN 306

SSCI

 

11509

PS 377 Grand Strategy From Sun Tzu

to Clausewitz

Walter Mead

. . . Th .

1:30 pm -3:50 pm

OLIN 307

SSCI/DIFF

 

11667

SOC 126 Race and Place in Urban America

Clement Thery

. T . Th .

6:20 pm -7:40 pm

OLIN 201

SSCI/DIFF

 

11664

SOC 135 Sociology of Gender

Allison McKim

M . W . .

3:10 pm -4:30 pm

OLIN 201

SSCI/DIFF

 

11662

SOC 140 Israeli Society at the Crossroads

Yuval Elmelech

. T . Th .

10:10am - 11:30am

OLIN 201

SSCI/DIFF

 

11669

SOC 214 Contemporary Immigration

Joel Perlmann

. T . Th .

4:40 pm -6:00 pm

OLIN 203

SSCI/DIFF

 

11668

SOC 321 Can We Study Everything?

 Original Thinking about Difficult Topics

Clement Thery

. . . Th .

1:30 pm -3:50 pm

OLIN 303

SSCI

 

11663

SOC 332 Seminar on Social Problems

Yuval Elmelech

. T . . .

1:30 pm -3:50 pm

OLINLC 210

SSCI/DIFF