16414

HR 234

 Defining the Human

Robert Weston

 T Th    1:30 pm-2:50 pm

OLIN 101

HUM

(Human Rights core course) At least since Aristotle, philosophers have sought to delineate the contours of the human, to define what it means to be a specifically human being. To define what it means to be human is at once to exclude those modes of being deemed not human—a process of exclusion that produces various categories of otherness as non-human, or even inhuman. In this course, students engage with a range of theoretical discussions that attempt to situate the human being vis-à-vis its “other,” traditionally as a kind of intermediary being, poised uncomfortably between animality, on the one hand, and divinity, on the other. Readings may include: Greco Roman & Judeo-Christian conceptions of the human (Aristotle, Paul, Augustine Luther); 17th-and 18th-century theories of “human nature” (e.g., Hobbes, Larochefoucauld, Mandeville, LaMettrie, Condillac, Rousseau, Herder, Kant, Schiller); 19th century Social Darwinism (Spencer) and Philosophy (Marx, Nietzsche); contemporary socio-biology (Wilson, et. Al.); Philosophical Anthropology (Teilhard, Bergson, Bataille, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Scheler, Uexküll, Plessner, Gehlen) and Post-structuralism (Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault). Class size: 25

 

16361

HR 242

 Arguing with the Supreme Court (about rights)

Peter Rosenblum

 T Th    1:30 pm-2:50 pm

RKC 103

SSCI

(Human Rights core course)  Supreme Court arguments bring to bear a vast range of research and reflection on the law, policy and politics of our society, including major issues of human rights.  Recent terms have included cases on health care, gay marriage, freedom of speech, religious freedom and the place of race in education.  The Supreme Court decisions are undeniably important.  The arguments give life to the range of possibilities from which the decisions emerge.  Behind them is a often undervalued process in which communities of interest engage in an ornate ritual of advocacy that presents an even wider range of arguments.  In this class, we will dig deeply into 7 cases from the last two years.  We will listen to tapes of the Supreme Court argument, read and analyze the background documents (“briefs”) submitted to the court and research the major arguments and actors.  Along with the substance of the cases, the course is intended to teach some basics about the mechanics of Constitutional law in the United States and the nature of human rights debate as it is channeled through that law. Class size: 28

 

16412

HR 303

 Research in Human Rights

Peter Rosenblum

 W        1:30 pm-3:50 pm

OLIN 307

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

 

16359

HR 319

 The Drone Revolutions

Thomas Keenan

 T         4:40 pm-7:00 pm

RKC 102

SSCI

2 CREDITS  Military commentators and policymakers claim that the proliferation of drone technology could alter the character of war forever; on the home front, some are describing a $80 billion industry that will create 75,000 jobs and result in untold efficiencies. But how much of this is true, and how much is science fiction? Peering into a future in which autonomous weapons systems target and kill without human intervention, and drone highways criss-cross the American skies, this seminar should equip students with the knowledge and analytic skills to judge whether we are indeed on the edge of “the drone revolution.” The readings will be comprised mostly of source documents: military and government reports, human rights investigations, technical data, legal briefs, and policy documents and speeches. We will also read Peter Singer's Wired for War, as well as portions of Dan Klaidman, Kill or Capture; Gregoire Chamayou, Theory of the Drone; and Richard Whittle, Predator. The class is taught in collaboration with Bard's Center for the Study of the Drone, and some of our work will happen on the CSD web platform. 2 CREDITS, with 7 or 8 meetings over the semester. Class size: 20

 

16413

HR 323

 Race and the Pastoral

Ann Seaton

 W        4:40 pm-7:00 pm

OLINLC 118

ELIT

Cross-listed: Experimental Humanities  We will begin by exploring what is meant by the literary and cultural category of the 'pastoral.' Is it a mode, a genre, an affect, or something else?  The same critical investigation applies to the category of 'race.' The seminar will consider what 'race' and 'the pastoral' might have to do with one another.  The first half of the class traces the pastoral from Ancient Greece to the Renaissance.  These canonically pastoral bodies, landscapes, and (often same-sex) desires are our pastoral “primal scenes,” to be returned to, reshaped, and internalized.  Soon, though, the pastoral emerges in relation to more explicit difference--in early modern travel narratives, Montaigne, and the utopian-pastoral of Bacon's "New Atlantis."  In the second part of the class, we consider the American pastoral (Emerson, Thoreau, Hudson River School paintings), and19th century landscape theories about gardens and liberal arts colleges.  Students will also research local histories and issues related to the Hudson Valley landscape.  Readings include texts by Theocritus, Moschus, Bion, Longus, Milton, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Hakluyt, Mandeville, Francis Bacon, Kant, Burke, Hegel, Emerson, Thoreau, Heidegger, Derrida, Benjamin, Sontag, Edith Wharton, Frederick Olmsted, Adrian Piper, and Mike Davis.  Students will also read Simon Schama's Landscape and Memory, Nancy Duncan's Landscapes of Privilege:  The Aesthetics of an American Surburb, and Cheryl Miller’s “Whiteness as Property.” The course will culminate in an experimental mini-conference on "Race and the Pastoral" this spring that may include text, video, and performance.   Interested students should email [email protected].  Class size: 15

 

16360

HR 343

 Photography & Human Rights

Gilles Peress

 W        10:10 am-12:30 pm

OLIN 305

HUM

The course starts with two questions. Can human rights avoid becoming simply one more ideological form, and a dangerous one at that, given its reliance on self-confidently mythic images of suffering and rescue, not to mention the grand figure of Man that looms over everything else? And how can photography help find a way out, given that mediation and representation have always been central to the human rights enterprise? Starting with influential historical accounts by Lynn Hunt and others, we will explore the ways in which visual appeals have played a defining role in the establishment of human rights, both as consciousness and as constitutional and international law. Human rights today is unthinkable apart from photography. And along the way, both have come in for a lot of criticism. This creates a conundrum of representation at the heart of both. For without photography -- which is to say, the vector by which NGOs generate knowledge, evidence, and funding, based on a sense of empathy and urgency -- there would probably be fewer human rights and no humanitarian movement.  Class size: 15

 

16362

HR 350

 Antisemitism: Anatomy of Hatred

Kenneth Stern

 Th                 11:50 AM – 2:10 PM

RKC 200

SSCI

DIFF

Cross-listed: Jewish Studies For as long as there have been human beings, there has been hatred, and antisemitism is one of its oldest and most persistent forms. What is antisemitism? How has it manifested itself in different eras, regions, political and economic systems and cultures – even in places that do not have Jews? How can it be combated? What insights can we gain about other forms of hatred (homophobia, racism, sexism, Islamophobia, etc.) from the in depth study of antisemitism? Readings will be wide-ranging, including selections from experts (Poliakov, Dinnerstein, Laqueur, Wistrich), historical figures such as Peter Stuyvesant, George Washington and Adolf Hitler, newspaper articles and social media postings, YouTube clips from antisemitic religious figures, literature from Nazis and neo-Nazis, Jewish communal internal memoranda, materials about and from court cases, and a class session with longtime Bard professor Justus Rosenberg, the last surviving member of the group that rescued hundreds of artists and intellectuals from the Nazis during World War II. At the end of the course, students should be able to identify and differentiate different types of antisemitism, understand how it works (and changes) as an ideology, how historical and socio-economic factors do and do not impact it, and how it fits within (but is also different from other members of) the family of bigotries. While this is a course designed for upper-college students, motivated first or second year students are welcome to apply. Please contact [email protected] if you have questions about the course. Class size: 18

 

16250

LIT 3206

 Evidence

Thomas Keenan

M          1:30 pm-3:50 pm

OLINLC 210

HUM

Cross-listed: Human Rights  What can literature and the arts teach us about evidence? Evidence would seem to be a matter of facts, far from literary or artistic invention. But, whether fact or fiction, we are regularly confronted by all sorts of signs, and we need to learn how to read the traces of things left behind at this or that scene, of a crime for instance. Matters of interpretation, presentation, even rhetoric arise immediately. Evidence, at a minimum, is presented for our deliberation and calls for us to make decisions, form conclusions, or reach judgments. Hence its legal meanings. On the basis of the traces of what has happened —whether in the form of statistics, objects, images, or testimony—we have to decide. This holds even or especially when the evidence seems least equivocal, as in the case of forensics.  Sometimes what we see and read seems to compel action, while at other times it appears to immobilize us.  As more and more of our world is exposed to view, what becomes of the would-be foundational character of evidence? What is it to ignore evidence? This seminar will explore the theory and practice of evidence, with special attention paid to the different forms evidence can take and the disputes to which it can give rise, especially when violations of, and claims for, human rights are at stake. Readings  from Weschler, Felman, Krog, Ondatjie, Latour, Tamen, Azoulay, Didi-Huberman, Morrison, along with a lot of visual material.  Class size: 16

 

16180

FILM 252

 War Crimes in Film

Ian Buruma

M          1:30 pm-4:30 pm

Screening: Su    6:00 pm-9:00 pm

AVERY 333

AART

Cross-listed: Human Rights (core course)  This course will look at the matter of war crimes through the cinema. Subjects we will explore include legal definitions, as applied in war crime trials, the political use made of historical atrocities, and the way the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals changed the way we look at war crimes. The question of genocide will be a recurrent theme. The course will be taught from a culturally comparative perspective. Japanese, German, and French films will be screened as well as American ones. The Japanese war in Asia will be considered, as well as Nazi crimes in Europe, the Vietnam War and the French colonial wars.  Films will range from Judgment at Nuremberg to Battle of Algiers. The infamous Nanking Massacre of 1937, will be looked at from Japanese as well as various Chinese points of view. Along with viewing the films, we will read various books, including Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men, Paul Aussaresses's The Battle of the Casbah, and Seymour Hersh's My Lai 4.  Class size: 12

 

16350

HIST 222

 A History of the Modern Police

Tabetha Ewing

 T Th    3:10 pm-4:30 pm

OLIN 305

HIST

Cross-listed: American Studies; French Studies; Global & International Studies; Human Rights (core course) (Part of the Courage to Be series) This course explores the invention and evolution of the police, including the international police, as a modern institution from the late 17th century to the present. It focuses largely on France, Britain, and America. However, students will be encouraged to think comparatively and globally. We will consider the development of the police as an expression of sovereign right and of citizens’ rights, from enforcer of the king’s will to public servant. Changing ideas of security and order not only undergird the history of the police but have developed through police practices. We will observe how resistance to diverse forms of policing entered into civil and human rights discourses almost from the start. The course is organized chronologically and around public space: the market, food security, and price regulation; the port and contraband; the urban street, vice, and violence; the road, highwaymen, and runaway slaves; the public housing project and domestic violence; the neighborhood and resistance to policing; and from the more abstract sites of early international cooperation to state and international investigative agencies, such as the FBI, MI 6, and Interpol. In these spaces, we study the vulnerabilities of individual bodies and social groups, including those of the police. We study vulnerabilities that resulted from the institutional growth of the police, especially in its powers to identify, classify, and contain mobile populations and commit acts of violence with legitimacy. Today, many police departments include “courage” in their mission statements, accepting that the job requires their members throw themselves bodily into high-risk situations. Members of marked populations describe as “courageous” activities that unmarked populations take as commonplace or as their right, from walking in a different neighborhood to raising children. Beyond bold acts in the service of order or outstanding acts of opposition, we will consider how the policed world incited and incites everyday forms of courage, contributing to ideas of citizenship and personhood. Class size: 16

 

16428

PS 145

 Human Rights in Global Politics

Omar Encarnacion

M W     11:50 am-1:10 pm

OLIN 203

SSCI

Cross-listed: Global & International Studies (core course); Human Rights  (core course)  This course aims to familiarize students with the main actors, debates, and explanations behind the rise of human rights in global politics.  The course is divided into three core sections. The first explores the philosophical foundations of the notion of human rights and its contested universality, and the historical developments that propelled human rights to the forefront of international politics, especially the atrocities of World War II committed by Germany's Nazi regime.  The second part of the course focuses on the evolution of the so-called “international human rights regime,” or the main actors and institutions in the human rights arena responsible for promoting and policing human rights--from the basic legal framework of human rights (the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights), to major multilateral human rights institutions, such as the UN Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court, and the European Court of Human Rights, to prominent non-state actors such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, and the International Center for Transitional Justice. The third part examines the evolution of human rights, especially the shifts from “first generation” human rights (political freedoms) to “second generation” human rights (social and economic rights, such as housing, employment, and education), to “third generation human rights” and beyond (cultural self-determination, economic sustainability, and sexual freedoms, among others); and the means by which these shifts have come about and have spread around the globe, such as international socialization, globalization, and policy diffusion.  Class size: 22 

 

16426

PS 231

 Humanitarian Military Intervention

Michelle Murray

M W     10:10 am-11:30 am

OLIN 204

SSCI

Cross-listed: Global & International 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: 22

Cross-listed courses in Human Rights:

 

16134

ARTH 281

 Governing the World: AN ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY

Olga Touloumi

 T Th    1:30 pm-2:50 pm

OLIN 102

AART

 

16335

ARTH 319

 Animals and Animality in the Visual Culture of Early Modern Europe

Susan Merriam

  Th      10:10 am- 12:30 pm

FISHER ANNEX

AART

 

16211

LIT 2060

 Modern Arabic Fiction

Elizabeth Saylor

 T Th    3:10 pm-4:30 pm

OLINLC 115

FLLC

 

16242

LIT 2183

 Kundera: The Art of Fiction

Helena Gibbs

M W     11:50 am-1:10 pm

OLIN 304

ELIT

 

16210

LIT 2185

 THE Politics AND Practice OF CultURAL ProdUCTION IN mENA

Dina Ramadan

M W     3:10 pm-4:30 pm

OLINLC 115

FLLC

 

16479

WRIT 224

 Literary JOURNALISM

Ian  Buruma

M  W    10:10 am-11:30 am

OLIN 308

ELIT

 

16381

ANTH 277

  IN THE GARDEN OF EMPIRE: Nature &   Power in THE MODERN Middle East

Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins

 T Th    3:10 pm-4:30 pm

OLIN 201

SSCI

DIFF

 

16340

ANTH 346

 Surveillance:Human to Digital

Laura Kunreuther

 W        10:10 am-12:30 pm

OLIN 310

HUM

 

16529

ECON 221

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Sanjaya DeSilva

 T Th    1:30 pm-2:50 pm

ALBEE 106

SSCI

 

16389

ECON 331

 International Migration

Aniruddha Mitra

 T Th    11:50 am-1:10 pm

HEG 106

SSCI

 

16404

HIST 185

 the making of the  Modern Middle East

Omar Cheta

 T Th    11:50 am-1:10 pm

OLINLC 206

HIST

DIFF

 

16405

HIST 269

 Encounters:American Brdrlnds

Christian Crouch

M W     1:30 pm-2:50 pm

OLIN 204

HIST

 

16349

HIST 312

 Middle Eastern Exp of Slavery

Omar Cheta

 W        1:30 pm-3:50 pm

OLIN 305

HIST

 

16446

HIST 314

 Violent Cult/Material Pleasure

Christian Crouch

 T         10:10 am-12:30 pm

FISHER ANNEX

HIST

 

16408

HIST 1001

 Revolution

Robert Culp

Gregory Moynahan

 T   Th  10:10 am-11:30 am

PRE 110

OLIN 307 / 308

HIST

 

16352

HIST 2039

 Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt

Cynthia Koch

 T Th    11:50 am-1:10 pm

OLIN 204

HIST

 

16410

HIST 2237

 Radio Africa:Broadcasting Hist

Drew Thompson

M W     11:50 am-1:10 pm

OLIN 204

HIST

 

16355

HIST 3134

 The Arab Israel Conflict

Joel Perlmann

 T         3:10 pm-5:30 pm

OLIN 303

HIST

DIFF

 

16532

LIT / JAPN 2216

 Human Rights AND ModERN Japanese LitERATURE

Scott Mehl

M W     1:30 pm-2:50 pm

RKC 102

FLLC

 

16250

LIT 3206

 Evidence

Thomas Keenan

M          1:30 pm-3:50 pm

OLINLC 210

HUM

 

16421

PHIL 118

 Human Nature

Kritika Yegnashankaran

 T Th    4:40 pm-6:00 pm

OLIN 205

HUM

 

16363

PHIL 124

 Introduction to Ethics

Jay Elliott

M W     3:10 pm-4:30 pm

OLIN 203

HUM

 

16416

PHIL 216

 Political Theory

Jay Elliott

M W     1:30 pm-2:50 pm

OLIN 101

HUM

 

16425

PS 104

 International Relations

Michelle Murray

M W     8:30 am-9:50 am

OLIN 204

SSCI

 

16430

PS 109

 Political Economy

Sanjib Baruah

 T Th    1:30 pm-2:50 pm

OLIN 303

SSCI

 

16424

PS 167

 QUEST FOR JUSTICE:  Foundations of the Law

David Kettler

M W     3:10 pm-4:30 pm

OLIN 310

HUM

 

16584

PS 239

 UNITED NATIONS AND MODEL UN

Jonathan Becker

    F       1:30 pm-2:50 pm

OLIN 201

SSCI

1 credit*

 

16434

PS 273

 Diplomacy in international politics

James Ketterer

M W     1:30 pm-2:50 pm

OLIN 310

SSCI

 

16367

PS 295

 Revolution'y Constitutionalism

Roger Berkowitz

M W     3:10 pm-4:30 pm

HAC

HUM

 

16432

PS 314

 Political Economy of Development

Sanjib Baruah

 W        10:10 am-12:30 pm

OLIN 301

SSCI

 

16436

PS 363

 Ethics & International Affairs

Christopher McIntosh

 T         10:10 am-12:30 pm

OLIN 308

SSCI

 

16195

 PSY / SST 251

 Studies in Obedience: THE MAN AND THE EXPERIMENT THAT SHOCKED THE WORLD (STANLEY MILGRAM)

Stuart Levine

M          3:00 pm-6:00 pm

LB3 302

SSCI

 

16116

PSY 352

 Race and the Law: A PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Kristin Lane

 W        10:10 am-12:30 pm

HDR 101A

SSCI

DIFF

 

16440

SOC 120

 Inequality in America

Yuval Elmelech

 T Th    1:30 pm-2:50 pm

OLIN 201

SSCI

DIFF

 

16439

SOC 205

 Intro to Research Methods

Yuval Elmelech

 T Th    4:40 pm-6:00 pm

HDR 101A

MATC

 

16447

SOC 213

 Sociological Theory

Laura Ford

M W     3:10 pm-4:30 pm

HEG 308

SSCI

 

16444

SOC 224

 Punishment/Prisons/Policing

Allison McKim

M W     11:50 am-1:10 pm

OLIN 102

SSCI

 

16376

SOC 231

 The Environment & Society

Peter Klein

 T Th    11:50 am-1:10 pm

HEG 204

SSCI

 

16448

SOC 238

 Law and (Social) Order

Laura Ford

M W     1:30 pm-2:50 pm

OLIN 201

SSCI

 

16377

SOC 323

 American Race & Ethnicity

Joel Perlmann

 W        4:40 pm-7:00 pm

OLIN 201

SSCI

DIFF

 

16442

SOC 352

 Gender and Deviance

Allison McKim

 Th       1:30 pm-3:50 pm

OLINLC 208\

SSCI

DIFF

 

16209

SPAN 325

 Archive Fever: Lit and Film

Patricia Lopez-Gay

 T         1:30 pm-3:50 pm

OLINLC 208

FLLC