What is a border, and what are the legal, political, and human infrastructures that shape it? How do discourses of migration and national bordering practices change over time, and what animates them? These questions, among others, inform Bard's migration initiative. The courses  within it are designed to provide a conceptual framework for thinking about migration not as an isolated (nor recent) phenomenon, but one that is deeply connected to historical, political, economic, legal, and environmental contexts and conditions that are best approached through interdisciplinary study. Equally important is the exploration of tensions and possibilities in scholarly, literary, artistic, and documentary representations of experiences of migration. Our goal is to offer students a path to understanding migration - forced or otherwise - so that it can be grasped and grappled with not as a “problem” to be solved but as a set of questions that can inform our understanding of human rights, political subjectivity, and personal agency.

 

100- and 200-level courses

 

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Course:	CC 103  Future Commons: Homes, Borders, Climates
Professor:	Olga Touloumi, Ross Adams and Ivonne Santoyo Orozco
CRN:	90194	Schedule:	Tue  Thurs    10:20 AM - 11:40 AM Olin 204  Tue  Thurs    10:20 AM - 11:40 AM Garcia-Renart House  Tue  Thurs    10:20 AM - 11:40 AM Hegeman 204
Distributional Area:	AA Analysis of Art PA  Practicing Arts	Class cap:	45
Credits:	4

The Covid-19 pandemic and movement for racial justice brought to the fore a tremendous uncertainty and instability that governs our lives. All structures – from how states value and order life to the economy structuring how we produce, distribute and consume resources to the networks of dependency and structures that organize how we care for one another – have been upended, revealing a profound sense of injustice permeating our world. The current moment asks us to question these inherited economic and political structures, as well as the institutions that organize our lives (family, school, church, nation state, international organizations, etc.). This course calls students to critically examine and then re-imagine ways in which we live together. Central to our course is the notion of the “commons,” understood as both a historically contested and increasingly marginalized category, as well as a venue through which we consider what we share and how we share in space.

This course is structured around three modules — Homes, Borders, and Climates — where students will explore “commons” though each category and its broader societal, cultural and material construction. We will engage these categories as coordinates of our collective commonsense—notions that are both taken for granted, and, for that reason, sites from which to unsettle the present and around which to project new collective imaginaries. The present will offer a point of departure for radical imaginations for future commons. Students will encounter design as a practice urging social and political transformation through proactive creativity. By using critical thinking and design tools, students will develop imaginative speculations that emerge in the triangulation between anti-racist futures, environmental justice and gender equality. The course will feature invited lectures and field trips to critical sites, culminating in a group sharing of the collective work. 

 

Course:	HIST 225  Migrants and Refugees in the Americas
Professor:	Miles Rodriguez
CRN:	90155	Schedule:	Tue  Thurs    10:20 AM - 11:40 AM Olin 301
Distributional Area:	HA Historical Analysis D+J Difference and Justice	Class cap:	15
Credits:	4

Cross-listed:  American Studies; Global & International Studies; Human Rights; Latin American/Iberian Studies

Cross-listed: American Studies; Human Rights; Latin American Studies.

The Border. The Ban. The Wall. Raids. Deportations. Separation of Families. Immigrant Rights. Sanctuary. Refugee Resettlement. These words - usually confined to policy, enforcement, and activism related to migrants and refugees - have recently exploded into the public view and entered into constant use. The current political administration made migratory and refugee enforcement, and of migration more generally, a centerpiece of its electoral campaign and the subject of its first executive orders, generating broad public controversy. Most migration to the US is from Latin America, by far the largest single migrant population is from Mexico, and the rise of Central American migration has proved enduring. Focusing on south-north migration from these Latin American regions, this class argues that it is impossible to understand the current political situation in the US without studying the relatively lesser-known history of migrant and refugee human rights over the last three decades, including massive protests, movements for sanctuary, and attempts at reform and enforcement. The class takes into account shifting global demographics, changing reasons for migration, rapid legal and political changes, complex enforcement  policies and practices, and powerful community movements for reform, which are often forgotten  with the opening and closing of a given news cycle. The class also argues that migrant and refugee voices matter and are critical to understanding migration as an historical and current problem. The course includes migrant, refugee, and activist narratives, and an array of historical, legal, political, and other primary sources. Its goal is to create a more complete historical understanding of Latin American-origin migration in the contemporary US context. This course is part of the Liberal Arts Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement and Education initiative. This course is part of the Racial Justice Initiative, an interdisciplinary collaboration among students and faculty to further the understanding of racial inequality and injustice in the United States and beyond.

 

Course:	HR 105  Human Rights Advocacy: Scholars at Risk
Professor:	Ziad Abu-Rish
CRN:	90133	Schedule:	Mon  Wed     10:20 AM - 11:40 AM Olin 101
Distributional Area:	SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice	Class cap:	18
Credits:	4

Cross-listed:  Global & International Studies

(HRP core course) An introduction to human rights advocacy, with a practical component. Half of the course focuses on the history and theory of human rights advocacy: what is it to make claims for human rights, or to denounce their violation, especially on behalf of others?  How and when and why have individuals and groups spoken out, mounted campaigns, published reports and exposés?  How do they address, challenge, and sometimes work with governments and international organizations like the United Nations? We will look at human rights advocacy from the campaign to abolish the slave trade to the founding of Amnesty International. How has the human rights movement come to be defined by transnational advocacy networks - and how do they in turn define what human rights are?  This half of the course serves as an introduction to human rights work as a mode of legal and political practice. The other half of the course involves hands-on work with the human rights organization Scholars at Risk on the case of a detained Uyghur scholar in China. We will  research her case, communicate with the family and other advocates, write country and case profiles, propose strategies and tactics for pressuring governments and other powerful actors, and develop appeals to public opinion  -- all while recognizing the ethical and political risks this work may involve. Readings include texts by  Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Adam Hochschild, Stephen Hopgood, Judith Butler, Stanley Cohen, Ben Mauk, and others, including an intensive introduction to the politics of Xinjiang and the Uyghur community. Taught in conjunction with parallel seminars at Bard College Berlin and the American University of Central Asia. Information about Scholars at Risk can be found at scholarsatrisk.org.

 

Course:	LIT 227  Labor and Migration in Arabic Literature
Professor:	Dina Ramadan
CRN:	90507	Schedule:	Mon  Wed     10:20 AM - 11:40 AM Aspinwall 302
Distributional Area:	FL Foreign Languages and Lit	Class cap	22
Credits:	4

Cross-listed:  Human Rights; Middle Eastern Studies

Questions of migration, exile, and displacement have been central to the development of the (post)colonial Arabic literary tradition. Tayeb Salih’s Seasons of Migration to the North, widely considered the most important Arabic novel of the last century, charts Mustafa Said’s journey taking him further and further from Sudan, and the frustrations and impossibility of homecoming. While the effects of the expulsions of the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) and the further displacement of the 1967 Naksa (setback) on the evolution of Arabic prose and poetry are widely recognized, questions surrounding labor, its precarities, and migrations are largely understudied. How for example, does the intersection of a booming oil economy with a displaced and transient workforce, reshape the cultural map of the region and beyond? Rather than treat the questions of labor and (forced) migration as separate, in this course we will look at them as intertwined and interdependent. By focusing on Arabic literary production from the second half of the 20^th century, we will ask how such works produce a language and aesthetic of displacement and estrangement, one that is able to challenge the hegemony of national boundaries. Finally, we will consider how these literary texts, as well as their authors, travel and migrate to speak to different audiences and from new and shifting centers. Literary texts will be supplemented by theoretical and historical material and will be accompanied by regular film screenings. All readings will be in English. This course is part of the Liberal Arts Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement and Education initiative. This course is part of the World Literature course offering.

 

 

300-level courses 

 

Course:	HIST 3138  How to Read and Write the History of the (Post-)Colonial World
Professor:	Omar Cheta
CRN:	90163	Schedule:	Tue      10:20 AM - 12:40 PM Olin 303
Distributional Area:	HA Historical Analysis D+J Difference and Justice	Class cap:	15
Credits:	4

Cross-listed:  Global & International Studies; Middle Eastern Studies

In this seminar, we will study the most prominent approaches to writing the history of the colonial and post-colonial worlds, especially the Middle East and South Asia. Our primary goal will be to think about historical narratives of the (post-) colonial worlds as constructed artifacts and as products of certain intellectual environments. For each meeting, we will explore an influential school of historical writing, such as the French Annales or Italian Microhistory. Alongside these explorations, we will study examples of the scholarship on (post-) colonial history that engage with these historiographical traditions. Our discussions will revolve around the possibilities and limits of writing history in light of the existent historical sources, academic and disciplinary norms, other disciplinary influences (especially from literature and anthropology), as well as present political considerations.

 

Course:	HR 311  Food, Labor and Human Rights
Professor:	Peter Rosenblum
CRN:	90578	Schedule:	Thurs    2:00 PM - 4:20 PM Olin 307
Distributional Area:	SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice	Class cap:	15
Credits:	4

Cross-listed:  Environmental & Urban Studies

This is a seminar that will explore the burgeoning areas of activism that link food, labor and human rights.  It will explore domestic and international efforts to understand, regulate and improve the conditions of workers who produce food.  The seminar will be built around case studies of advocacy efforts around the world. The first part of the seminar will be devoted to readings in the history of agricultural labor, the role of plantation economies, and contemporary analyses of the relationship between labor and the economics of food production through the writings of Olivier De Schutter, former UN Rapporteur on the Right to Food.  This will be followed by readings on private and public mechanisms to improve the conditions of workers in the food sector, including fair trade and social certification programs. Case studies will include: (i) migrant workers in the Hudson  Valley, (ii) tomato pickers in Florida (and the effort to apply the lessons to dairy workers in New England), (iii) child labor in the cocoa  sector the tea sector, and (iv) tea plantations in India.

 

Course:	PS 323  Migration Citizenship and Work
Professor:	Sanjib Baruah
CRN:	90026	Schedule:	Mon       2:00 PM - 4:20 PM Olin 310
Distributional Area:	SA Social Analysis	Class cap:	15
Credits:	4

Cross-listed:  Asian Studies; Human Rights

Large-scale migration has long been integral to global processes that have shaped the modern world. The modern history of international migration begins with European colonization of large parts of the New World, Africa and Asia. The forced migration of millions of Africans to the Americas is also a legacy of this era. Flows out of Europe had dominated international migration until the early twentieth century.  The direction began to change only in the middle of that century when Africa, Asia, and Latin America became a growing source of international emigration.  Starting with a historical overview of international migration, the course will focus on the modern territorial order of formally sovereign states, which is premised to a significant extent on the disavowal of migration. Since employment eligibility is tied to citizenship status, significant segments of the work force in many countries are now undocumented.