Dream Classes in a Human Rights Minor

Currently there are people working to design and implement a human rights minor at Boise State University. One of those people asked me what my dream list of classes would be. I'm sharing this here because I'm really exited about the prospect of seeing these become reality rather than just dreams of mine. I'm also posting it here in hopes of feedback. Those marked with stars (*) are the ones that I am most interested in not only taking as a student but hopefully one day teaching. So without further adieu...


MY Dream Classes for a HUMAN RIGHTS MINOR: (this is the short list by the way, I have a required dream book list that I'll post at a later time) Feel free to post some feedback to this.

Introduction to Human Rights Theory and History : This would be a nice fall/spring sequence ideally or taken simultaneously modeled after the intro to gender studies courses. I think it would be really wise to approach this with a whole year to build a solid foundation for the more advanced courses. I really think the theory and history need to merge or be taught as compliments to one another because without the history you can't really understand the need for the theory or its application.


*Social Movements and Revolution: This could be a regular "core" course taught by different people covering different times/revolutions or geopolitical arenas, examining social movements and revolutions: what works, what "fails," why do they occur, etc etc. Ideally, this would be a very flexible course because it could be taught from a literary perspective, as a colloqium between soc and history, political science and history and so on. It could also be taught as two seperate courses which might be useful given the wide range of social movements and revolutions to choose from.

*Marxism and the HUMAN Economy: Applying Marxism to the "trade" in human beings and humans as increasingly mechanized labor.
You could ground the class in Marxist theory and examine the historical evolution of trade in human beings from slavery and the servitude of children to the status of slavery today. It could also be useful as a comparative analysis of "the human economy" from a "third world" perspective and from a "first world" or Eastern/Western perspective, i.e. to show how slavery still exists as a global phenomenon and how global capitalism and debt bondage perpetuates it.

*Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention: This too could be a survey course...as in examining case studies and asking how does genocide occur, how many deaths constitute genocide, is war a necessary and successful intervention and deterrent and are there ways to prevent genocide from occuring again or it could focus on a specific case or region where genocide has occured (or IS occuring) to examine/analyze and attempt to answer these same questions.

*Law, "Justice" and Human Rights or Legislating Morality: Examining the ways in which the laws in this country (or in Europe vs. America or even internationally) have been used and abused and reformed to both violate people's human rights but also to secure them. This course also addresses the issue of "hate crime" legislation, racist laws, law as "rights" or "privileges" and further exploring the difference between civil rights and human rights.

*Law, War and Human Rights: I really really want a whole semester long class to try and address this one issue. I want to see students puzzle over the same questions I've been puzzling over for some time now, namely what "Rights" do governments and international organizations have in protecting civillians in times of war and in protecting soldiers? What rights do soldiers have to refuse to engage in "unlawful orders" now that the defense of "I was just following orders" has been explicitly rendered useless by the Nuremberg trials?

*Torture and Human Rights: A case study analysis of the use of torture as policy, defining torture, creating exempted spaces and circumstances for torture to occur "legally" and the role of NGO's, activist groups and courts in sustaining or silencing the reality of torture.

*Fascism and Fundamentalism: Exploring two extremes in modern political ideology. This could be exploring various examples of fascism and fundamentalism or the relationship between fascism and fundamentalism or comparing and contrasting the two.

Health and Human Rights: Case studies in health and human rights from around the globe. Could focus on AIDS or on how the privatization of water, natural resources, bombing pharameceutical plants, war, targeting critical infrastructures and the unchecked power of corporate monopolies and debt policies perpetuate worsening health crises worldwide but especially in the "third world" or "global south."

Democide, "National Security" and Human Rights: Examining the ramifications of when governments kill their own citizens, legislate against them, imprison, torture and assasinate them and enact punitive measures against a specific "scapegoat" to ensure "national security."

Democide and Genocide: What is the difference between genocide as policy and democide as policy?

Environmental Policy and Human Rights: Examining sustainable development, corporate responsibility, government violations of human rights through nuclear testing, Agent Orange, use of depleted uranium in weaponry, undermining/ignoring existing environmental policy and the effectivenss of the groups such as greenpeace in promoting environmentally sound policy.

*Critical Theory and Human Rights: Applying theory to the rhetoric of human rights and the manipulation of "humanitarianism" to wage war and "excuse" torture and "military necessity."

The United Nations and NGO's: Examining the role and strengths and weaknesses of non-governmental organizations working to secure a global committment to human rights.

*Bearing Witness: Trauma Theory and Literatures of Trauma

Manufactured Consent: Propaganda, The Culture Industry

Social Inequality and Human Rights: Examine the roots of social inequality, the perpetuation of different theories and religious views that inequality is desirable, natural, normal or a failure of proper socialization. Examine the "interlocking systems of oppression" as described by bell hooks.

Sexuality as a Human Right: Examine and analyze the debates over whether or not reproductive rights, queer rights, the debates surrounding pornography, prostitution, and freedom to marry regardless of sexual orientation are human rights. Examine also the ways VARIOUS governments violate these rights and what responsibility (if any) governments have to protect citizens from religiously motivated/excused discrimination.

Religion and Human Rights: Freedom of and from religion, the relationship (historical and current) between various Churches and various States and the use of religion as a moral counterbalance to or tool of compliance with State or military power. It would be equally useful to use this course to unpack the myths of the morally superior religions such as the prevailing belief in the U.S. that Islam has less of a committment to human rights than Christianity or Judaism.

Civil Rights, Human Rights: Understanding the difference, examining various struggles for civil and human rights and the responses from various governments in the face of domestic and global outrage over human rights violations.

*The Show Trial: The Media and International Criminal Tribunals From Nuremberg to Iraq: Case studies or a comparative analysis of the role of both the media in influencing opinion and understanding of tribunals from Nuremberg to Iraq. It would be highly prudent to examine what "crimes" were deemed worthy of continuous coverage and what crimes and what criminals went unpunished and why.

Methods and Research in Human Rights: Some sort of statistics/research course that would be useful for anyone desiring to go and do field research. OR it could be an introduction to how field research is done, how accurate it is and how influential it is and how "authority and agency" is established by NGO's such as Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International. It could also work in conjunction with the UN and NGO's course listed above.

*Cultural Myopia in Human Rights Activism and Academia: Exploring and unpacking the Eastern/Western debate over what qualifies as a "universal" human right, the co-optation of academics, activists, lawyers and NGO's as supporters of State policy rather than to check and balance the uncontrolled power of the State and the failure of some academics and inability to critique human rights abuses and abusers wherever they occur.

*Failure to Protect?: A course exploring the ways in which both the United Nations, International Tribunals and International Human Rights Law have failed to prevent genocide, democide and the use of rape and torture as instruments of policy. Could examine prosecutorial limitations in the face of "policies of exceptionalism" and that age old issue of national sovereignty. I think too, it would be most interesting to use this course as a spring board for further analysis of the very issue of sovereignty...sovereignty of the body and of the nation.

Colonialism, Imperialism and Democracy

Seeking Justice: Amnesty and Retribution: Examines the legal, social and international human rights precedents set by The Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Nuremberg trials as both being models for recognizing and reckoning with the atrocity that humans can and have inflicted upon one another.

Moving Beyond Left and Right: Examining the use of human rights as a model for truly progressive political change.

Finally, other courses include topics such as:
Social Justice, Criminalizing and Commodifying "Deviance," Mass-Marketing War, Worker's Rights, The Historic Battle between civil/political and socio-economic "human" rights, Women's rights, Children's rights, Poverty and Human Rights and so on.

Ideally, I'd like to see a minor with two required core:
The intro and the methods course
and then students could choose (because it's a minor) from the remaining classes or any other ones offered but must take a minimum of 3-6 "special topics" courses and would participate in an internship for hands on/"field" experience and culminate their work (research and field experience) in a capstone/senior seminar style course.

Here are some links for anyone with an interest in human rights scholarship/academia.
http://www.hrdc.net/accesshr/
http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Issues/Human_Rights_and_Liberties/
http://www.stanford.edu/group/Jonsson/hrts.html
http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/indices/topics/rights/index.php