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Teaching Human Rights

Resources for mentoring undergraduate and graduate, and professional students:

Sample (abbreviated) Syllabi:

Seminar on: Approaches to Human Rights

About the Course:

Approaches to Human Rights is a seminar for graduate students with interest in the study of human rights and law, history, politics, philosophy, economics, religion, and culture. We survey and engage with the various theoretical approaches to human rights from various disciplines and points of view. We investigate ideas and events that have influenced the discourse and institutions of rights across cultures and time; we study cases and current events involving women’s rights, indigenous peoples’ rights, and other marginalized social groups’ rights across civilizations and throughout history.

[Undergraduate students may enroll in this course with Instructor’s permission.]

COURSE READINGS:

  1. Reading Packet (collection of articles, declarations, treaties, and other documents)
  2. Which Rights Should Be Universal?; by William Talbott
  3. Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights, by Abdulaziz Sachedina
  4. The Racial Contract; by Charles W. Mills

 

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

Homework Assignments: There will be weekly reading assignments and discussions. Students must read assigned materials before each class session to participate and benefit from the lecture presentations.

Writing Assignment: In lieu of a research paper, students will identify a critical work dealing with human rights, read and review it, and present their reviews in class. For fairness purposes, all reviews must be finished submitted by the deadline indicated on ICON; the presentations and discussion of the reviews will take place over the last 10 sessions; no changes to the review will be allowed once submitted.

Exams and other assignments: There are no midterm and no final examinations; instead, there will be several short quizzes throughout the semester as well as prompted essays and peer-review graded assignments.

GRADES:

Final Grade will be based on the following distribution:

  • Quizzes and Exams
  • Prompted Essays, Discussions, and Reviews
  • Writing and Research

 

Perspectives on Migration

Scope and methodology:

Perspectives on Migration explores the origins and functions of migration across cultures and over time from a plurality of disciplinary and experiential perspectives.

Rationale and Justification:

One of the often-repeated statements in the public space in American society is this: “we are a nation of immigrants.” According to recent data released by the U.S. Census Bureau, the current total population of Native Americans in the United States is 6.79 million— about 2.1% of the entire population. That means, only 2% of the people living on this land can be classified as non-immigrant people.
In Europe, while people from that continent left their countries to claim lands from indig-enous peoples in the Americas, Australia, and other territories in Africa and Asia, tuning these native peoples into minorities in their own homelands, European leaders are strug-gling to contain what they see as a migration threat.
When considering that even these native peoples might have arrived into new lands at some point in history, a generalization about humans as people on the move becomes fac-tual.

A course that examines the ideas and events that motivate people to move out of their place of birth, in group or mass movements, will contribute to students’ understanding of such phenomenon and inform the public discourse on the issue of migration.

Course Description and Learning Objectives

Perspectives on Migration is an advanced course. It invites students to engage in an in-formed conversation about and discovery-oriented inquiry into the forces that drive people to emigrate, the reasoning that compels communities to limit immigration, and the sys-tems that govern migration in general.
Because migration is the outcome of emigration and immigration, the course must be de-signed to rely on a holistic approach to understand migration from a plurality of perspectives. While doing so, students will learn about historical migration events, identify the systems that justify and drive migration, and discuss the instruments and institutions that control migration in local and global settings. Students will hear from (or read) artists, historians, legal scholars, social scientists, and representatives of communities im-pacted by migration.

III. COURSE READINGS:

A detailed schedule of lecture topics, reading assignments, and group activities is availa-ble below, under the header Course Calendar: Learning Objectives, Assignments, & As-signments/Exams. However, students should consult the regularly updated calendar of events showing on the course management platform.

Textbooks:
Required:

• Reading Packets (free download here).

Assignment Specific Readings:

• Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism; by Harsha Walia (Author); Robin D. G. Kelley (Foreword), Nick Estes (Afterword).
• Causes and consequences of global migration; by Joakim Ruist.
• Health, migration and human rights; by Johannes Kniess
• Love Across Borders: Passports, Papers, and Romance in a Divided World; by Anna Lekas Miller.
• The Marginalisation of Regions and Countries and the Increase of Mass Migration and Brain Drain; by Talani, Leila Simona
• Genocide, Forced Migration, and Forced Labor: A Case Study on Rohingya People Under International Law; by Mantı, Nebile Pelin et al
• Human rights: theory and practice; edited by Michael Goodhart.
• The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era; by Micheline R. Ishay

           Addutional texts on migration and human rights: Reading Lists

 

IV. COURSE REQUIREMENTS & GRADES:

Final Grade will be based on the following distribution:

• 1. Quizzes and Exams
• 2. Prompted Essays, Discussions, and Reviews
• 3. Writing and Research

Activities and Best Practices that will help Successfully Finish this Course:

 Read the syllabus carefully and plan your semester accordingly;
 Finish all required readings and presentations (lectures, videos, etc.) during the timeframe indicated in the Course Calendar (Syllabus document, PDF file);
 Take detailed, methodical notes covering the reading materials, lectures, and videos/documentaries;
 Review your notes carefully before taking any graded assignment; and
 Participate in the required discussions and group activities during the as-signed timeframe.


Human Rights Courses and Syllabi

Human rights courses for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. The syllabi as provided here to offer instructors an opportunity to see how colleagues in different disciplines are designing their courses on human rights. Access to the syllabi does not grant permission to using a syllabus as is. Please contact the instructor on the syllabus for more information or to request permission… Go to Course and Syllabus Repository


Reading Lists: