Human Rights in a Global World
Facilitator: Catherine Montfort, Modern Languages
The variety of associated courses in this Pathway reflects the importance of theories of universal human rights and their applications to a multitude of issues involving oppressed and disadvantaged human groups around the globe. Most current debates focus on historical or contemporary cases of discrimination based on racial identity, gender, caste, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and age, which have produced deep social and economic inequalities, often given rise to violence, and occasionally led to ethnic cleansing and mass murder. At the same time, critics of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 also debate whether its definition of human rights exceeds what individuals can fairly demand from society and the state. Enforcing laws based on a concept of human rights often produces controversy. Laws protecting the rights of minorities, immigrants, and/or refugees can infringe on what rival social groups consider to be their human rights. The definition of who is human, and thus deserving of these rights, also raises complex social, ethical and legal issues. If the unborn child, fertilized egg or even unfertilized egg is legally defined as a rights-bearing human being, how might that legal definition impinge on the rights of women and the general public? Can we even take for granted the universal applicability to other cultural traditions of human rights that were "invented" in the Enlightenment and expanded in Western thought and practice since then? Must we recognize a cultural bias in our own claims for "universal" human rights when we encounter cultures with a different social logic in keeping with their own religious and philosophical understandings? These are only some of the probing questions that any student who embarks on a Pathway on human rights in a global world will encounter.
Associated Courses
Foundations Courses
(Please note that only the specific Foundation course topics qualify for the Pathway requirements,
and only one Foundations course may be applied to a Pathway)
ENGL 2A Global Rights and Perceptions
ENGL 12A Justice & Literature
ENGL 12A Rebellion & Conformity
HIST 12A Rebellion & Conformity
HIST 12A Slavery and Unfreedom
HNRS 12A Rebellion & Conformity
PHIL 12A Justice & the Just Society
PHIL 12A Personal Identity & Community
PHIL 12A Personhood and Human Dignity
POLI 2A Making Change Happen
WGST 12A Women in Transnational Perspective
Art History
ARTH 144 18th & 19th Century American Art and Visual Culture
ARTH 145 20th Century American Art and Visual Culture
* ARTH 183 Contemporary Art
* ARTH 188 Women in the Visual Arts (cross-listed with WGST 156)
Economics
* ECON 135 Gender Issues in the Developing World (cross-listed with WGST 121)
English
ENGL 156 Interdisciplinary Gay and Lesbian Studies (cross-listed with WGST 136)
ENGL 165 Studies in African Literature
ENGL 166 Pan-African Literature
French
FREN 112 Human Rights in French Black Africa and the Caribbean
History
HIST 102 Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide in the 20th Century
HIST 112 The Haitian Revolution in World History and Memory
HIST 115 Gender, Race, and Citizenship in the Atlantic World
HIST 118 Representation, Rights, and Democracy, 1050-1792
HIST 130 France and the World
HIST 130A The French Enlightenment and Revolution in a Global Context
HIST 130B Late Modern France & the World
International
INTL 139 Field Placement/Praxis
Philosophy
PHIL 113 Ethics and Constitutional Law
Religious Studies
* SCTR 128 Human Suffering and Hope
* SCTR 157 The Bible and Empire
* SCTR 158 Postcolonial Perspectives in the New Testament
* TESP 46 Faith, Justice & Poverty
Women's and Gender Studies
WGST 121 Gender Issues in the Developing World (cross-listed with ECON 135)
WGST 136 Interdisciplinary Gay and Lesbian Studies (cross-listed with ENGL 156)
WGST 147 Postcolonial Perspectives in the New Testament (cross-listed with SCTR 158)
*WGST 156 Women in the Visual Arts (cross-listed with ARTH 188)
WGST 169 Gender, Race, and Citizenship in the Atlantic World (cross-listed with HIST 115)
* Indicates Course Has Prerequisites
