Columbia College Human Rights

Human Rights

Columbia College Chicago

600 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60605

Department of Humanities, History, and Social Sciences (HHSS)

Fall Term 2009 50-2311 Section 03/Credit Hours 3

T 9am-11:50, Classroom location, S 1005

Last Date to Drop Classes: Monday, September 21, 2010

Last Date to Withdraw from Classes: Saturday, October 31, 2010

Instructional Resources Fees: None

This syllabus is subject to change. Students will be notified of any alterations.

Instructor: June C. Terpstra, Ph.D.         

Office Phone: 312-344-7295 Humanity, History and the Social Sciences, Tenth Floor 624 Michigan Avenue

Office Hours: Instructor will be available by appointment from 10:00 am-12:00 Mondays

E-mail: j-terpstra@neiu.edu or jterpst@yahoo.com

Course Description

The term 'human rights' tends to be employed as if we all agree on its meaning; it is a concept often wielded but rarely defined. Because of its uses and abuses (historic and current), it is a term that is ripe for manipulation. Using examples from contemporary global events, the course provides students with a thorough background for understanding how the term ‘human rights' can both support particular political agendas and also frames objective legal investigations.

LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCE CORE CURRICULUM/GENERAL EDUCATION CREDITS:

** This course bears Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) and General Education credit for Social Sciences. By taking this course you will complete three (3) of the required Culture, Values, Ethics credits needed to graduate from Columbia College. In addition, the course will assist you in achieving the following LAS core objectives:

LAS CORE OUTCOMES

·                    conduct research and as part of that process learn to measure, evaluate,
and assess;

·                    examine and reflect on human endeavor for power and capacity for oppression across cultures;

·                    consider and examine, historically and comparatively, human behavior across race, class, national boundaries, ideologies, and socio-economic institutions;

·                    utilize various tools of analysis to enable critical thinking about causes and solutions to conflict;

·                    Expand understanding and skills through systematic research in writing and orally in a clear and effective manner.

Course Objectives

·                     Define political, philosophical, historical, economic, and legal history of global human rights concepts, including ideological and cultural origins;

·                     Understand the sources of rights and rights violations;

·                     Examine the impact of the nation-state system, governments and other institutions (such as corporations, churches and universities), and US domestic and foreign policies;

·                     Identify human rights activists, human rights groups, and human rights movements, and analyze whether they've made inroads to curbing oppression and repression.

·                     Identify your own social and individual responsibilities and relationships to oppressive behaviors wherever it occurs.

·                     Develop critical thinking skills for challenging the conventional propaganda about society and the world.

·                     Promote rigorous and challenging academic experiences, with room for both intellectual growth and practical insights that can be extended to others.

Course Requirements

1.  Class attendance and participation=250 points

2.  Weekly written reaction papers on the readings = 250 points Due on Tuesday

2.  A mid-term research standard book and sources report for your chosen human rights media project from the list in Appendix A= 250 pts

3.  A Final media presentation educating others on the crisis or case you chose including a group, government or organization working to intervene internally and externally.  250 pts

Total possible points = 1000

A = min. 900 points

B = min. 800 points

C = min  700 points

D = min  600 points

Anything below 600 is failing

Attendance Policy:

Attendance at all classes and sections’, including all films and guest lectures, is mandatory.  Students are expected to attend all classes and read the assignments so as to be prepared for class discussion.  Experience shows that there is a direct relation between attendance and performance in the course.  If you have more than three absences, excused or unexcused, your grade will be severely affected. An excused absence means you contact the instructor, me, prior to your absence (barring an emergency and then you contact me as soon as possible) and I confirm your absence. You can reach me via email or phone. You are responsible for any class work or homework we go over/is due during your absence. 

Conaway Center Statement

Students with disabilities are requested to present their Columbia accommodation letters to their instructor at the beginning of the semester so that accommodations can

be arranged in a timely manner by the College, the department or the faculty member, as appropriate. Students with disabilities who do not have accommodation letters should visit the office of Services for Students with Disabilities in room 520 of the Congress building (312.344.8134/V or 312.360.0767/TTY). It is incumbent upon the student to know their responsibilities in this regard.

Academic Integrity:

Columbia College Chicago prohibits the following conduct: all forms of academic dishonesty including cheating, plagiarism, knowingly furnishing false information to the college, forgery, alteration, or fraudulent use of college documents, instruments, or identification. 

TEXTS AND COURSE MATERIALS: 

Online readings provided in the syllabus

TENTATIVE SYLLABUS

Week 1  Conceptions of Human Rights Cross Cultures

Read and Respond Weekly paper due Tuesday

1. Five Hundred Years of Injustice at http://ili.nativeweb.org/sdrm_art.html

2. Reciprocal Bases of National Culture and the Fight for Freedom by Frantz Fanon at http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/fanon/national-culture.htm

3. Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

4. Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/(symbol)/a.conf.157.23.en

5. What is Your Political Ideology?  Take the quiz at: http://www.gotoquiz.com/what_is_your_political_ideology

Week 2 Religious Theories of Justice

Read and Respond Weekly paper due Tuesday

1. Deuteronomy 20 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Bible/Deuter20.html

2. Fundamental Principles of Islam at  http://www.scribd.com/doc/2969425/5-Fundamental-Principles-of-Islam

3. Philosophical Ideas of Confucius and Restorative Justice http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:iNazZ5TPtNwJ:www.restorativejustice.org/10fulltext/liujianhong/at_download/file+Confucian+concepts+of+justice&hl=en&gl=us

4. Selflessness: Toward a Buddhist Vision of Social Justice By Sungtaek Cho at http://www.buddhistethics.org/7/cho001.html

5. Shared belief in the "Golden Rule"   http://www.religioustolerance.org/reciproc.htm

Week 3 Early Euro-American Philosophical Visions of Human Rights

Read and Respond due Tuesday

1. The English Bill of Rights http://www.constitution.org/eng/eng_bor.htm

2. Declaration of Independence of the United States of America http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm

3. The Bill of Rights of the United States of America 4. http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/freedom/bill/text.html

5. French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen http://www.hrcr.org/docs/frenchdec.html

Week 4 War Colonialism and Racism

1.                    USA History: A Quick Study for Students    http://juneterpstra.com/whats_new.html

2.                    Roots of Oppression  http://www.american-pictures.com/roots/index.htm

3.                    3. U.S. has a 45-year history of torture http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13495

4. Peace and the New Corporate Liberation Theology by Arundhati Roy at http://www.serendipity.li/iraqwar/arundhati_roy_peace_prize_lecture.htm

5. Constant Conflict US Army War College Quarterly http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/97summer/peters.htm

Week 5 Cross Cultural Critiques

Read and Respond due Tuesday

1. Human Rights and Moral Imperialism http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ANTH/deptpubs/nader.2006.47.9.pdf

2. Culture clash: Asian political values and human rights by Christine Loh http://www.counterpoint-online.org/download/390/Do-human-rights-travel.pdf

P 58-72

3.  HUMAN RIGHTS: CHIMERAS IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING? ©Andrew Heard, 1997 http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/intro.html

4. Beware human rights imperialism http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/23/human-rights-imperialism-western-values

5. The Uncensored Anger Manifesto-Part I by Layla Anwar   http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2006/11/uncensored-anger-manifesto-part-i.html

Week 6 Indigenous and Nationalist Theories   

READ AND RESPOND due Tuesday

1. Reciprocal Bases of National Culture and the Fight for Freedom by Frantz Fanon at http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/fanon/national-culture.htm

2. The "Quit India" Speeches  by Gandhihttp://www.mkgandhi.org/speeches/speechMain.htm 

3. Declaration of War http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/projects/mexico/zapmanifest.html    

4.  On the Arab Baath Movement by Michel Aflak http://albaath.online.fr/English/Aflaq-18-On%20the%20Arab%20Baath%20movement.htm

Week 7 reading week

Book Report Due

Week 8 State Terrorism

Read and Respond

1.                   The Politics of Terror by David Hoffman Http://Www.Constitution.Org/Ocbpt/Ocbpt_13.Htm

2.                  Confessions of an Economic Hitman http://www.wanttoknow.info/johnperkinseconomichitman

3.                  United States: War Profiteering and Corporate Capitalism 21 January 2004 by Doug Lorimer http://www.greenleft.org.au/2004/567/33149

4. Guantánamo And The Courts (Part Three): Obama’s Continuing Shame

Andy Worthington http://uruknet.info/?p=m57089&hd=&size=1&l=e

Week 9 Palestine

Read and Respond:

1.                  Palestine Timeline http://qumsiyeh.org/palestinetimeline/

2.                   Life in the Bubble: At Home in the Israeli Settler State By Ed Kinane http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23189.htm

3.                    Today in Solidarity We're All Palestinians: History of Israeli Terror Killings

4.                  Gaza Aggression Timeline by Stephen Lendman http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11893

Week 10 Women and children

1.                  Violence Against Women in the USA http://www.now.org/issues/violence/stats.html

2.                  Facts & Figures on Violence Against Women

http://www.unifem.org/campaigns/vaw/facts_figures.php

3. Sexual Violence Against   Women and Girls in War

http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:Y0WBRPUadHsJ:www.unfpa.org/emergencies/symposium06/docs/finalbrusselsbriefingpaper.pdf+Crimes+against+women&hl=en&gl=us

Week 11 Human Rights Abuses of the USA

1.      Human Rights Record of the US in 2007 at http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zt/zgrq/t414611.htm

2.      USA Invasions at http://www.krysstal.com/democracy_whyusa02.html

3.       Full text: US Human Rights Record in 2009 http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-03/12/content_9582821.htm

4.       Human Rights, Violence and the Oil Complex by Michael Watts at http://geography.berkeley.edu/ProjectsResources/ND%20Website/NigerDelta/WP/2-Watts.pdf

Week 12 Social Justice and Reform, Resistance and Revolution

1.      Declaration of War http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/projects/mexico/zapmanifest.html

2.      2. World Can't Be Changed Without Fighting Western Propaganda By Andre Vltchek http://uruknet.info/?p=m57097&hd=&size=1&l=e

3.       Peace and the New Corporate Liberation Theology by Arundhati Roy at http://www.serendipity.li/iraqwar/arundhati_roy_peace_prize_lecture.htm

4.      Solidarity: remembering Algeria and Fanon  By Toni solo  at http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-05/16solo.cfm

Week s 13-15 Final Presentations