This course offers an introduction to the study of peace, justice, and human rights, surveying philosophies of rights in relation to justice; historic and contemporary approaches to (and reasons for) peace, war, and nonviolence; clashes between human rights and conflict resolution approaches; the role of human rights prior to, during, and after violent conflict; rights in relation to race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, health and the environment; African, Asian, and Indigenous approaches to rights or justice; whether rights are only for human beings or might also apply to non-human animals and/or the natural world; some limitations imposed by an exclusive focus on rights and/or law as avenues for social change; traditional conflict resolution; restorative and transformative approaches to conflict; and why the study of human rights is necessarily interdisciplinary.
This course aims to help you to develop:
•Knowledge of the various schools of thought and modes of practice of peace, justice, and human rights.
•Ability to read and evaluate arguments about peace, justice, and human rights, and to discuss ideas—your own and those of others—critically.
•Critical thinking about and analysis of approaches to peace, justice, and conflict.
•Confidence in your ability to understand philosophical and practical problems, and come up with creative solutions to these problems.
•Good writing and communication skills, through discussion of ideas, the practice of writing, and the practices of speaking and teaching.
•A basic understanding of the difference between written and oral presentation of ideas.
•A basic understanding of what interdisciplinary study entails.
This course aims to help you to develop:
•Knowledge of the various schools of thought and modes of practice of peace, justice, and human rights.
•Ability to read and evaluate arguments about peace, justice, and human rights, and to discuss ideas—your own and those of others—critically.
•Critical thinking about and analysis of approaches to peace, justice, and conflict.
•Confidence in your ability to understand philosophical and practical problems, and come up with creative solutions to these problems.
•Good writing and communication skills, through discussion of ideas, the practice of writing, and the practices of speaking and teaching.
•A basic understanding of the difference between written and oral presentation of ideas.
•A basic understanding of what interdisciplinary study entails.
- מורה: Jill Stauffer
- מורה: Sabea Evans
- מורה: Emily Drummond
This course will explore legal theories that underpin various legal systems in settler colonial states. We will study settler legal forms and Indigenous legal forms alongside each other, and think about what gives law power, how that power stays in place, and what law is supposed to be and do for those who are guided by it. By putting Indigenous and settler legal ways on equal footing, we may open up our thinking to new ways of envisioning a way forward, out of and beyond the history of colonial domination. Readings will include classics of settler/western legal theory and of various Indigenous traditions. Assignments will include papers, presentations, research, and moot courts where we make legal arguments in more than one tradition, to get a sense of what is at stake in different approaches to adjudicating conflict and harm. The aim is to undergo what happens when we study and learn these different approaches of law together rather than isolating them from each other. What does it become possible to think, to imagine, to do, that was not thinkable or do-able before?
Learning objectives
Students completing this course will:
• have a broad grasp of the basics of western/settler legal theory and the legal traditions of some North American Indigenous groups;
• develop capacity to make written and oral legal-style arguments in multiple traditions;
• understand some basics about legal procedures in multiple traditions;
• think carefully about what law is, what power is, and why power differences exist;
• learn about histories of colonial dispossession and domination as well as Indigenous refusal and resistance;
• build aptitude for communicating and collaborating with peers—and audiences in the wider world—whose disciplinary language, values and methodological concerns differ;
• develop sensitivity to the different factors affecting reception of arguments about divisive or emergent issues.
Learning objectives
Students completing this course will:
• have a broad grasp of the basics of western/settler legal theory and the legal traditions of some North American Indigenous groups;
• develop capacity to make written and oral legal-style arguments in multiple traditions;
• understand some basics about legal procedures in multiple traditions;
• think carefully about what law is, what power is, and why power differences exist;
• learn about histories of colonial dispossession and domination as well as Indigenous refusal and resistance;
• build aptitude for communicating and collaborating with peers—and audiences in the wider world—whose disciplinary language, values and methodological concerns differ;
• develop sensitivity to the different factors affecting reception of arguments about divisive or emergent issues.
- מורה: Jill Stauffer
