Fall 2013 Courses
AAAS 247 – Social Movements and Social Media
Instructor: Negar Mottahdeh
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Political and ethical uses of technologies in social uprisings for civil liberties and human rights particularly: Algeria, Palestine, Iran, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Bahrain, Venezuela, Brazil, Cuba, and the global Occupy mobilization. . Comparative analyses of movements. Impact of technologies on social movements. Social transformations of technologies in history. Student driven case studies highlight engagement with technologies as tools of resistance.
AAAS 307 – Development and Africa
Instructor: Kerry L. Haynie
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Addresses the vexed issue of economic development in Africa – its many failures, its occasional successes – from the early colonial period to the present. Focuses especially on the transition from the 1960s “modernizing” moment to the millennium projects and humanitarian aid of the present. Will read the works of development experts, World Bank executives, anthropologists and historians, asking why this massively financed project has experienced such failure and exploring what can be done.
AAAS 310 – Conflict Analysis in Africa
Instructor: Stephen Smith
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Utilizes four case studies to outline components of conflict analysis in Africa. Examines regional crisis nexus between Darfur, Chad and Central African Republic. Looks at issues of post-coloniality, autochthony, migration, citizenship, land tenure, and inequality. On a theoretical level, identifies potentially cross-cutting, deeper layers of contemporary crises in Africa with the objective of establishing a series of templates, a ‘protocol’, for comparative conflict analysis and conflict management in Africa.
AAAS 343 – Migration and Human Trafficking
Instructor: Michaeline Chriclow
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Examination of the meaning of migration in the global world through cross-disciplinary texts and visual media. Situates the phenomenon of human trafficking within the context of these general movements focusing on the risks involved when people endanger their lives to find a better and more strategic position in the world. Explores how these experiences should be interpreted, and how processes and the politics of race, space and place are a condition and/or outcome of these movements. Investigates and considers ways to resolve some of the problems associated with such movements.
AAAS 344 – Slavery, Genocide, & Terror
Instructor: Bayo Holsey
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Examination of commemorative practices surrounding difficult pasts. Analyzes slavery, the Holocaust, Hiroshima, and 9/11; considers the role of collective memories of trauma and injustice in the formation of racial, religious, and national identities. Readings address historic sites, monuments and other forms of commemorative art, museums, fiction, and film. Examines social, political, ethical, and economic considerations behind various forms of commemoration. Explores several debates over appropriate forms of commemorations and the consideration of politics of memory in the creation of ethical subjects.
AMES 333 – Chinese Prostitution
Instructor: Carlos Rojas
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This course will examine the ways in which sex work has been mobilized as a social and cultural metaphor in modern China. From functioning as a locus of nostalgic investment, to being a symbol of national salvation, an emblem of modernization, and a symptom of intra- and international flows of migrant labor, prostitution and other forms of sex work have proven to be exceedingly fluid and polysemic signifiers. In this course, we will focus primarily on literary and cinematic texts, together with relevant historical and theoretical writings on the subject. The figure of the prostitute will be used to interrogate assumptions about gender identity, commodity value, and national identity. Transnational traffic in women will provide a context for examining of national discourses in China and beyond, together with the ideological fissures that lie at the heart of those same discourses.
AMES 475S – North Korea: Politics, Economics, and Culture
Instructor: Cheehyung Kim
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Critical examination of the political and economic with social, cultural, and religious dimensions of North Korea. Topics includes North Korea’s leadership, religious (especially cultic) aspects of the North Korean Juche ideology, the daily lives of its citizens, the Korean War, nuclear development and missiles, North Korean defectors and refugees in other Asian countries, human rights, international relationships, and unification.
CULANTH190FS.03 – International Law and Global Health
Instructor: Catherine Admay
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This course will examine where and how international law intersects with global health inequalities. In what instances has international law been a positive force for addressing these inequalities and when has the law itself compounded and extended the problem? In what sense do these inequalities cross borders, and in what sense do they fall in a purely national domain? How much border crossing does international law and the constitutional law that incorporates international law actually do? Through a variety of case studies including constraints on contraception, protection measures against avian flu, tobacco control, rights to health and to essential medicines, and the ethics of clinical research trials-students will be challenged to critically assess the power and limitations of the law.
Having a basic grasp of a handful of leading rules systems (among them, human rights, health, trade, biodiversity, intellectual property), students will be asked to consider the legal, political and ethical merits of pursuing better health outcomes through recourse to the law. And to consider effective complements to it. We will consider the law as lawyers must-attending to some of its technical complexities-but we will also seek to understand the extent to which the law’s power resides as much in its political punch or/and moral appeal. In short, the course will work to situate international law and global health in the stream of strategic choices available to everyone who calls for better health by demanding greater justice.
CULANTH 216S – Global Migration & Ethics
Instructor: Laurie McIntosh
DOCST 153 – The U.S./Mexico Border
Instructor: Charles Thompson
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Focus on the border/frontera: a scar, a divide, a wall between friendly nations, a challenge for policy-makers, a line of demarcation for human rights abuses, a law enforcement nightmare, a pass-through for trade and NAFTA, a net for the poor. Study history, culture, policy, creative writing and art about the only border dividing two nations with such disparity in wealth. Look at the issue as it relates to Mexican farm workers and their work in U.S. fields. Think about solutions together. Learn what this all means for the future of the United States and how its citizens define themselves. Know where you stand along this deadly line in the sand. Students will engage in a service-learning project related to immigrant laborers and will conduct this work in coordination with a local group such as Student Action with Farmworkers or El Centro Hispano.
ENVIRON 216S – Environment and Conflict
Instructor: Erika Weinthal
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Environmental and natural resources as a source of conflict and/or peace buildingbetween and within nations and states. Analysis of the role of the environment in the conflict cycle and international security. Topics include refugees, climate change, water, and infectious disease. Particular focus on post-conflict and rebuilding in war-torn societies. Examination of the role of international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and emerging standards for environmental management. Examples drawn from conflicts such as Rwanda, Israel/Palestine, Nepal, Sierra Leone and others.
ETHICS 199FS – Refugees, Rights, Resettlement
Instructor: Suzanne Shanahan
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35 million refugees and internally displaced persons in the world. A comparative historical overview of international refugee policy and law dealing with this growing population. Students will grapple with the ethical challenges posed by humanitarian intervention on behalf of refugees and the often unintended consequences of such policies. Students examine case studies to determine how different models for dealing with refugee resettlement affect the life chances of refugees. Service learning course. Students will work with refugees from Bhutan, Burma and Iraq recently resettled in Durham. Instructor consent required
HISTORY 190S – Media & Democracy in Latin America
Instructor: Vanessa Freije
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This course considers the media and public opinion in Latin American politics, culture, and society, focusing specifically on the 20th century. We will look at propaganda, testimonial literature, photojournalism, and documentaries to consider how media have broadened or narrowed ideas of citizenship and rights. We will also explore the ethical dilemmas journalists encountered covering human rights abuses or operating within democratizing regimes.
PUBPOL 231 – Human Rights in Theory and Practice
Instructor: Allen Buchanan
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The nature and value of human rights; examining some major debates over their status and meaning and assessing the role which the idea of human rights has played in changing lives, practices, and institutions. Questions considered include: whether commitments to human rights depend on a belief in moral truth; whether the idea of universal human rights makes sense in a culturally diverse world; and what forms of social action are most likely to achieve respect for human rights.
PUBPOL 290S-05 – Human Rights in Latin America
Instructor: Robin Kirk
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Part of 2013 DukeImmerse, Rights & Identities in the Americas: Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples & Contemporary Challenges. More information available at: http://sites.duke.edu/dukeimmerse/fall-2013-programs/human-rights/
PUBPOL 724 – The Politics of International Aid in Low-Income Countries
Instructor: Phyllis Pomerantz
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This course will examine the evolving context, objectives, and results of international development aid in the post World War II period, with an emphasis on the period from the 1980s through today. It will review the track record of aid and lessons thus far, and the reform proposals for change currently under discussion in the international community. Attention will be focused on the principal stakeholders, their motivations and capacity, and the quality of interaction among the various players (governments, bilateral donors, multilateral institutions, and NGOs). It will also evaluate the results achieved and the prospects for future success. Special reference will be given to Africa, the center of much of the evolving debate surrounding aid effectiveness. The course is primarily a group discussion, with occasional mini-lectures, student presentations, debates, case studies, and a final simulation exercise. Instructor consent required.
SOCIOL 295S – Sex Work: Politics of Sexual Labor
Instructor: Kathi Weeks
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Sex work from the perspective of the labor and the purchase. Controversies over questions of gender and power, consent and coercion, sexual practices and labor contracts, trafficking and migration. Cultural representations of sex workers and their clients. Legal regimes from abolition to regulation and decriminalization