HONR 2250 - Human Rights in the Modern World

4 credit hours
This course will focus on one of the major problems afflicting the modern world - the widespread violation of human rights. The first part will examine the theoretical evolution and general history of the idea of human rights. We will consider the problem of human rights from historical, legal, philosophical, and theological perspectives and explore the nature of different types of human rights - including political rights, socioeconomic rights, women’s rights, indigenous rights, workers’ rights, children’s rights, and immigrant and refugee rights - as well as the relationships among them. The second part will analyze the historical reasons for the abuse and protection of human rights in the 20^th C through several case studies. We will consider such themes as underdevelopment, democracy, dictatorship, revolution, genocide, global migrations, and globalization. The third and final part of the seminar focuses on human rights in the contemporary world, giving us the chance to analyze in greater depth the approaches, issues, and themes introduced earlier in the course and offering students the opportunity to pursue directed research on specific topics that are of particular interest to them.