AFAS G4080: Topics in the Black Experience: Martin Luther King and Radical Democracy
Okihiro, Gary; 4 credits; W 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

Description not currently available

AFRS BC3560: Human Rights and Social Change in Sub-Saharan Africa
Martin, J. Paul; 4 credits; T 9:00am-10:50am (SEM)

Examines the evolution of the ideas, institutions and practices associated with social justice in Africa and their relationship to contemporary international human rights movement and focuses on the role of human rights in social change. A number of themes will re-occur throughout the course, notably tensions between norms and reality, cultural diversity, economic and political asymmetries, the role of external actors, and women as rights providers. Countries of special interest include Liberia, Senegal, South African and Tanzania.

AMST W3930: Topics in American Studies: Freedom & Citizenship
Montas, Roosevelt; 4 credits; MW 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

Freedom and Citizenship in the United States will examine the historical development of ideas of freedom and citizenship in the American context. We will examine texts that treat of issues like the rights and responsibilities of membership in a political association, the nature and limits of the power of the collective over the individual, and the norms of exclusion and inclusion that define a body politic. The course will focus exclusively on primary texts, and the order of readings will be roughly chronological, emphasizing the historical development of the concepts of citizenship, nation, and American identity. The first weeks the course will be dedicated to reading and discussing major texts in Western political history that frame the 17th century founding of the American colonies. The rest of the course will situate the American case in this historical development, beginning with an examination of the Puritan migration to New England and the early communities they formed, and continuing with the study of major documents surrounding the Revolution, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement, and contemporary debates about the meaning of American citizenship. In addition to the classroom requirements, students will be expected to volunteer a minimum of 4 hours a week with the Double Discovery Center (DDC), in connection to the Freedom and Citizenship Project which DDC conducts in partnership with the American Studies Program.

AMST W3930: Topics in American Studies: History of the US Supreme Court
Rosenberg, Benjamin; 4 credits; M 6:10pm-8:00pm (SEM)

As Tocqueville observed, “scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question.” As a consequence, the Supreme Court of the United States has been at the center of many of the most significant developments in American history. It has played significant roles in, for example, (1) the creation of the young republic and the achievement of a balance between states and the federal government, (2) race relations including the institution of slavery, (3) the rights of workers, (4) civil rights, and (5) elections. This seminar will explore the Supreme Court’s role in American society by examining its decisions on key issues throughout its history.

ANTH G6406: The Modern State and the Colonial Subject
Mamdani, Mahmood; 3 credits; T 10:10am-12:00pm (SEM)

On the development of legal thought on the colonial subject. Focus on the American Indian in the New World, and subjugated peoples in the Ottoman Empire, in British India and in tropical and southern Africa.

CSER W1010: Introduction to Comparative Ethnic Studies
Okihiro, Gary; 4 credits; TR 1:10pm-2:25pm (LEC)

Introduction to the field of Asian American studies, including a history of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the U.S., the field's multiple pivots around race, gender, sexuality, class, and nation, and contemporary concerns of identities, community, culture, and location within the U.S. and world.

CSER W3924: Latino/a and Latin American Social Movements
Rockefeller, Stuart; 4 credits; W 2:10pm-4:00pm (SEM)

In Latin America, a wave of new popular social movements has been transforming politics and social reality. In the United States, latino/as are building on decades of organizing and demographic growth to claim a new public persona and challenge their marginal status. What are the significant areas of political action, and how can we understand them? What claims can those disenfranchised for reasons of race, class or national origin make on societies? We will discuss a number of important social movements throughout the region, while developing tools for understanding social movements and their possibilities.

CSER W3941: Race and Law in US History
Milewski, Melissa; 4 credits; T 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

This seminar explores race in American courts beginning with Native Americans’ loss of their land and ending with recent debates over affirmative action and criminal sentencing. We will examine how the courts worked to uphold the power of elites – upholding slavery, affirming segregation, shaping immigration law, and regulating marriage across racial lines. At the same time, we will study how the courts provided opportunities for Americans to challenge restrictions based on race and at times allowed them to exercise their rights as citizens even when other branches of government did not.

HIST BC3440: Introduction to African-American History
Naylor, Celia; 3 credits; TR 11:40am-12:55pm (LEC)

Major themes in African-American History: slave trade, slavery, resistance, segregation, the "New Negro," Civil Rights, Black Power, challenges and manifestations of the contemporary "Color Line."

HIST W3523: Health Inequality: Modern US
Roberts, Samuel; 3 credits; MW 10:10am-11:25am (LEC)

Through assigned readings and a group research project, students will gain familiarity with a range of historical and social science problems at the intersection of ethnic/racial/sexual formations, technological networks, and health politics since the turn of the twentieth century. Topics to be examined will include, but will not be limited to, black women's health organization and care; HIV/AIDS politics, policy, and community response; "benign neglect"; urban renewal and gentrification; medical abuses and the legacy of Tuskegee; tuberculosis control; and environmental justice. The course prerequisite is an application to the course, noting previous coursework in United States history; coursework as a major in pre-health professional (pre-med, pre-nursing, or pre-public health); or social science/History coursework in African-American Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Ethnic Studies, or American Studies.

HIST BC3805: Law and Society in South Asia: Law and Lawnessness
Rao, Anupama; 3 credits; MW 10:10am-11:25am (LEC)

The institution of “rule of law,” and the administration of justice were key pillars of British colonization of the subcontinent. This upper-level lecture course therefore examines law as a critical site from which to explore changing conceptions of self and community from the pre-colonial, to the post-colonial periods. The course addresses key issues concerning the cultural construction of the body, the relationship of law and violence, and the emergence of subaltern legalities in colonial and postcolonial South Asia. The readings for the course are interdisciplinary in nature, and explore recent departures in anthropology and history, as well as critical legal studies. We are concerned in particular with: the construal of crime; the definition of the criminal, the workings of colonial-modern law; debates over legal codification; emergent conceptions of personhood and agency, popular illegalities, urban violence, and comparative constitutionalism.

HIST BC4546: 14th Amendment and Its Issues
Rosenberg, Rosalind; 4 credits; M 2:10pm-4:00pm (SEM)

The role of the 14th Amendment in shaping the modern American Constitution; theories of judicial review; the rise and fall of economic due process; the creation of civil liberties; the civil rights revolution; and the end of states' rights.

HIST W4920: Global Justice in Historical Perspective
Moyn, Sam; 4 credits; W 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

HRTS BC3852: Child Protection, Rights Perspective
; 4 credits; TBD (SEM)

Description not currently available

HRTS W3950: Human Rights and Human Wrongs
Cronin, Bruce; 4 credits; W 11:00am-12:50pm (SEM)

This course will examine the tension between two contradictory trends in world politics. On the one hand, we have emerged from a century that has seen some of the most brutal practices ever perpetrated by states against their populations in the form of genocide, systematic torture, mass murder and ethnic cleansing. Many of these abuses occurred after the Holocaust, even though the mantra “never again” was viewed by many as a pledge never to allow a repeat of these practices. Events in the new century suggest that these trends will not end anytime soon. At the same time, since the middle of the twentieth century, for the first time in human history there has been a growing global consensus that all individuals are entitled to at least some level of protection from abuse by their governments. This concept of human rights has been institutionalized through international law, diplomacy, international discourse, transnational activism, and the foreign policies of many states. Over the past two decades, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and international tribunals have gone further than any institutions in human history to try to stem state abuses. This seminar will try to make sense of these contradictions.

HRTS G4320: Human Rights and Foreign Policy
Petrova, Tsveta; 3 credits; T 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

Prerequisites: the department's permission. Email humanrightsed@columbia.edu. Human rights play a distinctive role as "the political utopia" in contemporary international life. Still, human rights violations remain widespread and human rights norms are still the focus of numerous controversies, from their definition to their protection and promotion by various international actors with different moral and strategic agendas. This course will examine the place of human rights in the foreign policies of the US and a number of other countries around the globe. The course explores the social construction of human rights and national interests as well as the context, instruments, and tradeoffs in the formulation and implementation human rights foreign policies. Some of the questions this class will consider include: What are human rights and how is their protection best assessed? How have different states promoted and contributed to the violation of human rights abroad? How does human rights promotion strengthen and undermine other foreign policy goals? What's the role of non-state actors in the promotion and violation of human rights across the globe? When has the impact of the human rights norms and regimes been the greatest and when have the efforts of state and non-state actors to promote human rights at home and abroad made the most difference?

POLS W3260: Latino Politics: Immigration/Immigrant: Latin Political Experience
de la Garza, Rodolfo; 3 credits; MW 11:40am-12:55pm (LEC)

This course focuses on the political incorporation of Latinos into the American polity. Among the topics to be discussed are patterns of historical exclusion, the impact of the Voting Rights Act, organizational and electoral behavior, and the effects of immigration on the Latino national political agenda.

POLS W3285: Freedom of Speech and Press
Bollinger, Lee; 3 credits; MW 4:10pm-5:25pm (LEC)

Examines the constitutional right of freedom of speech and press in the United States. Examines, in depth, various areas of law, including extremist or seditious speech, obscenity, libel, fighting words, the public forum doctrine, and public access to the mass media. Follows the law school course model, with readings focused on actual judicial decisions.

POLS BC3402: Comparative Politics of Gender Inequality
Ullman, Claire F; 3 credits; W 2:10pm-4:00pm (LEC)

Comparative Politics Prerequisites: Not an introductory-level course. Not open to students who have taken the colloquium POLS BC 3507. Enrollment limited to 20 students; L-course sign-up through eBear. Barnard syllabus. Uses major analytical perspectives in comparative politics to understand the persistence of gender inequality in advanced industrial states. Topics include: political representation and participation; political economy and capitalism; the historical development of welfare states; electoral systems, electoral quotas; the role of supranational and international organizations; and social policy.

POLS V3413: Political Movements in Middle East and North Africa
El-Ghobashy, Mona; 3 credits; R 10:10am-11:25am (LEC)

The 2011 "Arab Spring" took all observers by surprise. Yet the region has a rich history of bottom-up demands for accountable government. This course examines the diverse forms of popular mobilization in the Middle East region from the 19th century to 2011, including women's, human rights, and labor movements. (Cross-listed by the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures)

POLS BC3521: Civil Rights & Civil Liberties
Franzese, Paula; 3 credits; T 4:10pm-6:00pm (LEC)

Explores seminal caselaw to inform contemporary civil rights and civil liberties jurisprudence and policy. Specifically, the readings examine historical and contemporary first amendment values, including freedom of speech and the press, economic liberties, takings law, discrimination based on race, gender, class and sexual preference, affirmative action, the right to privacy, reproductive freedom, the right to die, criminal procedure and adjudication, the rights of the criminally accused post-9/11 and the death penalty.

POLS V3604: Civil War and Intervention in Africa
Autesserre, Severine; 3 credits; TR 1:10pm-2:25pm (LEC)

Why does violent conflict persist in post-independence Africa? Why do nearly half of the countries that emerge from war lapse back into violence after five years? Why do most international interventions fail to bring peace to affected populations? This class focuses on recent conflict and post-conflict situations in Africa as background against which to understand the distinct dynamics of violence and international interventions in civil wars.

POLS BC3805: International Organization
Cooley, Alexander A; 4 credits; M 11:00am-12:50pm (COL)

Description International Relations Prerequisites: POLS V1601 or the equivalent. Admission by application through the Barnard department only. Enrollment limited to 16 students. Barnard syllabus. Exploration of the various structures, institutions, and processes that order relations among states and/or actors in the international system. Emphasis will be placed on contemporary issues such as dilemmas of humanitarian intervention, the politics of international institutions, the rise of non-governmental organizations, and globalization.

POLS BC3810: Aid, Pol, Violence Africa
Autesserre, Severine; 4 credits; T 4:10pm-6:00pm (COL)

International Relations Prerequisites: POLS V1601 or the equivalent. Admission by application through the Barnard department only. Enrollment limited to 16 students. Barnard syllabus. Explores the concepts, theoretical traditions and debates around development and humanitarian aid, focusing on the relationships between aid, politics, and violence. It looks at the political and military impacts of aid, the linkage between humanitarian aid and conflict resolution, and aid's contribution to perpetuating subtle forms of domination.

POLS W3911: Citizenship and Exclusion
Isiksel, Turkuler; 4 credits; W 2:10pm-4:00pm (SM)

Prerequisites: Instructor's permission is required to register. Pre-registration is not permitted. Seminar in Political Theory. Pre-registration is not permitted. For most seminars, interested students must attend the first class meeting, after which the instructor will decide whom to admit. Senior majors receive priority, followed by junior majors, then all other students.

POLS W3911: Tocqueville's Democracy in America
Elster, Jon; 4 credits; R 6:10pm-8:00pm (SM)

POLS W3921: American Politics Seminar: Majority Rule/Minority Rights
Smith, Raymond A; 4 credits; T 6:10pm-8:00pm (SEM)

This course will examine one of the central challenges to both the theory and the practice of democracy: the reconciliation of majority rule with minority rights in a way that neither sacrifices popular sovereignty nor oppresses small or disfavored groups. This course will draw upon both "classics" of political science regarding the role of minority groups in American politics as well as upon contemporary scholarship focused largely on ethnoracial and other minority groups.

POLS W3921: American Politics Seminar: Equality and the Law
Abdur, Robert; 4 credits; R 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

Description not currently available

POLS W3921: American Politics Seminar: Bill of Rights
Zebrowski, Martha K; 4 credits; T 6:10pm-8:00pm (SEM)

This seminar is an investigation of the nature and importance of the federal Bill of Rights in the American federal and state constitutional systems. Common readings, class discussions, and student seminar papers consider the social, political, and legal significance of the Bill of Rights in historical and contemporary American discourse and analysis, along with constitutional case law regarding specific rights. The first part of the course is devoted to a discussion of common, required readings that consider the Bill of Rights in historical and contemporary perspective. The second part of the course is devoted to students' presentations, in class, of their own research on individual topics relating to a particular rights grounded in the American federal and state bills of rights.

POLS W3921: American Politics Seminar: Issues that Divide America
Gertzog, Irwin; 4 credits; T 11:00am-12:50pm (SEM)

Seminar focuses on four political issues so contentious that they have produced enduring cultural, socio-economic, and political divisions throughout the United States. The four issues are slavery and efforts to end it; the use of alcoholic beverages and the struggle to curtail it; abortion and attempts to prohibit it; and lesbian and gay rights and the battle to impede them.

POLS W3930: Constitutional Law
Rosdeitcher, Sidney; 4 credits; T 2:10pm-4:00pm (SEM)

This course explores major features of U.S. constitutional law through close examination of  selected decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court.  Through student discussion and some lecturing, the seminar addresses issues arising from the Constitution's allocation of power among the three branches of government, including the role of the federal judiciary in a democratic polity; the allocation of powers between the National and State governments, including the scope of Congress’ regulatory powers; and the protection of the private sphere from arbitrary and discriminatory government conduct, including the evolution of the concept of liberty from its protection of economic interests before the New Deal to its current role in  protecting individual autonomy and privacy, protections against racial and gender discrimination and some aspects of freedom of speech and press.  More generally the seminar aims to enhance understanding of some main aspects of our constitutional tradition and the judicial process by which it is elaborated.

POLS W3961: International Politics Seminar: Human Rights
Putnam, Tonya; 4 credits; W 12:10pm-2:00pm (SEM)

POLS W3961: International Politics Seminar: Law & Ethics of International Intervention
Doyle, Michael; 4 credits; T 11:00am-12:50pm (SEM)

This seminar offers an opportunity for students to explore the law, ethics and politics of international intervention. We will concentrate on humanitarian and preventive intervention. When should states or international organizations be permitted or required to intervene in order to rescue populations from a humanitarian emergency? When can states anticipate a potential attack and act so as to forestall it? Drawing on the literature and examining historical cases, the seminar aims to foster a discussion of what would be better procedural and substantive guidelines for making these difficult decisions.

AHIS BC3949: Art of Witness: Memorials
Deutsche, Rosalyn; 4 credits; W 11:00am-12:50pm (SEM)

Examines aesthetic responses to collective historical traumas, such as slavery, the Holocaust, the bombing of Hiroshima, AIDS, homelessness, immigration, and the recent attack on the World Trade Center. Studies theories about trauma, memory, and representation. Explores debates about the function and form of memorials.

CPLS W3722: Narrative and Disability
Adams, Rachel; 4 credits; T 2:10pm-4:00pm (SEM)

The past ten years have seen an explosion of memoirs, blogs, essays, novels and films about illness and disability. This course will look at the intersection of disability and narrative, investigating the ways that illness and disability give rise to unique forms of representation in a variety of media. We will contextualize our study of narrative by asking what political and social factors have given rise to the current boom in disability narratives, as well as the way we understand disability itself. We will lend historical depth to our investigation by looking to earlier examples of disability in literary and visual culture, seeking to understand how more recent representations are informed both by a longer literary history, as well as such practices as freak shows, institutionalization, and the rise of the medical and/or helping professions. Weekly meetings are organized topically to introduce students to some of the major concepts and debates currently animating the field of disability studies.

CPLS G4104: Collective Identity in a Global World
Tsoukalas, Constantine; 1.5 credits; MW 6:10pm-8:40pm (SEM)

This seminar will address some of the political and ideological implications of the recent emergence of "cultural self-determination" as a fundamental human right. Its central object will refer to the increasing tension between hegemonically crystallized collective values emanating from contractually conceived "civic universalism," on the one hand, and personalized individual values founded on particularist "anthropological" differences (gender, race, culture, language, etc.), on the other. However, the burning issues of alterity and multiculturalism as well as struggles for recognition will not be examined just philosophically. They will be treated as historical "discursive facts" produced together with the advent of globalization and within the context of ongoing radical mutations of traditionally closed, homogenous, and integrated political and ideological spaces. Readings will include, Agamben, Althusser, Badiou, Balibar, Baumann, Bourdieu, Deleuze/Guattari, Derrida, Foucault, Freud, Girard, Hart/Negri, Levi-Strauss, Rorty, Rosanvallon, Schmitt, Taylor.

ITAL G4401: Holocaust and Resistance in Italy
Leake, Elizabeth; 3 credits; W 2:10pm-4:00pm (LEC)

Description not currently available

MDES G4326: The Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust: Memory and Representation
Balakian, Peter; 3 credits; R 2:10pm-4:00pm (SEM)

This course is an investigation of the impact of genocide on the self and the imagination’s representations in literature, film, and video testimony; primary texts will include poetry, memoir, video testimony, film, and visual art. Methodology will involve literary criticism and theoretical works in the study of trauma, literary theory, and testimony. The course will concern itself with the aftermath of two twentieth century genocides—that of the Armenians in Turkey during World War I and of the Jews in Europe during World War II—both seminal events of the twentieth century that, in various ways, became models for ensuing genocides. Students will be permitted to write about other post-genocidal texts with the instructor’s permission.

ANTH G6406: The Modern State and the Colonial Subject
Mamdani, Mahmood; 3 credits; T 10:10am-12:00pm (SEM)

On the development of legal thought on the colonial subject. Focus on the American Indian in the New World, and subjugated peoples in the Ottoman Empire, in British India and in tropical and southern Africa.

CPLS G4104: Collective Identity in a Global World
Tsoukalas, Constantine; 1.5 credits; MW 6:10pm-8:40pm (SEM)

This seminar will address some of the political and ideological implications of the recent emergence of "cultural self-determination" as a fundamental human right. Its central object will refer to the increasing tension between hegemonically crystallized collective values emanating from contractually conceived "civic universalism," on the one hand, and personalized individual values founded on particularist "anthropological" differences (gender, race, culture, language, etc.), on the other. However, the burning issues of alterity and multiculturalism as well as struggles for recognition will not be examined just philosophically. They will be treated as historical "discursive facts" produced together with the advent of globalization and within the context of ongoing radical mutations of traditionally closed, homogenous, and integrated political and ideological spaces. Readings will include, Agamben, Althusser, Badiou, Balibar, Baumann, Bourdieu, Deleuze/Guattari, Derrida, Foucault, Freud, Girard, Hart/Negri, Levi-Strauss, Rorty, Rosanvallon, Schmitt, Taylor.

HIST BC3805: Law and Society in South Asia: Law and Lawnessness
Rao, Anupama; 3 credits; MW 10:10am-11:25am (LEC)

The institution of “rule of law,” and the administration of justice were key pillars of British colonization of the subcontinent. This upper-level lecture course therefore examines law as a critical site from which to explore changing conceptions of self and community from the pre-colonial, to the post-colonial periods. The course addresses key issues concerning the cultural construction of the body, the relationship of law and violence, and the emergence of subaltern legalities in colonial and postcolonial South Asia. The readings for the course are interdisciplinary in nature, and explore recent departures in anthropology and history, as well as critical legal studies. We are concerned in particular with: the construal of crime; the definition of the criminal, the workings of colonial-modern law; debates over legal codification; emergent conceptions of personhood and agency, popular illegalities, urban violence, and comparative constitutionalism.

PHIL V3701: Ethics
Vogt, Katja; 4 credits; TR 11:40am-12:55pm (LEC)

Prerequisites: One course in philosophy Corequisites: PHILV3711 Required Discussion Section 0 points Prerequisites: One course in philosophy. Introduction to the three central theories of normative ethics: consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics; introduction to selected topics in meta-ethics. Required Discussion Section.

PHIL V3751: Political Philosophy
Honneth, Axel; 3 credits; TR 8:40am-9:55am (LEC)

Six major concepts of political philosophy including authority, rights, equality, justice, liberty and democracy are examined in three different ways. First the conceptual issues are analyzed through contemporary essays on these topics by authors like Peters, Hart, Williams, Berlin, Rawls and Schumpeter. Second the classical sources on these topics are discussed through readings from Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Marx, Plato, Mill and Rousseau. Third some attention is paid to relevant contexts of application of these concepts in political society, including such political movements as anarchism, international human rights, conservative, liberal, and Marxist economic policies as well as competing models of democracy.

PHIL V3752: Philosophy of Law
Moody-Adams, Michele; 3 credits; MW 2:40pm-3:55pm (SEM)

This course explores philosophical reflection on the relationship between law, society and morality. We discuss the nature of law, the nature of legal reasoning, the relationship between law and social policy, and central concepts in civil and criminal law. Readings are drawn from such sources as the natural law tradidion, legal positivism, legal realism, and Critical Legal Theory. Readings will be supplemented by analysis of classic cases.

PHIL C3912: Political Philosophy
Moody-Adams, Michele; 3 credits; T 2:10pm-4:00pm (SEM)

This course will re-examine some of the foundations of liberal theory, in the idea of a rational individual who is rationally concerned with autonomous pursuits, and who is a locus of liberal rights (so-called "negative" liberties). Why do individuals in this sense matter? What qualifies as an individual in this sense? Do corporations qualify? Do they have liberal rights? Do some human beings fail to qualify? Does this mean that human rights are not well conceived as liberal rights? Do the answers to the questions suggest that political institutions organized around liberal rights are not well designed?

POLS V1013: Political Theory
Johnston, David; 3 credits; MW 11:40am-12:55pm (LEC)

What is the relationship between law and justice? Are capacities of political judgment shared by the many or reserved for the few? What does human equality consist of and what are its implications? Can individual freedom be reconciled with the demands of political community? What are the origins and effects of persistent gender inequalities? These are some of the crucial questions that we will address in this introductory course in political theory. The course is divided into five thematic sections, each addressing an enduring political problem or issue and centered on a key text in the history of political thought: 1. Laws, Obligations, and the Question of Disobedience Sophocles, Antigone; 2. Democratic Citizenship and the Capacities of Political Judgment Plato, Republic; 3. Origins and Effects of (In)equality John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government; 4. Paradoxes of Freedom Jean Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract; 5. The Woman Question John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women.

POLS W3921: American Politics Seminar: Equality and the Law
Abdur, Robert; 4 credits; R 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

Description not currently available

POLS W3961: International Politics Seminar: Law & Ethics of International Intervention
Doyle, Michael; 4 credits; T 11:00am-12:50pm (SEM)

This seminar offers an opportunity for students to explore the law, ethics and politics of international intervention. We will concentrate on humanitarian and preventive intervention. When should states or international organizations be permitted or required to intervene in order to rescue populations from a humanitarian emergency? When can states anticipate a potential attack and act so as to forestall it? Drawing on the literature and examining historical cases, the seminar aims to foster a discussion of what would be better procedural and substantive guidelines for making these difficult decisions.

WMST V3312: Theorizing Women's Activism
Bernstein and Jakobsen; 4 credits; T 2:10pm-4:00pm (T 2:10pm-4:00pm)

Prerequisites: Critical Approaches or Feminist Theory or permission of instructor. Helps students develop and apply useful theoretical models to feminist organizing on local and international levels. It involves reading, presentations, and seminar reports. Students use first-hand knowledge of the practices of specific women's activist organizations for theoretical work.

CSER W1010: Introduction to Comparative Ethnic Studies
Okihiro, Gary; 4 credits; TR 1:10pm-2:25pm (LEC)

Introduction to the field of Asian American studies, including a history of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the U.S., the field's multiple pivots around race, gender, sexuality, class, and nation, and contemporary concerns of identities, community, culture, and location within the U.S. and world.

CSER W3924: Latino/a and Latin American Social Movements
Rockefeller, Stuart; 4 credits; W 2:10pm-4:00pm (SEM)

In Latin America, a wave of new popular social movements has been transforming politics and social reality. In the United States, latino/as are building on decades of organizing and demographic growth to claim a new public persona and challenge their marginal status. What are the significant areas of political action, and how can we understand them? What claims can those disenfranchised for reasons of race, class or national origin make on societies? We will discuss a number of important social movements throughout the region, while developing tools for understanding social movements and their possibilities.

ECON W4480: Gender and Applied Economics
Edlund, Lena; 3 credits; TR 1:10pm-2:25pm (LEC)

This course studies gender gaps, their extent, determinants and consequences. The focus will be on the allocation of rights in different cultures and over time, why women's rights have typically been more limited and why most societies have traditionally favored males in the allocation of resources.

HIST W3523: Health Inequality: Modern US
Roberts, Samuel; 3 credits; MW 10:10am-11:25am (LEC)

Through assigned readings and a group research project, students will gain familiarity with a range of historical and social science problems at the intersection of ethnic/racial/sexual formations, technological networks, and health politics since the turn of the twentieth century. Topics to be examined will include, but will not be limited to, black women's health organization and care; HIV/AIDS politics, policy, and community response; "benign neglect"; urban renewal and gentrification; medical abuses and the legacy of Tuskegee; tuberculosis control; and environmental justice. The course prerequisite is an application to the course, noting previous coursework in United States history; coursework as a major in pre-health professional (pre-med, pre-nursing, or pre-public health); or social science/History coursework in African-American Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Ethnic Studies, or American Studies.

HRTS BC3850: Human Rights and Public Health
; 4 credits; TBD (SEM)

Description not currently available

HRTS BC3852: Child Protection, Rights Perspective
; 4 credits; TBD (SEM)

Description not currently available

HRTS G4215: The International Human Rights Movement: Past, Present and Future
Bickford, Louis; 3 credits; M 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

Prerequisites: the department's permission for non-HRSMA students. Email humanrightsed@columbia.edu. The human rights movement is one of the most successful social justice movements of our time, establishing universal principles that govern how states should treat citizens and non-citizens. The movement strengthens, and is strengthened by, a complex web of institutions, laws, and norms that constitute a functioning global system that builds on itself progressively, animated by strong NGOs. The course will address the evolution of the international human rights movement and on the NGOs that drive the movement on the international, regional and domestic levels. Sessions will highlight the experiences of major human rights NGOs and will address topics including strategy development, institutional representation, research methodologies, partnerships, networks, venues of engagement, campaigning, fundraising and, perhaps most importantly, the fraught and complex debates about adaptation to changing global circumstances.

HRTS G4300: Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Policy and Practice
Rosenthal, Mila; 3 credits; M 6:10pm-8:00pm (SEM)

This course will address economic and social human rights through the lens of what is happening now in the early 21st century, in light of the enormous shifts that have taken place since the modern human rights movement first emerged in the aftermath of WWII. The course will address many of the central debates about economic and social rights and then examine how those debates apply to specific rights and topics including development, health, housing, work, food and education. Throughout, the course will examine how activists and policymakers have responded to all these changes, and ask what might lie ahead for the human rights movement in addressing economic and social rights in a multilateral, globalized world.

POLS BC3402: Comparative Politics of Gender Inequality
Ullman, Claire F; 3 credits; W 2:10pm-4:00pm (LEC)

Comparative Politics Prerequisites: Not an introductory-level course. Not open to students who have taken the colloquium POLS BC 3507. Enrollment limited to 20 students; L-course sign-up through eBear. Barnard syllabus. Uses major analytical perspectives in comparative politics to understand the persistence of gender inequality in advanced industrial states. Topics include: political representation and participation; political economy and capitalism; the historical development of welfare states; electoral systems, electoral quotas; the role of supranational and international organizations; and social policy.

SOCI V3235: Social Movements: Collective Action
Minkoff, Debra; credits; MW 2:40pm-3:55pm (SEM)

Social movements and the theories social scientists use to explain them, with emphasis on the American civil rights and women's movements. Topics include theories of participation, the personal and social consequences of social movements, the rationality of protest, the influence of ideology, organization, and the state on movement success, social movements, and the mass media.

SOCI W3915: Stigma and Discrimination
Phelan, Jo; 4 credits; T 2:10pm-4:00pm (SEM)

This course considers stigma and discrimination as general processes that apply to a broad range of phenomena, from mental illness to obesity to HIV/AIDS to racial groups. We will use a conceptual framework that considers power and social stratification to be central to stigma and discrimination. We will focus on both macro- and micro-level social processes and their interconnections, and we will draw on literature from both sociology and psychology.

SOCI W3960: Seminar: Problems of Law and Society - Law, Science and Society
Cole, Jonathan; 4 credits; T 11:00am-12:50pm (SEM)

This course addresses basic contemporary social issues from several angles of vision: from the perspective of scientists, social scientists, legal scholars, and judges. Through the use of case studies, students will examine the nature of theories, evidence, "facts," proof, and argument as found in the work of scientists and scholars who have engaged the substantive issues presented in the course.

SOCI G4121: Racial and Ethnic Inequality
Shedd, Carla; 3 credits; T 11:00am-12:50pm (SEM)

This seminar critically examines how racial/ethnic inequality is generated and maintained in contemporary American society. We will explore the merits and limitations of various paradigms that aim to explain racial inequalities and the concomitant social policies that have been implemented and/or proposed. Major topics include: residential segregation, wealth inequality, educational achievement, employment outcomes, crime & punishment, and culture.

WMST V3312: Theorizing Women's Activism
Bernstein and Jakobsen; 4 credits; T 2:10pm-4:00pm (T 2:10pm-4:00pm)

Prerequisites: Critical Approaches or Feminist Theory or permission of instructor. Helps students develop and apply useful theoretical models to feminist organizing on local and international levels. It involves reading, presentations, and seminar reports. Students use first-hand knowledge of the practices of specific women's activist organizations for theoretical work.

WMST BC3514: Historical Approaches to Feminist Questions
Ko, Dorothy; 4 credits; T 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

This course will provide students with a comparative perspective on gender, race, and sexuality by illuminating historically specific and culturally distinct conditions in which these systems of power have operated across time and space. In particular, the course seeks to show how gender has not always been a binary or primary category system. Such approach is also useful in understanding the workings of race and sexuality as mechanisms of differentiation. In making these inquiries, the course will pay attention to the intersectional nature of race, gender, and sexuality and to strategic performances of identity by marginalized groups.

AFAS G4080: Topics in the Black Experience: Martin Luther King and Radical Democracy
Okihiro, Gary; 4 credits; W 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

Description not currently available

AFRS BC3560: Human Rights and Social Change in Sub-Saharan Africa
Martin, J. Paul; 4 credits; T 9:00am-10:50am (SEM)

Examines the evolution of the ideas, institutions and practices associated with social justice in Africa and their relationship to contemporary international human rights movement and focuses on the role of human rights in social change. A number of themes will re-occur throughout the course, notably tensions between norms and reality, cultural diversity, economic and political asymmetries, the role of external actors, and women as rights providers. Countries of special interest include Liberia, Senegal, South African and Tanzania.

AHIS BC3949: Art of Witness: Memorials
Deutsche, Rosalyn; 4 credits; W 11:00am-12:50pm (SEM)

Examines aesthetic responses to collective historical traumas, such as slavery, the Holocaust, the bombing of Hiroshima, AIDS, homelessness, immigration, and the recent attack on the World Trade Center. Studies theories about trauma, memory, and representation. Explores debates about the function and form of memorials.

AMST W3930: Topics in American Studies: History of the US Supreme Court
Rosenberg, Benjamin; 4 credits; M 6:10pm-8:00pm (SEM)

As Tocqueville observed, “scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question.” As a consequence, the Supreme Court of the United States has been at the center of many of the most significant developments in American history. It has played significant roles in, for example, (1) the creation of the young republic and the achievement of a balance between states and the federal government, (2) race relations including the institution of slavery, (3) the rights of workers, (4) civil rights, and (5) elections. This seminar will explore the Supreme Court’s role in American society by examining its decisions on key issues throughout its history.

AMST W3930: Topics in American Studies: Freedom & Citizenship
Montas, Roosevelt; 4 credits; MW 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

Freedom and Citizenship in the United States will examine the historical development of ideas of freedom and citizenship in the American context. We will examine texts that treat of issues like the rights and responsibilities of membership in a political association, the nature and limits of the power of the collective over the individual, and the norms of exclusion and inclusion that define a body politic. The course will focus exclusively on primary texts, and the order of readings will be roughly chronological, emphasizing the historical development of the concepts of citizenship, nation, and American identity. The first weeks the course will be dedicated to reading and discussing major texts in Western political history that frame the 17th century founding of the American colonies. The rest of the course will situate the American case in this historical development, beginning with an examination of the Puritan migration to New England and the early communities they formed, and continuing with the study of major documents surrounding the Revolution, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement, and contemporary debates about the meaning of American citizenship. In addition to the classroom requirements, students will be expected to volunteer a minimum of 4 hours a week with the Double Discovery Center (DDC), in connection to the Freedom and Citizenship Project which DDC conducts in partnership with the American Studies Program.

ANTH G6406: The Modern State and the Colonial Subject
Mamdani, Mahmood; 3 credits; T 10:10am-12:00pm (SEM)

On the development of legal thought on the colonial subject. Focus on the American Indian in the New World, and subjugated peoples in the Ottoman Empire, in British India and in tropical and southern Africa.

CPLS W3722: Narrative and Disability
Adams, Rachel; 4 credits; T 2:10pm-4:00pm (SEM)

The past ten years have seen an explosion of memoirs, blogs, essays, novels and films about illness and disability. This course will look at the intersection of disability and narrative, investigating the ways that illness and disability give rise to unique forms of representation in a variety of media. We will contextualize our study of narrative by asking what political and social factors have given rise to the current boom in disability narratives, as well as the way we understand disability itself. We will lend historical depth to our investigation by looking to earlier examples of disability in literary and visual culture, seeking to understand how more recent representations are informed both by a longer literary history, as well as such practices as freak shows, institutionalization, and the rise of the medical and/or helping professions. Weekly meetings are organized topically to introduce students to some of the major concepts and debates currently animating the field of disability studies.

CPLS G4104: Collective Identity in a Global World
Tsoukalas, Constantine; 1.5 credits; MW 6:10pm-8:40pm (SEM)

This seminar will address some of the political and ideological implications of the recent emergence of "cultural self-determination" as a fundamental human right. Its central object will refer to the increasing tension between hegemonically crystallized collective values emanating from contractually conceived "civic universalism," on the one hand, and personalized individual values founded on particularist "anthropological" differences (gender, race, culture, language, etc.), on the other. However, the burning issues of alterity and multiculturalism as well as struggles for recognition will not be examined just philosophically. They will be treated as historical "discursive facts" produced together with the advent of globalization and within the context of ongoing radical mutations of traditionally closed, homogenous, and integrated political and ideological spaces. Readings will include, Agamben, Althusser, Badiou, Balibar, Baumann, Bourdieu, Deleuze/Guattari, Derrida, Foucault, Freud, Girard, Hart/Negri, Levi-Strauss, Rorty, Rosanvallon, Schmitt, Taylor.

CSER W1010: Introduction to Comparative Ethnic Studies
Okihiro, Gary; 4 credits; TR 1:10pm-2:25pm (LEC)

Introduction to the field of Asian American studies, including a history of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the U.S., the field's multiple pivots around race, gender, sexuality, class, and nation, and contemporary concerns of identities, community, culture, and location within the U.S. and world.

CSER W3924: Latino/a and Latin American Social Movements
Rockefeller, Stuart; 4 credits; W 2:10pm-4:00pm (SEM)

In Latin America, a wave of new popular social movements has been transforming politics and social reality. In the United States, latino/as are building on decades of organizing and demographic growth to claim a new public persona and challenge their marginal status. What are the significant areas of political action, and how can we understand them? What claims can those disenfranchised for reasons of race, class or national origin make on societies? We will discuss a number of important social movements throughout the region, while developing tools for understanding social movements and their possibilities.

CSER W3941: Race and Law in US History
Milewski, Melissa; 4 credits; T 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

This seminar explores race in American courts beginning with Native Americans’ loss of their land and ending with recent debates over affirmative action and criminal sentencing. We will examine how the courts worked to uphold the power of elites – upholding slavery, affirming segregation, shaping immigration law, and regulating marriage across racial lines. At the same time, we will study how the courts provided opportunities for Americans to challenge restrictions based on race and at times allowed them to exercise their rights as citizens even when other branches of government did not.

ECON W4480: Gender and Applied Economics
Edlund, Lena; 3 credits; TR 1:10pm-2:25pm (LEC)

This course studies gender gaps, their extent, determinants and consequences. The focus will be on the allocation of rights in different cultures and over time, why women's rights have typically been more limited and why most societies have traditionally favored males in the allocation of resources.

HIST BC3440: Introduction to African-American History
Naylor, Celia; 3 credits; TR 11:40am-12:55pm (LEC)

Major themes in African-American History: slave trade, slavery, resistance, segregation, the "New Negro," Civil Rights, Black Power, challenges and manifestations of the contemporary "Color Line."

HIST W3523: Health Inequality: Modern US
Roberts, Samuel; 3 credits; MW 10:10am-11:25am (LEC)

Through assigned readings and a group research project, students will gain familiarity with a range of historical and social science problems at the intersection of ethnic/racial/sexual formations, technological networks, and health politics since the turn of the twentieth century. Topics to be examined will include, but will not be limited to, black women's health organization and care; HIV/AIDS politics, policy, and community response; "benign neglect"; urban renewal and gentrification; medical abuses and the legacy of Tuskegee; tuberculosis control; and environmental justice. The course prerequisite is an application to the course, noting previous coursework in United States history; coursework as a major in pre-health professional (pre-med, pre-nursing, or pre-public health); or social science/History coursework in African-American Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Ethnic Studies, or American Studies.

HIST BC3805: Law and Society in South Asia: Law and Lawnessness
Rao, Anupama; 3 credits; MW 10:10am-11:25am (LEC)

The institution of “rule of law,” and the administration of justice were key pillars of British colonization of the subcontinent. This upper-level lecture course therefore examines law as a critical site from which to explore changing conceptions of self and community from the pre-colonial, to the post-colonial periods. The course addresses key issues concerning the cultural construction of the body, the relationship of law and violence, and the emergence of subaltern legalities in colonial and postcolonial South Asia. The readings for the course are interdisciplinary in nature, and explore recent departures in anthropology and history, as well as critical legal studies. We are concerned in particular with: the construal of crime; the definition of the criminal, the workings of colonial-modern law; debates over legal codification; emergent conceptions of personhood and agency, popular illegalities, urban violence, and comparative constitutionalism.

HIST BC4546: 14th Amendment and Its Issues
Rosenberg, Rosalind; 4 credits; M 2:10pm-4:00pm (SEM)

The role of the 14th Amendment in shaping the modern American Constitution; theories of judicial review; the rise and fall of economic due process; the creation of civil liberties; the civil rights revolution; and the end of states' rights.

HIST W4920: Global Justice in Historical Perspective
Moyn, Sam; 4 credits; W 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

HRTS V3001: Introduction to Human Rights
Nathan, Andrew; 3 credits; MW 11:40am-12:55pm (LEC)

Evolution of the theory and content of human rights; the ideology and impact of human rights movements; national and international human rights law and institutions; their application with attention to universality within states, including the U.S., and internationally.

HRTS BC3850: Human Rights and Public Health
; 4 credits; TBD (SEM)

Description not currently available

HRTS BC3852: Child Protection, Rights Perspective
; 4 credits; TBD (SEM)

Description not currently available

HRTS W3950: Human Rights and Human Wrongs
Cronin, Bruce; 4 credits; W 11:00am-12:50pm (SEM)

This course will examine the tension between two contradictory trends in world politics. On the one hand, we have emerged from a century that has seen some of the most brutal practices ever perpetrated by states against their populations in the form of genocide, systematic torture, mass murder and ethnic cleansing. Many of these abuses occurred after the Holocaust, even though the mantra “never again” was viewed by many as a pledge never to allow a repeat of these practices. Events in the new century suggest that these trends will not end anytime soon. At the same time, since the middle of the twentieth century, for the first time in human history there has been a growing global consensus that all individuals are entitled to at least some level of protection from abuse by their governments. This concept of human rights has been institutionalized through international law, diplomacy, international discourse, transnational activism, and the foreign policies of many states. Over the past two decades, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and international tribunals have gone further than any institutions in human history to try to stem state abuses. This seminar will try to make sense of these contradictions.

HRTS W3995: Human Rights Senior Seminar 
TBA; 4 credits; M 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

Priority given to human rights majors. The senior seminar is a capstone course required for the human rights major. The seminar provides students the opportunity to discuss human rights from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and to explore various theoretical approaches and research methodologies. Students undertake individual research projects while collectively examining human rights through directed readings and discussion.

HRTS G4215: The International Human Rights Movement: Past, Present and Future
Bickford, Louis; 3 credits; M 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

Prerequisites: the department's permission for non-HRSMA students. Email humanrightsed@columbia.edu. The human rights movement is one of the most successful social justice movements of our time, establishing universal principles that govern how states should treat citizens and non-citizens. The movement strengthens, and is strengthened by, a complex web of institutions, laws, and norms that constitute a functioning global system that builds on itself progressively, animated by strong NGOs. The course will address the evolution of the international human rights movement and on the NGOs that drive the movement on the international, regional and domestic levels. Sessions will highlight the experiences of major human rights NGOs and will address topics including strategy development, institutional representation, research methodologies, partnerships, networks, venues of engagement, campaigning, fundraising and, perhaps most importantly, the fraught and complex debates about adaptation to changing global circumstances.

HRTS G4300: Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Policy and Practice
Rosenthal, Mila; 3 credits; M 6:10pm-8:00pm (SEM)

This course will address economic and social human rights through the lens of what is happening now in the early 21st century, in light of the enormous shifts that have taken place since the modern human rights movement first emerged in the aftermath of WWII. The course will address many of the central debates about economic and social rights and then examine how those debates apply to specific rights and topics including development, health, housing, work, food and education. Throughout, the course will examine how activists and policymakers have responded to all these changes, and ask what might lie ahead for the human rights movement in addressing economic and social rights in a multilateral, globalized world.

HRTS G4320: Human Rights and Foreign Policy
Petrova, Tsveta; 3 credits; T 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

Prerequisites: the department's permission. Email humanrightsed@columbia.edu. Human rights play a distinctive role as "the political utopia" in contemporary international life. Still, human rights violations remain widespread and human rights norms are still the focus of numerous controversies, from their definition to their protection and promotion by various international actors with different moral and strategic agendas. This course will examine the place of human rights in the foreign policies of the US and a number of other countries around the globe. The course explores the social construction of human rights and national interests as well as the context, instruments, and tradeoffs in the formulation and implementation human rights foreign policies. Some of the questions this class will consider include: What are human rights and how is their protection best assessed? How have different states promoted and contributed to the violation of human rights abroad? How does human rights promotion strengthen and undermine other foreign policy goals? What's the role of non-state actors in the promotion and violation of human rights across the globe? When has the impact of the human rights norms and regimes been the greatest and when have the efforts of state and non-state actors to promote human rights at home and abroad made the most difference?

ITAL G4401: Holocaust and Resistance in Italy
Leake, Elizabeth; 3 credits; W 2:10pm-4:00pm (LEC)

Description not currently available

MDES G4326: The Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust: Memory and Representation
Balakian, Peter; 3 credits; R 2:10pm-4:00pm (SEM)

This course is an investigation of the impact of genocide on the self and the imagination’s representations in literature, film, and video testimony; primary texts will include poetry, memoir, video testimony, film, and visual art. Methodology will involve literary criticism and theoretical works in the study of trauma, literary theory, and testimony. The course will concern itself with the aftermath of two twentieth century genocides—that of the Armenians in Turkey during World War I and of the Jews in Europe during World War II—both seminal events of the twentieth century that, in various ways, became models for ensuing genocides. Students will be permitted to write about other post-genocidal texts with the instructor’s permission.

PHIL V3701: Ethics
Vogt, Katja; 4 credits; TR 11:40am-12:55pm (LEC)

Prerequisites: One course in philosophy Corequisites: PHILV3711 Required Discussion Section 0 points Prerequisites: One course in philosophy. Introduction to the three central theories of normative ethics: consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics; introduction to selected topics in meta-ethics. Required Discussion Section.

PHIL V3751: Political Philosophy
Honneth, Axel; 3 credits; TR 8:40am-9:55am (LEC)

Six major concepts of political philosophy including authority, rights, equality, justice, liberty and democracy are examined in three different ways. First the conceptual issues are analyzed through contemporary essays on these topics by authors like Peters, Hart, Williams, Berlin, Rawls and Schumpeter. Second the classical sources on these topics are discussed through readings from Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Marx, Plato, Mill and Rousseau. Third some attention is paid to relevant contexts of application of these concepts in political society, including such political movements as anarchism, international human rights, conservative, liberal, and Marxist economic policies as well as competing models of democracy.

PHIL V3752: Philosophy of Law
Moody-Adams, Michele; 3 credits; MW 2:40pm-3:55pm (SEM)

This course explores philosophical reflection on the relationship between law, society and morality. We discuss the nature of law, the nature of legal reasoning, the relationship between law and social policy, and central concepts in civil and criminal law. Readings are drawn from such sources as the natural law tradidion, legal positivism, legal realism, and Critical Legal Theory. Readings will be supplemented by analysis of classic cases.

PHIL C3912: Political Philosophy
Moody-Adams, Michele; 3 credits; T 2:10pm-4:00pm (SEM)

This course will re-examine some of the foundations of liberal theory, in the idea of a rational individual who is rationally concerned with autonomous pursuits, and who is a locus of liberal rights (so-called "negative" liberties). Why do individuals in this sense matter? What qualifies as an individual in this sense? Do corporations qualify? Do they have liberal rights? Do some human beings fail to qualify? Does this mean that human rights are not well conceived as liberal rights? Do the answers to the questions suggest that political institutions organized around liberal rights are not well designed?

POLS V1013: Political Theory
Johnston, David; 3 credits; MW 11:40am-12:55pm (LEC)

What is the relationship between law and justice? Are capacities of political judgment shared by the many or reserved for the few? What does human equality consist of and what are its implications? Can individual freedom be reconciled with the demands of political community? What are the origins and effects of persistent gender inequalities? These are some of the crucial questions that we will address in this introductory course in political theory. The course is divided into five thematic sections, each addressing an enduring political problem or issue and centered on a key text in the history of political thought: 1. Laws, Obligations, and the Question of Disobedience Sophocles, Antigone; 2. Democratic Citizenship and the Capacities of Political Judgment Plato, Republic; 3. Origins and Effects of (In)equality John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government; 4. Paradoxes of Freedom Jean Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract; 5. The Woman Question John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women.

POLS W3260: Latino Politics: Immigration/Immigrant: Latin Political Experience
de la Garza, Rodolfo; 3 credits; MW 11:40am-12:55pm (LEC)

This course focuses on the political incorporation of Latinos into the American polity. Among the topics to be discussed are patterns of historical exclusion, the impact of the Voting Rights Act, organizational and electoral behavior, and the effects of immigration on the Latino national political agenda.

POLS W3285: Freedom of Speech and Press
Bollinger, Lee; 3 credits; MW 4:10pm-5:25pm (LEC)

Examines the constitutional right of freedom of speech and press in the United States. Examines, in depth, various areas of law, including extremist or seditious speech, obscenity, libel, fighting words, the public forum doctrine, and public access to the mass media. Follows the law school course model, with readings focused on actual judicial decisions.

POLS BC3402: Comparative Politics of Gender Inequality
Ullman, Claire F; 3 credits; W 2:10pm-4:00pm (LEC)

Comparative Politics Prerequisites: Not an introductory-level course. Not open to students who have taken the colloquium POLS BC 3507. Enrollment limited to 20 students; L-course sign-up through eBear. Barnard syllabus. Uses major analytical perspectives in comparative politics to understand the persistence of gender inequality in advanced industrial states. Topics include: political representation and participation; political economy and capitalism; the historical development of welfare states; electoral systems, electoral quotas; the role of supranational and international organizations; and social policy.

POLS V3413: Political Movements in Middle East and North Africa
El-Ghobashy, Mona; 3 credits; R 10:10am-11:25am (LEC)

The 2011 "Arab Spring" took all observers by surprise. Yet the region has a rich history of bottom-up demands for accountable government. This course examines the diverse forms of popular mobilization in the Middle East region from the 19th century to 2011, including women's, human rights, and labor movements. (Cross-listed by the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures)

POLS BC3521: Civil Rights & Civil Liberties
Franzese, Paula; 3 credits; T 4:10pm-6:00pm (LEC)

Explores seminal caselaw to inform contemporary civil rights and civil liberties jurisprudence and policy. Specifically, the readings examine historical and contemporary first amendment values, including freedom of speech and the press, economic liberties, takings law, discrimination based on race, gender, class and sexual preference, affirmative action, the right to privacy, reproductive freedom, the right to die, criminal procedure and adjudication, the rights of the criminally accused post-9/11 and the death penalty.

POLS V3604: Civil War and Intervention in Africa
Autesserre, Severine; 3 credits; TR 1:10pm-2:25pm (LEC)

Why does violent conflict persist in post-independence Africa? Why do nearly half of the countries that emerge from war lapse back into violence after five years? Why do most international interventions fail to bring peace to affected populations? This class focuses on recent conflict and post-conflict situations in Africa as background against which to understand the distinct dynamics of violence and international interventions in civil wars.

POLS BC3805: International Organization
Cooley, Alexander A; 4 credits; M 11:00am-12:50pm (COL)

Description International Relations Prerequisites: POLS V1601 or the equivalent. Admission by application through the Barnard department only. Enrollment limited to 16 students. Barnard syllabus. Exploration of the various structures, institutions, and processes that order relations among states and/or actors in the international system. Emphasis will be placed on contemporary issues such as dilemmas of humanitarian intervention, the politics of international institutions, the rise of non-governmental organizations, and globalization.

POLS BC3810: Aid, Pol, Violence Africa
Autesserre, Severine; 4 credits; T 4:10pm-6:00pm (COL)

International Relations Prerequisites: POLS V1601 or the equivalent. Admission by application through the Barnard department only. Enrollment limited to 16 students. Barnard syllabus. Explores the concepts, theoretical traditions and debates around development and humanitarian aid, focusing on the relationships between aid, politics, and violence. It looks at the political and military impacts of aid, the linkage between humanitarian aid and conflict resolution, and aid's contribution to perpetuating subtle forms of domination.

POLS W3911: Citizenship and Exclusion
Isiksel, Turkuler; 4 credits; W 2:10pm-4:00pm (SM)

Prerequisites: Instructor's permission is required to register. Pre-registration is not permitted. Seminar in Political Theory. Pre-registration is not permitted. For most seminars, interested students must attend the first class meeting, after which the instructor will decide whom to admit. Senior majors receive priority, followed by junior majors, then all other students.

POLS W3911: Tocqueville's Democracy in America
Elster, Jon; 4 credits; R 6:10pm-8:00pm (SM)

POLS W3921: American Politics Seminar: Majority Rule/Minority Rights
Smith, Raymond A; 4 credits; T 6:10pm-8:00pm (SEM)

This course will examine one of the central challenges to both the theory and the practice of democracy: the reconciliation of majority rule with minority rights in a way that neither sacrifices popular sovereignty nor oppresses small or disfavored groups. This course will draw upon both "classics" of political science regarding the role of minority groups in American politics as well as upon contemporary scholarship focused largely on ethnoracial and other minority groups.

POLS W3921: American Politics Seminar: Bill of Rights
Zebrowski, Martha K; 4 credits; T 6:10pm-8:00pm (SEM)

This seminar is an investigation of the nature and importance of the federal Bill of Rights in the American federal and state constitutional systems. Common readings, class discussions, and student seminar papers consider the social, political, and legal significance of the Bill of Rights in historical and contemporary American discourse and analysis, along with constitutional case law regarding specific rights. The first part of the course is devoted to a discussion of common, required readings that consider the Bill of Rights in historical and contemporary perspective. The second part of the course is devoted to students' presentations, in class, of their own research on individual topics relating to a particular rights grounded in the American federal and state bills of rights.

POLS W3921: American Politics Seminar: Equality and the Law
Abdur, Robert; 4 credits; R 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

Description not currently available

POLS W3921: American Politics Seminar: Issues that Divide America
Gertzog, Irwin; 4 credits; T 11:00am-12:50pm (SEM)

Seminar focuses on four political issues so contentious that they have produced enduring cultural, socio-economic, and political divisions throughout the United States. The four issues are slavery and efforts to end it; the use of alcoholic beverages and the struggle to curtail it; abortion and attempts to prohibit it; and lesbian and gay rights and the battle to impede them.

POLS W3930: Constitutional Law
Rosdeitcher, Sidney; 4 credits; T 2:10pm-4:00pm (SEM)

This course explores major features of U.S. constitutional law through close examination of  selected decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court.  Through student discussion and some lecturing, the seminar addresses issues arising from the Constitution's allocation of power among the three branches of government, including the role of the federal judiciary in a democratic polity; the allocation of powers between the National and State governments, including the scope of Congress’ regulatory powers; and the protection of the private sphere from arbitrary and discriminatory government conduct, including the evolution of the concept of liberty from its protection of economic interests before the New Deal to its current role in  protecting individual autonomy and privacy, protections against racial and gender discrimination and some aspects of freedom of speech and press.  More generally the seminar aims to enhance understanding of some main aspects of our constitutional tradition and the judicial process by which it is elaborated.

POLS W3961: International Politics Seminar: Human Rights
Putnam, Tonya; 4 credits; W 12:10pm-2:00pm (SEM)

POLS W3961: International Politics Seminar: Law & Ethics of International Intervention
Doyle, Michael; 4 credits; T 11:00am-12:50pm (SEM)

This seminar offers an opportunity for students to explore the law, ethics and politics of international intervention. We will concentrate on humanitarian and preventive intervention. When should states or international organizations be permitted or required to intervene in order to rescue populations from a humanitarian emergency? When can states anticipate a potential attack and act so as to forestall it? Drawing on the literature and examining historical cases, the seminar aims to foster a discussion of what would be better procedural and substantive guidelines for making these difficult decisions.

SOCI V3235: Social Movements: Collective Action
Minkoff, Debra; credits; MW 2:40pm-3:55pm (SEM)

Social movements and the theories social scientists use to explain them, with emphasis on the American civil rights and women's movements. Topics include theories of participation, the personal and social consequences of social movements, the rationality of protest, the influence of ideology, organization, and the state on movement success, social movements, and the mass media.

SOCI W3915: Stigma and Discrimination
Phelan, Jo; 4 credits; T 2:10pm-4:00pm (SEM)

This course considers stigma and discrimination as general processes that apply to a broad range of phenomena, from mental illness to obesity to HIV/AIDS to racial groups. We will use a conceptual framework that considers power and social stratification to be central to stigma and discrimination. We will focus on both macro- and micro-level social processes and their interconnections, and we will draw on literature from both sociology and psychology.

SOCI W3960: Seminar: Problems of Law and Society - Law, Science and Society
Cole, Jonathan; 4 credits; T 11:00am-12:50pm (SEM)

This course addresses basic contemporary social issues from several angles of vision: from the perspective of scientists, social scientists, legal scholars, and judges. Through the use of case studies, students will examine the nature of theories, evidence, "facts," proof, and argument as found in the work of scientists and scholars who have engaged the substantive issues presented in the course.

SOCI G4121: Racial and Ethnic Inequality
Shedd, Carla; 3 credits; T 11:00am-12:50pm (SEM)

This seminar critically examines how racial/ethnic inequality is generated and maintained in contemporary American society. We will explore the merits and limitations of various paradigms that aim to explain racial inequalities and the concomitant social policies that have been implemented and/or proposed. Major topics include: residential segregation, wealth inequality, educational achievement, employment outcomes, crime & punishment, and culture.

WMST V3312: Theorizing Women's Activism
Bernstein and Jakobsen; 4 credits; T 2:10pm-4:00pm (T 2:10pm-4:00pm)

Prerequisites: Critical Approaches or Feminist Theory or permission of instructor. Helps students develop and apply useful theoretical models to feminist organizing on local and international levels. It involves reading, presentations, and seminar reports. Students use first-hand knowledge of the practices of specific women's activist organizations for theoretical work.

WMST BC3514: Historical Approaches to Feminist Questions
Ko, Dorothy; 4 credits; T 4:10pm-6:00pm (SEM)

This course will provide students with a comparative perspective on gender, race, and sexuality by illuminating historically specific and culturally distinct conditions in which these systems of power have operated across time and space. In particular, the course seeks to show how gender has not always been a binary or primary category system. Such approach is also useful in understanding the workings of race and sexuality as mechanisms of differentiation. In making these inquiries, the course will pay attention to the intersectional nature of race, gender, and sexuality and to strategic performances of identity by marginalized groups.