Human Rights Syllabi: Introduction

Amnesty International USA Resource Notebook: Syllabi for the College Classroom

Introduction

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This collection of human rights syllabi is designed for the college and university instructor. It is a product of the Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) Educators Network, and brings together syllabi used in human rights courses currently or recently offered in colleges and universities. Most of the syllabi have been used in courses offered in U.S. institutions of higher education; a few are from institutions in other countries.

Faculty at institutions of higher education are frequently engaged in human rights activities outside the walls of the academy. For those seeking pedagogical support in bridging the gap between activism and academia, between the practice and the teaching of human rights, the syllabi will, we hope, facilitate the process.

Purposes of "Syllabi for the College Classroom"

To make available a collection of classroom-proven syllabi for the teaching of courses on Human Rights
To stimulate the creation of new inter- and cross-disciplinary courses involving human rights
To make it possible for instructors of disciplines other than human rights to utilize portions of human rights syllabi to enrich their course curriculum.

Disciplines

The point of departure of human rights courses tends to reflect the field of expertise of the instructor, be it international affairs, religion, disability rights, economics, philosophy, women's rights, anthropology, and on. The syllabi are gathered here under the various headings. However, since it is not uncommon for courses to cover topics that span more than one discipline, browsers are encouraged to scan the complete collection.

College level

Some of the syllabi specify that they are used in undergraduate classes; some specify their use in graduate classes; some do not specify.

Syllabi format

The syllabi are reproduced here as received from individual instructors, and thus reflect diverse approaches. Uniformity was not a criterion in compiling the website.

Bibliographies

Most syllabi contain bibliographies which the reader should find helpful in planning reading lists for human rights courses. The Appendix contains a brief bibliography and related references.

Process Used in Collecting Syllabi

The course syllabi were gathered from colleagues teaching human rights. An extensive list of instructors was invited to submit a course syllabus, with the understanding that it would be available on the website.

Acknowledgments

We are very appreciative of the cooperation of colleagues who continue to submit syllabi so that scholars and students around the world can utilize them. We thank members of the Amnesty USA Human Rights Educators Network who inspired this initiative. We owe a great debt of thanks to Harry Kreisler and Letitia Carper of the U.C. Berkeley Institute of International Studies, for maintaining the website over many years. And last but certainly not least, we are greatly endebted to Professor Renate Holub, Program Director of Interdisciplinary Field Studies in U.C. Berkeley's Office of Undergraduate & Interdisciplinary Studies (UGIS), and to Joe Sartelle, Information Systems Manager for UGIS and this site's webmaster.

Special note

We encourage those teaching college-level human rights,whether or not previously contacted, to consider this an individual invitation to send their syllabus to the email address below. Further, we encourage every reader to take the initiative in making connections with new sources for human rights syllabi, both inside and outside the United States. If you would please forward names and coordinates to me at ritam@berkeley.edu, we will follow up with a request for additional syllabi.

Rita Maran
Berkeley, California
August 2006

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