Spring 2024 Graduate Level Courses in Human Rights Practice
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Spring I (Jan 10 – Mar 01, 2024)
HRTS 501 - Advancing Human Rights Organizations (3 units)*
Instructor: Mette Brogden, Ph. D.
The course focuses on the practical aspects of advancing human rights through civil society organizations (CSOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with a special emphasis on some of the dramatic transformations they have undergone in the past couple of decades. The course will cover such critical issues as: management of resources, relationships with personnel and boards of directors, marketing human rights issues, fundraising and financial management, accountability, navigating governmental corruption, program evaluation, and delivering outputs such as shadow reports and white papers. * The 501 class is required for MA students, and it can fulfill a requirement for Certificate students. For the Certificate, you must take 500, and then either 501 or 510 as your two required classes.
HRTS 530: Understanding Gender-Based Violence (3 units)
Instructor: Amalia Mora, Ph.D.
This course introduces students to the nature and scope of gender-based violence, in the US and globally, providing students with an overview on demographics, legal policies and advocacy efforts, and strategies for prevention and response. Through an intersectional framework, students will learn about the psychology and root causes of gender-based violence and will be introduced to trauma- and healing- informed prevention and response approaches and techniques. Examples from a range of cultural/geographical contexts will highlight the need for culturally sensitive and specific work.
HRTS 596B: Cutting-Edge Advances in Human Rights Practice: Self- and Collective- Care, Well-Being and Spirituality: A holistic human rights framework (3 units, elective)
Instructor: Ivana Radačić, Ph.D., Visiting Fulbright Scholar from Croatia
In these challenging times for human rights, this course explores how human rights theory and practice can become more holistic by incorporating spirituality and by placing well-being and self- and collective-care at its focus. We will examine critiques of the human rights framework and the problems of exhaustion, trauma, and burnout. We will also explore approaches that tackle these problems, including spiritual activism and transformative justice, as well as self- and collective-care practices that human rights defenders use worldwide. The purpose of the course is to expose the students to the concepts and practices of well-being, spiritual activism, and self- and -collective care in the human rights field through pedagogy that includes self-reflection, embodiment practices, and experiential learning. This participatory and interactive course will equip students to better deal with human rights challenges and experience a more holistic understanding of human rights. Moreover, it will help them on their journey of (self)care and well-being, which, as studies suggest, have a wider social impact as well.
HRTS 597A Exploring Human Rights through Virtual Field Trips: Migrant Journeys
Instructor: Mette Brogden, Ph.D. 3 units, elective
This course examines the human right to move--to leave one’s country and return—enshrined in Article 13 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948. An estimated 60 million people had been displaced during WWII. That number was not seen again for decades but rose to WWII levels in the mid-2010s. By October 2023 the number of displaced people worldwide exceeded 114 million according to UNHCR. Securitization measures to deter migration have resulted in increasingly dangerous transit corridors and more deaths as migration push factors intensify. We will analyze the underlying causes and phenomenology of migration in two corridors: West African and Central American migration to Europe and the U.S, and assess recent changes to international compacts, laws and policies governing migration and treatment of refugees.
The 21st century is turning out to be the Century of Migration, due to conflict, violence, human rights violations, persecution, disasters (both fast and slow) and the impacts of climate change. We will also study the impacts of migration to transit, destination, and countries of origin, and then turn to the question of whether it is possible to address the underlying issues compelling people to move.
Students will hear from guest speakers, exchange ideas, and write situation assessments, backgrounders, and white papers suggesting policy and/or practical solutions.
*******The following courses require permission to enroll**********
Certificate Projects courses 3 units each (required for Certificate students, by Certificate Type)
HRTS 598a Certificate Project in HRTS and Technology
HRTS 598b Certificate Project in Gender Based Violence
HRTS 598c Certificate Project in Human Rights and Doc Media
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Mette Brogden to provide permission to enroll.
HRTS 599: Independent Study (1-3 units, elective)
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Mette Brogden to provide permission to enroll. Independent studies are useful for helping to explore a literature or a topic that prepares you for undertaking your MA capstone or Certificate Project.
HRTS 909: MA Capstone (3 units, required for MA Students)
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Mette Brogden to provide permission to enroll.
Spring II (Mar 11 – May 01, 2024)
HRTS 500: Advancing Human Rights (3 units, required for MA et al)
Instructor: William Simmons, Ph.D.
This course provides an overview of human rights practice and activism. We will examine grassroots social movements and participatory approaches to human rights activism focusing on the potential ways and means for moving human rights initiatives forward. The focus is on practical methods for assessing, analyzing, and engaging human rights issues. We will cover such issues as colonialism and de-colonialism, anti-racism movements, recent innovative attempts to find justice for Rohingya refugees, sex worker rights, and trauma and self-care.
HRTS 511: Strategic Litigation (3 units, elective)
Instructor: Leonard Hammer, Ph.D., LL.M.
This course provides an overview of strategic ligation, with insight into using strategic litigation as a human rights tool within social movements and examining methods that exist for strategic litigation beyond the courtroom. The course will provide methods of strategic litigation and social action that achieve optimal results for your organization or social movement. We will focus on strategizing, involving actors relevant to your movement (including authorities and other organizations), and creating immediate as well as long term results. We also will explore funding strategic litigation and different forms of campaigning. External input from strategic litigation actors from around the world will further sharpen our approach to strategic litigation methods and offer further comprehension into the ways and means of strategic litigation that we have developed in the course.
HRTS 531: Femicides/Feminicides, (3 units, required for GBV Certificate, elective for others)
Instructor Alethia Fernández de la Reguera Ahedo, Ph.D.
In this course, students examine one of the most widespread and yet understudied forms of gender-based violence, femicide/feminicide, or the targeted killing of women and girls because they are female, often enabled through state complicity. Students will learn about scholarship, activism, and legal policies related to femicide/feminicide. Root causes and psychologies of femicide/feminicide are explored as well as compounding forms of violence that often lead to the death of women and girls, especially intimate partner violence, but also forced sterilization, forced motherhood, and sexual violence. The class will offer an international perspective on the struggle of women’s organizations and feminist to generate social and cultural awareness and transformations about this problem and to demand legal and public policy actions from States to eradicate these kinds of crimes.
FTV 544: Documentary Production (3 units, req for HRTS/Doc Media Certificate, for others, elective)
Instructor: Lisa Molomot, MFA
An introduction to documentary filmmaking for students with diverse academic backgrounds and research interests. The course is designed to serve students with no prior production training, as well as those with experience. Students will acquire and further strengthen camera, sound and editing skills, and learn to conceptualize, develop, shoot and edit short documentary projects geared toward their research interests.
The course is structured primarily as a workshop to support the development, production and post-production of your projects. A significant amount of time will be devoted to individual meetings to develop and workshop your work in progress. We will also have video lectures, class discussions, weekly readings, production exercises and assignments to strengthen your knowledge of documentary filmmaking.
HRTS 461/561: Human Rights in Eurasia (3 units)
Instructor: Liudmila Klimanova, Ph.D.
Being offered for the first time, this course will examine a variety of seminal human rights in the Eurasian region. We will consider how international human rights are integrated into the region, review the historical background and socio-cultural underpinnings of various states, and then focus on specific issues including LGBTQ+, minority and linguistic rights, feminism in the region, and others. We will then consider how the international human rights system might be (or is, at times) employed to uphold rights and differing perceptions of the rights and different groups accorded by states and controlling factions.
This course is an online course including lectures, guest lectures, group activities, and projects that focus on real-world human rights issues. It is cross-listed between the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies and the Program in Human Rights Practice. HRTS/RSS 461/561 is open to all UA undergraduate graduate students from AZ Online, Main Campus, and International Direct. The course has no prerequisites, although some prior familiarity with human rights and/or the Eurasia region is desirable. This is a required course for students pursuing the Certificate in Human Rights Practice with emphasis on Eurasia.
HRTS 595a: Human Rights Across Contexts: Ecotourism, Conservation, and Indigenous Rights – Confronting the problems of “green colonialism” [more information to come on this class]
*******The following courses require permission to enroll**********
Certificate Projects courses 3 units each (required for Certificate students, by Certificate Type)
HRTS 598a Certificate Project in HRTS and Technology
HRTS 598b Certificate Project in Gender Based Violence
HRTS 598c Certificate Project in Human Rights and Doc Media
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Mette Brogden to provide permission to enroll.
HRTS 599: Independent Study (1-3 units, elective)
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Mette Brogden to provide permission to enroll. Independent studies are useful for helping to explore a literature or a topic that prepares you for undertaking your MA capstone or Certificate Project.
HRTS 909: MA Capstone (3 units, required for MA Students)
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Mette Brogden to provide permission to enroll.