WGST 260 - Violence, Gender and Human Rights

Institution:

Georgetown University

Subject:

Description:

Anyone entering the thickets of argument relating to violence, gender, and human rights today has to contend with the range and variety of meanings that these concepts have accrued in current usage. While there is broad consensus that there does exist a contemporary crisis around global violence and the suspected gendered aspect of it, how the relationships between globalization and human rights violations, and between violence against women and redefinition of human rights, are to be interpreted, and what is to be done about it is matters of vigorous intellectual and political debate. This class aims to explore the gendered manifestations of violence in public and private spheres within the context of the more general relationship among globalization, development, and human/civil/citizen rights. We will pay attention to banal violence (that is, daily and "banal" violence in everyday life), spectacular violence at moments of crisis, and the type of violence that disrupts the boundary between the two. Special emphases will be given to the issues of racism, sexual exploitation, poverty, labor, health care, homophobia, militarism, and globalization. The readings will include _We Wish to Inform you That Tomorrow We will be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda_ by Philip Gourevitch, _A Problem from Hell_ by Samantha Powers, _Violence against Women_ by Stanley French et al., _Are Prisons Obsolete_ by Angela Davis, _The Sterilization of Carrie Buck_ by J. David Smith and K. Ray Nelson, and _Pathologies of Power: Health, Human rights, and the New War on the Poor_ by Paul Farmer. May also be taken as JUPS 260-01

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.georgetown.edu

Phone Number:

(202) 687-0100

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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