Course Schedule and Catalog

Department: History

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: THE HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS ***** An in-depth examination of the intellectual and historical origins of the discourse of human rights. We will begin with the birth of the concept of natural right, review major criticisms in this concept, and then study the way this idea was institutionalized in the course of French and American Revolutions as well as the American case. After examining recent controversies surrounding feminism and the rights of man, we will conclude by focusing on the way new discourse of human rights emerged out of the ashes of WWII to play a major role in the legitimization of right and left-wing dictatorships in the 1980s and 1990s.