FYSP 175 - Human Rights and Human Wrongs: Historical Approaches to the Concept of Rights and Humanity

4SS, WRi
First Semester. This seminar focuses on the historically determined boundaries of “human” and “rights,” for while inviolable humanity is an ancient idea, who is human has been contested for millennia. Indeed, the “rights-bearing individual” emerges in Europe along with trans-Atlantic slavery. And what are “rights” in a post-Holocaust world where 30,000 children starve to death daily? We will examine historical approaches to human rights and what the study of human rights tells us about historical methodology.

Prerequisites & Notes
Enrollment Limit: 14
Mr. Volk

Credits: 4 hours