F1516 Globalization, Ethics, Welfare and Human Rights (Global Challenges core)

This course will explore the relationship between ethics, social welfare, human rights, and politics around the world. We live on a planet very much marked by the dynamics of global poverty and social violence. Our class will examine work by anthropologists, journalists, historians, and others that seek to better understand social inequalities, including the themes of labor rights, gender and sexuality, nationalism and ultranationalism, immigration, and race and racism. We’ll read work by anthropologists, historians, journalists and others about topics like factory work in China, Brazilian shantytown life, African cultural politics, Native American experience in the United States, and debates about the rights of religious and ethnic minorities. The class will also examine efforts at social change, including forms of cyberactivism, the possibilities and paradoxes of NGOs and humanitarianism, new thinking about global health challenges, and the status of the modern human rights movement in an ever more interconnected planet.