Since 1980, inequality has increased sharply in the United States, select other high-income countries, and many emerging economies. Inequality in U.S. income and wealth today are at levels not seen since the end of the Gilded Age. These changes at the national level reflect widening disparities in earnings between less-educated workers and those with college or advanced degrees, the concentration of earnings at the very top of the income distribution, and growing divides in economic opportunity both across regions within countries and across neighborhoods within regions. In this course, we study the causes of inequality (including technological change, globalization, disparities in access to education, tax and regulatory policy, and gender and racial discrimination), the consequences of inequality for human well-being (in terms of consumption, health, and family structure), and the potential for public policies to improve access to economic opportunity (including early childhood education, assistance to needy families, subsidized health care, worker training, minimum wages, progressive taxation, anti-discrimination policies, place-based policies, and universal basic income). Students will acquire an understanding of the varied dimensions of inequality (by education, occupation, gender, race and ethnicity, place of residence, and national origin), analytical approaches to identifying the causal factors behind rising inequality, and familiarity with policy tools that govern access to opportunity and the post-tax distribution of income and wealth. The course is lecture based but will allow ample time for group discussion.... Read more about The Causes and Consequences of Inequality
To lead is to live with danger. Although it may be exciting to think of leadership as inspiration, decisive action, and powerful rewards, leading requires taking risks that can jeopardize your career and your personal life. It requires putting yourself on the line, disturbing the status quo, and working with organizational and political conflicts. Those who choose to lead take risks and sometimes get neutralized or killed for doing so.In this course, we explore how self-knowledge and self-discipline form the foundation for staying alive in leadership. The course has three parts: (1) an exploration of identity as a profound resource and endangering constraint in the practice of leadership; (2) the freedom of mind to assess situations, manage one’s vulnerability to dangers, and take action; and (3) the ongoing practices of freeing yourself to lead and stay alive, not only in your job, but in the heart and spirit of your work.... Read more about Leadership from Inside Out: Self, Identity, and Freedom–with a Focus on Anti-Black Racism and Sexism
Migration is a central political and moral issue of our time and its impacts will continue to alter our world throughout this century. Indeed large scale, irregular human migration should be considered “the new normal”, not an unexpected or one-off “crisis”. It affects the lives of millions, unsettles established governments, creates sharply polarizing policy dilemmas and generates far-reaching administrative, economic and political challenges. This course will focus on distress migration, including refugee flight and other forms of forced displacement, evaluated through the lens of human rights. It will address the multifaceted drivers of the phenomenon, including the enduring legacies of colonization, armed conflict, environmental stress and climate change, global inequality, demographic pressures and increasing globalization. The course will also consider the impact of government responses to the COVID 19 pandemic on forced migrants. Migration actors from UN agencies, NGOs and other civil society organizations, and research experts working in a range of field sites will contribute to the class.... Read more about Migration and Human Rights
To lead is to live with danger. Although it may be exciting to think of leadership as inspiration, decisive action, and powerful rewards, leading requires taking risks that can jeopardize your career and your personal life. It requires putting yourself on the line, disturbing the status quo, and working with organizational and political conflicts. Those who choose to lead take risks and sometimes get neutralized or killed for doing so.In this course, we explore how self-knowledge and self-discipline form the foundation for staying alive in leadership. The course has three parts: (1) an exploration of identity as a profound resource and endangering constraint in the practice of leadership; (2) the freedom of mind to assess situations, manage one’s vulnerability to dangers, and take action; and (3) the ongoing practices of freeing yourself to lead and stay alive, not only in your job, but in the heart and spirit of your work.... Read more about Leadership from the Inside Out: The Capacity to Lead and Stay Alive–Self, Identity, and Freedom
The disparate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the global impact of the Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd have highlighted for all to see the dramatic inequities and entrenched human rights violations that continue to plague human societies. Extreme poverty, especially among communities of color, is sky rocketing, refugees and other forced migrants are blocked from seeking life-saving protection, domestic violence is soaring, evidence of structural racism and its enduring legacy is present on every continent. Despite over half a century of...
Human rights practitioners around the world rely upon human rights law, language, and methodologies in the struggle for social justice. This freshman seminar explores the underlying legal framework in which human rights advocates operate, and uses specific case studies to consider the legal, ethical, and strategic challenges that practitioners grapple with in their work. The seminar is designed to encourage students to critically evaluate the human rights movement while offering an introduction to some of the essential tools and strategies used by human rights advocates...
We coined the term implicit bias in 1995 to capture the idea that bias, i.e., a deviation from accuracy or values can be implicit, i.e., operate without conscious awareness or conscious control. The idea emerged from basic research on implicit social cognition (ISC), an area of scientific psychology that explores the hidden aspects of mental representations of self, other, and social groups. Today, 25 years later, the term implicit bias has transcended academic psychology and permeated contemporary culture where it is used and contested every day. In this seminar, we will study the science of implicit bias, with a focus on disparities that emerge along the lines of social categories of age, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, physical attributes, religion, politics, language and culture, geographic region and nationality.... Read more about Implicit Bias: Science and Society
Human rights and humanitarianism are fundamental to modern political ethics. Yet the moral consensus surrounding these terms obscures an often disturbing history. This course is an introduction to human rights and humanitarianism as frameworks for understanding European, imperial, and global history from the enlightenment to the present day. Rather than uncritically accepting a triumphalist narrative, we will explore how these concepts were constructed over time, asking how they were used in practice, whose interests they served, and how they enabled inequality and exclusion along axes of race, gender, class, and nationality even as they promised a more just world.... Read more about Human Rights and Humanitarianism in the Modern World
Migration, both voluntary and involuntary, helps to shape the culture, society, economics, and politics of the modern world. It benefits both movers and receiving countries, but also entails considerable costs. The course begins with consideration of the broad sweep of population movements, and addresses various impacts on both migrants and receiving countries. It focuses primarily, however, on the politics of and political science research about contemporary population movements in the United States and other western nations. Topics include patterns of incorporation and exclusion, consequences of different legal statuses, and the differential impact of migrants’ nationality, gender, and class status.... Read more about Migration
Considers theories of power in American political science and political theory; how to measure and use these theories to understand political choices. Attention to race, gender, class, legal standing, policies, history, values and institutional frameworks.... Read more about Power in American Society
This is a survey of advanced topics in political economy, with a focus on affluent democracies in North America, Western Europe, and East Asia. We will explore cross-national differences in the organization of economic, political, and social institutions, and how these produce divergent economic policies and outcomes. We will also ask how class, race, and gender affect the politics of inequality and redistribution, and we will consider the political and economic consequences of globalization, women’s economic mobilization, and new technology -- including the rise of right populism. The course is taught seminar-style and restricted to a maximum of 16 advanced undergraduates.... Read more about Political Economy: Advanced Democracies
This course offers a survey of the historiography of Native American and Indigenous Studies. Centered on six themes—Power and the Middle Ground, Borderlands, Settler Colonialism and Sovereignty, Race and Slavery, Modernity and Futurity, and Global and Comparative Indigeneity—the course is designed to allow explorations into additional terrain, including gender and sexuality, law and policy, and comparative ethnic studies, among others. Core readings will focus on recently published scholarship. To explore field trajectories, scholarly exchange, and indigenous politics, members of the class will research and write historiographical essays that will be shared collectively, and form the basis for seminar discussion.... Read more about Readings in Native American and Indigenous Studies: Seminar
In this course, we will explore the political and politicized lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer peoples living in the United States since World War II. Centering both an intersectional analysis and historical critique of “progress,” we will focus our attention on the interrelationship between protest (how LGBTQ people have organized themselves and expressed their demands in the face of systemic oppression), politics (how LGBTQ people have navigated the “culture wars”), and policy (how LGBTQ people have shaped and been shaped by laws and legislation) across the Homophile Generation (1940s and 1950s), Stonewall Generation (1960s and 1970s), AIDS Generation (1980s and 1990s), and Marriage Generation (2000s to present).... Read more about Queer Nation: LGBTQ Protest, Politics, and Policy in the United States
The course will provide an introduction to the foundational frameworks and constructs for humanitarian and human rights research and action. The course will prepare students to understand and engage in humanitarian response and human rights protection, while examining emerging critical challenges that have multi-dimensional global impacts. These issues include armed conflict, social oppression, climate change, famine, migration, ethnic and other forms of discrimination, and gender-based violence. The major options for protection and support- including early warning, prevention, and mitigation strategies - will be analyzed through case studies and discussion of current research findings, and through the lenses of the norms, actors, and processes of international humanitarian and human rights law, operations, and policy.... Read more about Emerging Issues in Humanitarian Response and Human Rights
This course reviews the health implication of mass incarceration on individuals and their communities. Although the course will focus on the impact of incarceration, involvement with the criminal justice system more broadly will be discussed. The course will discuss the current state of knowledge, identify key gaps and explore examples of successful interventions to improve health outcomes among criminal justice involved individuals. Various health related implications of criminal justice involvement will be discussed, such as infectious disease, mental health, cardiovascular disease and cancer. A framework grounded in history and critical race theory will be employed in addition to careful consideration of the intersection of race. sex/gender, socioeconomic position and sexual and gender minority status.... Read more about Mass incarceration and Health in the US
Gender affects multiple aspects of international development, including the challenges that communities face around the world, and how organizations and governments can most effectively support these communities to achieve their goals. This course covers gender theory and frameworks, drawing from feminist writers and scholars from a wide variety of backgrounds and disciplines. We will study gender as it relates to specific topics, including labor market participation and employment, education, violence against women and girls, peace building, civil society, and women’s leadership. We will learn what is known in each arena, and study which approaches work well and which do not. This course is intended to be an introduction to gender in international development; students with extensive experience in this area should consult with the instructor if interested. Students of all genders are very welcome to join this course.... Read more about Understanding Gender in International Development