Winter Quarter 2025

Winter Quarter 2025

HMR 120A: Art, Architecture & Human Rights
Heghnar Watenpaugh

HMR 130: “Human Rights and the Revolutionary Left”
Lucia Luna Victoria Indacochea

This course delves into the complex and often contentious relationship between revolutionary leftist movements and human rights struggles, with a focus on case studies from Latin America (tentatively Montoneros, the Shining Path, and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement). Students will explore the historical context of leftist movements and revolutionary guerrillas in Latin America, and investigate the theoretical underpinnings and ideological frameworks of revolutionary leftist groups and their impact on human rights discourse. In the course, students will also learn how to analyze primary sources and conduct original research in the Digital National Security Archive. The class structure will combine both lecture and group discussions to consider the ethical and practical dilemmas faced by activists and policymakers when navigating the tension between revolutionary ideals and human rights protections. For more information you can contact Professor Luna-Victoria, lunavictoria@ucdavis.edu.

HMR 131: Genocide
Keith Watenpaugh

This course takes neither a “bestiary” approach to the study of genocide; nor does it seek to determine which genocide was worse. It is based on the proposition that the modern phenomenon of genocide can be studied from a comparative and critical theoretical perspective while simultaneously preserving the historical specificity and distinctive nature of each genocide Over the next 10+ weeks, we will examine genocide through the lens of five thematic fields: “Beginnings,” “Styles and Technologies,” “Remembering and Commemoration,” “Denial” and “Responsibility.” Five genocides will be examined through these thematic fields: Armenian genocide, Native American Genocide, the Holocaust, Herero genocide, genocide of the Kurds (al-Anfal), Rwandan genocide, Balkan genocides, genocide of Yezidis and other non-Muslim communities in the Syria and Iraq and the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians. We will also consider genocide and violence against indigenous communities and peoples in the United States and in California, in particular. As we consider each we will think about the links between modernity, violence and genocide, and the steps that could be taken to prevent genocide in the future. The list of genocides is not exhaustive, and you are encouraged to think about different moments and kinds of genocidal violence against other communities and peoples in your own thinking and research. The study of genocide is often controversial. Understanding why it is controversial is part of our task.

HMR 135: Human Rights Tools
Lucia Luna Victoria Indacochea

HMR 136: Human Rights in the Middle East
Keith Watenpaugh

This is a tough course. Intellectually and emotionally. It will unfold in three three-week modules, built around larger questions about: the evolution of Human Rights thought and practice, violations of Human Rights across time, the interplay of various extreme ideologies and Human Rights and the way the current wars are affecting Human Rights, the civil society response to Human Rights violations, and artistic encounters with Human Rights violations. Five broad questions: 

  • 1. How has the history of early 20th-Century mass violence in the Middle East shaped core Human Rights ideas, humanitarian institutions and practices and ways to address human suffering, including responses to genocide? 
  • 2. How has Human Rights thought, and policy emerged around the Israel-Palestine conflict, and in particular the modern refugee régime? 
  • 3. What has been the impact of the rise of various authoritarian and extremist states throughout the region on the issue of systematic, state-based violations of Human Rights? 
  • 4. How have the events of the “Arab Spring” been inspired by Human Rights; and in its aftermath, how have the wars in Syria and Iraq affected Human Rights, and especially the Human Rights of young people? 
  • 5. How have forms of gender-based human rights abuse - including forms of gender apartheid — shaped attitudes, politics and protest. We will answer these questions through a wide variety of sources and materials. 

Each module will include primary materials (documents), secondary materials (articles and monographs) and memoirs, short-stories, graphic novels and films.

HMR 137: The Black Human Rights Tradition
Benjamin Weber

HMR 162Y: The History of Human Rights in Europe
Benjamin Weber