Why are human rights not part of debates about domestic public policy and legal reform in the United States? The United States played a leading role in the creation of the post-World War II international human rights regime and has often championed human rights as a foreign policy goals. Yet human rights have been marginal to debates about social and economic equality at home. We will examine the history of human rights in the United States since the New Deal, asking how and why the New Deal’s embrace of human rights was supplanted by a narrower focus only on constitutional and civil rights. We will also examine the consequences of this narrower framework, as well as why human rights may now be coming home.
The Junior Seminars are intense writing seminars which focus on the research area of the faculty member teaching the course. The seminars provide an opportunity for students to have direct intellectual interactions with faculty members while also giving the students an understanding for faculty research.
Junior seminars fulfill upper division requirements for the major.
Subfield: American Politics
Political Science Majors of Junior and Senior status (must be 3rd or 4th year students with at least 60 units completed) with a minimum overall UC GPA of 3.3. Students must place themselves on the waitlist through TeleBEARS in Phase 1. Selection will occur around November 8, 2013. Continued enrollment in the seminar will be contingent upon maintaining your overall UC GPA at 3.3 (i.e., an overall UC GPA of a 3.2999 will not suffice). Priority may be given to students who have not yet taken a junior seminar