Course Listings
Course number | Course title | Course description | Course instructor | Course date | |
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Human Rights Advocacy: Critical Assessment and Practical Engagement in Global Social Justice |
This seminar critically analyzes the history and current practices of the human rights movement. We consider the grave challenges facing human rights advocates globally and possible responses. |
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HTBA | |
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Theories, Practices, and Politics of Human Rights |
Introduction to core human-rights issues, ideas, practices, and controversies. The concept of human rights as a philosophical construct, a legal instrument, a political tool, an approach to economic and equity issues, a social agenda, and an international locus of contestation and legitimation. Required for students in the Multidisciplinary Academic Program in Human Rights. |
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HTBA | |
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Environmental Law and Politics |
We explore relations among environmental quality, health, and law. We consider global-scale avoidable challenges such as: environmentally related human illness, climate instability, water depletion and contamination, food and agriculture, air pollution, energy, packaging, culinary globalization, and biodiversity loss. We evaluate the effectiveness of laws and regulations intended to reduce or prevent environmental and health damages. Additional laws considered include rights of secrecy, property, speech, worker protection, and freedom from discrimination. |
|
HTBA | |
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Activism and Advocacy in the History of American Health Care |
Is health care a human right? Can health advocacy shape health policy? What does it mean to be a health “activist” and to demand change of medicine? Health care in America has always been political. In this seminar students explore the rich history of health activism and health advocacy in the modern United States, focusing primarily on the postwar period through the present day. Each week we encounter new varieties of grassroots organizing, individual activists, and advocacy organizations that have made political claims about health care and pushed for its reform. |
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Th 3:30-5:20p | |
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Debating Globalization |
Facets of contemporary economic globalization, including trade, investment, and migration. Challenges and threats of globalization: inclusion and inequality, emerging global players, global governance, climate change, and nuclear weapons proliferation. |
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HTBA | |
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Cultural and Racial History of Mental Health |
Since the 1960s, social scientists have analyzed how the scientific ideas about mental illness, mental health policies, institutions, healing practices, and popular discourses surrounding mental health have been influenced by the social and cultural contexts. This course introduces students to the debates and questions guiding the history of mental health since the Civil Rights and the Psychiatric Survivor Movements in the 1960s, especially those that relate to Critical Race Theory. |
|
HTBA | |
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Hubs, Mobilities, and World Cities |
Analysis of urban life in historical and contemporary societies. Topics include capitalist and postmodern transformations; class, gender, ethnicity, and migration; and global landscapes of power and citizenship. |
|
T 1:30-3:20p | |
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Introduction to American Indian History |
Survey of American Indian history, beginning with creation traditions and migration theories and continuing to the present day. Focus on American Indian nations whose homelands are located within the contemporary United States. Complexity and change within American Indian societies, with emphasis on creative adaptations to changing historical circumstances. |
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TTh 10:30-11:20a | |
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Activism and Advocacy in the History of American Health Care |
Is health care a human right? Can health advocacy shape health policy? What does it mean to be a health “activist” and to demand change of medicine? Health care in America has always been political. In this seminar students explore the rich history of health activism and health advocacy in the modern United States, focusing primarily on the postwar period through the present day. Each week we encounter new varieties of grassroots organizing, individual activists, and advocacy organizations that have made political claims about health care and pushed for its reform. |
|
Th 3:30-5:20p | |
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International Refugee Assistance Project |
This course is designed to give students an opportunity to learn about international refugee law in theory and in practice. Students enrolled in the seminar will work under the supervision of attorneys to assist persecuted individuals abroad seeking safe legal passage to the United States or another country through client assistance, research, or advocacy projects. The course will provide the students with the practical and theoretical knowledge necessary to be effective practitioners of international refugee law. |
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Tue 4:10 PM - 6:00 PM | |
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The Russo-Ukrainian War |
The course will examine legal and policy aspects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, providing students a comprehensive, integrated sense of whether and how national and international legal systems can address such challenges. |
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Tue 4:10 PM - 6:00 PM | |
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Advanced Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic: Seminar |
A weekly seminar session only for returning students. Advanced Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic: Fieldwork is a co-requisite. Students enrolled in the seminar section must also be enrolled in the fieldwork section. Prerequisite: Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic. Permission of the instructors required. |
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Wed 9:10 AM -10:00 AM | |
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Legal Assistance: Immigrant Rights Clinic: Fieldwork |
Enrollment restricted to students enrolled in Legal Assistance: Immigrants Rights Seminar. Students must enroll simultaneously in the seminar and fieldwork components of this clinic. Permission of the instructors required. Enrollment limited to six new students. Course Bidding: Students who are accepted in the seminar component will be enrolled in the fieldwork component. It is not necessary to bid on the fieldwork component. |
|
HTBA | |
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Legal Assistance: Immigrant Rights Clinic: Seminar |
New Haven Legal Assistance is a historic non-profit civil legal services office with a robust immigration practice. Under the supervision of attorneys at New Haven Legal Assistance, students in the New Haven Legal Assistance Immigrant Rights Clinic (IRC) have represented noncitizens in removal proceedings before the immigration court, in appeals before the Board of Immigration Appeals, and in petitions for review before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, as well as in federal civil rights actions. |
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Wed 4:10 PM - 6:00 PM | |
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Veterans Legal Services Clinic: Seminar |
There are more than 200,000 veterans in Connecticut, many with acute legal needs related to their military service or return to civilian life. In this clinic, students represent Connecticut veterans and organizations in a range of individual litigation and institutional advocacy matters. Individual matters typically include (1) disability benefits applications for veterans who have suffered PTSD, sexual assault, toxic exposure, and other injuries, in the first instance, on administrative appeal, and on judicial review before the U.S. |
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Tue 10:10 AM -12:00 PM | |
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Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic: Seminar |
Students will represent immigrants and low-wage workers in Connecticut in labor, immigration, and other civil rights areas, through litigation for individuals and non-litigation advocacy for community-based organizations. In litigation matters, students will handle cases at all stages of legal proceedings in Immigration Court, Board of Immigration Appeals, U.S. District Court, the Second Circuit, and state courts. |
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Thu 10:10 AM -12:00 PM | |
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Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy: Fieldwork |
The Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy clinical seminar and fieldwork must be taken simultaneously in both terms. Course Bidding: Students who apply to the seminar section and are accepted will be enrolled in both the seminar and the fieldwork sections. Students should list only the seminar section among experiential course bidding selections. It is not necessary to bid on the fieldwork. |
|
HTBA | |
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Cultural and Racial History of Mental Health |
Since the 1960s, social scientists have analyzed how the scientific ideas about mental illness, mental health policies, institutions, healing practices, and popular discourses surrounding mental health have been influenced by the social and cultural contexts. This course introduces students to the debates and questions guiding the history of mental health since the Civil Rights and the Psychiatric Survivor Movements in the 1960s, especially those that relate to Critical Race Theory. |
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TTh 9-10:15a | |
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Documenting Refugees in New Haven |
This hands-on mixed methods seminar explores the historical and contemporary experiences of refugees in New Haven. The course examines the historical contexts that have led to the resettlements of different refugee populations in New Haven as well as contemporary issues concerning these communities. Through workshops, students gain qualitative research skills by exploring oral history, archival research, and ethnographic participant observation as complementary methods to document and study refugee communities in New Haven. |
|
HTBA | |
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The Geopolitics of Democracy |
The threats to liberal democracy are being widely debated, from the US and Europe to developing nations. In order for democracy to continue to thrive as the cornerstone of Western governance, it must adapt and be relevant to citizens of the 21st century. This course examines our appreciation of what constitutes democracy today and how to apply those understandings to the challenges of the 21st century. |
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HTBA | |
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U.S. Immigration Policy: History, Politics, and Activism, 1607-Present |
How can we study a history so broad, complex, and evolving as the history of American immigration policy? This course explores that question by studying U.S. immigration law, politics, and activism from the colonial era to the present day. Chronologically, we particularly examine: (1) antebellum immigration policy in the context of forced migration, settler colonialism, and slavery, (2) the rise of a federal “gatekeeping” immigration regime in the post-Civil War era, and (3) transformations in immigration policymaking and policies during the long twentieth century. |
|
T 1:30-3:20p | |
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21st-Century US History: The First Decade |
Students conduct collaborative primary source research on the first ten years of the 21st century. Topics include September 11th, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina, the financial crisis of 2008, the election of Barack Obama, and battles over domestic surveillance, immigration, policing, gun control, same-sex marriage, and reproductive rights. |
|
T 1:30-3:20p | |
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Applied Quantitative Analysis II |
This course introduces students to multiple regression analysis and other tools of causal inference and program evaluation. The course focuses on applying these tools to real data on various topics in global affairs and public policy. Applications are drawn from a wide range of areas including education, social welfare, unemployment, security, health, immigration, the environment, and economic development. |
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HTBA | |
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Asian Diasporas since 1800 |
Examination of the diverse historical and contemporary experiences of people from East, South, and Southeast Asian ancestry living in the Americas, Australia, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. Organized thematically and comparative in scope, topics include labor migrations, community formations, chain migrations, transnational connections, intergenerational dynamics, interracial and ethnic relations, popular cultures, and return migrations. |
|
HTBA |
Course number | Course title | Course description | Course instructor | Course date | |
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Muslims in the United States |
Since 9/11, cases of what has been termed “home-grown terrorism” have cemented the fear that “bad” Islam is not just something that exists far away, in distant lands. As a result, there has been an urgent interest to understand who American Muslims are by officials, experts, journalists, and the public. Although Muslims have been part of America’s story from its founding, Muslims have alternated from an invisible minority to the source of national moral panics, capturing national attention during political crises, as a cultural threat or even a potential fifth column. |
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W 1:30pm-3:20pm | |
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The United Nations on the Ground |
This course explores the role and functioning of the United Nations at the country level from the perspective of the three mandates or pillars of the UN Charter. 1) Peace and Security, and in particular the Peace-keeping operations: how do they work? Who decides to send a UN mission to a country? what do they do in each country? 2) Development: How does the UN helps countries achieve the Sustainable Development Goals? |
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W 3:30-5:20p | |
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Turning Points in Peace-building |
This seminar examines the challenges that must be addressed when the fighting has stopped. Once a peace agreement is signed, real deal-making begins. Former rebels negotiate with their military commanders about relinquishing arms and working for a living; communities look for “peace dividends,” refugees weigh options to return home; Governments try to assert authority despite how weakened they have become or new to the role they are; compatriots who opposed the peace settlement relentlessly try to undermine it. |
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M 1:30-3:20p | |
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Theater and Therapy in the Aftermath of War |
From the burgeoning field of Drama Therapy to the psychological basis of much actor training to the prevalence of theater productions being made with, for, and about people that have experienced wartime trauma, the practices of theater and therapy have long borrowed terminology, methodology, and conceptual frameworks from one another. This course traces the shared rhetoric and dramaturgical similarities between theater and psychotherapy, paying particular attention to how each/both are being applied to the global epidemic of post-traumatic stress in the aftermath of war. |
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W 1:30-3:20p | |
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Latin American Immigration to the United States: Past, Present, and Future |
Immigration from Latin America is the one of the most important and controversial issues in the United States today. The family separation crisis, the infamous border wall, and the Dream Act dominate political debate. Latinos—numbering more than 60 million in the U.S.—are a large, heterogeneous, and growing group with a unique social, political, and cultural history. |
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MW 11:35a-12:50p | |
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Politics and Society in the United States after World War II |
Introduction to American political and social issues from the 1940s to the present, including political economy, civil rights, class politics, and gender roles. Legacies of the New Deal as they played out after World War II; the origins, agenda, and ramifications of the Cold War; postwar suburbanization and its racial dimensions; migration and immigration; cultural changes; social movements of the Right and Left; Reaganism and its legacies; the United States and the global economy. |
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MW 11:35a-12:50p | |
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Difference and the City |
Four hundred and odd years after colonialism and racial capitalism brought twenty and odd people from Africa to the dispossessed indigenous land that would become the United States, the structures and systems that generate inequality and white supremacy persist. Our cities and their socioeconomic and built environments continue to exemplify difference. From housing and health to mobility and monuments, cities small and large, north and south, continue to demonstrate intractable disparities. |
|
T 11a-1p | |
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Central Americans in the U.S. |
This course is an interdisciplinary survey of the social, historical, political, economic, educational, and cultural experiences of Central American immigrants and their children in the United States. The primary objective of the course is to introduce students to several contemporary experiences and issues in the U.S. Central American community. |
|
T 1:30-3:20p | |
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Politics and Society in the United States after World War II |
Introduction to American political and social issues from the 1940s to the present, including political economy, civil rights, class politics, and gender roles. Legacies of the New Deal as they played out after World War II; the origins, agenda, and ramifications of the Cold War; postwar suburbanization and its racial dimensions; migration and immigration; cultural changes; social movements of the Right and Left; Reaganism and its legacies; the United States and the global economy. |
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MW 11:35a-12:50p | |
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What Makes An American?: U.S. National Identity, Founding to Present |
What makes someone an “American”? This question has plagued the United States since its inception. Most countries, in constructing their national identity, point to shared language, culture, or ethnicity. The United States, on the other hand, has been called a “nation of immigrants,” a “melting pot,” or a “mosaic.” These terms seek to describe how disparate groups of people from all over the globe have come together to form a nation. In this course, students grapple with questions of who has been considered “American” at different points in U.S. |
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01 TTh 1-2:15p, 02 TTh 2:30-3:45p | |
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A History of the Border Wall: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in US History |
Ever since the US’s founding, the idea of an open and ever-expanding frontier has been central to United States identity. Symbolizing a future of endless promise, the frontier made possible the United States’ belief in itself as an exceptional nation—democratic, individualistic, forward-looking. Today, the country has a new symbol: the border wall. This course focuses on both the current crisis at the U.S.-Mexican border, which has consumed the country’s attention and challenged its public morality and national identity, and the long history that has led to the crisis. |
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01 HTBA | |
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The World Circa 2000 |
The World Circa 2000 is a global history of the present since ~ 1960. The course moves thematically to consider topics including, decolonization and nation building in the global south, crises of nationalism and recurrent authoritarianism, the politics of aid, humanitarianism and neo-liberalism, technophilia, environmentalism and networked societies, climate change and ‘free trade,’ new religious fundamentalisms and imagined solidarities, celebrity, individuality, and consumerism in China, the United States, and beyond. |
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TTh 1:30-2:20p , Th 3:30-4:20p, Th 4-4:50p, Th 4-4:50p, Th 4:30-5:20p, Th 5-5:50p, Th 7-7:50p, F 10:30-11:20a | |
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Asian Diasporas since 1800 |
Examination of the diverse historical and contemporary experiences of people from East, South, and Southeast Asian ancestry living in the Americas, Australia, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. Organized thematically and comparative in scope, topics include labor migrations, community formations, chain migrations, transnational connections, intergenerational dynamics, interracial and ethnic relations, popular cultures, and return migrations. |
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Th 9:25-11:15a | |
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Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and the U.S. Empire |
This course examines the history of Mexicans and Mexican Americans at the U.S.-Mexico border and their important contributions to U.S. politics and culture, from the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to the present. By looking at specific historical case studies, students learn about the impact of U.S. imperial and migratory policies on border life, the tensions and solidarity bonds between Mexicans and Mexican Americans, the formation of a hybrid Mexican American culture, and the long history of popular resistance and activism. |
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TTh 9-10:15a | |
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Democracy and Sustainability |
Democracy, liberty, and the sustainable use of natural resources. Concepts include institutional analysis, democratic consent, property rights, market failure, and common pool resources. Topics of policy substance are related to human use of the environment and to U.S. and global political institutions. |
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T 9:25-11:15a | |
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Middle East Gender Studies |
The lives of women and men in the contemporary Middle East explored through a series of anthropological studies and documentary films. Competing discourses surrounding gender and politics, and the relation of such discourse to actual practices of everyday life. Feminism, Islamism, activism, and human rights; fertility, family, marriage, and sexuality. |
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M 1:30-3:20p | |
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Introduction to Ethnicity, Race, and Migration |
Historical roots of contemporary ethnic and racial formations and competing theories of ethnicity, race, and migration. Cultural constructions and social practices of race, ethnicity, and migration in the United States and around the world. |
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TTh 1-2:15p | |
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Discrimination in Law, Theory, and Practice |
How law and economic theory define and conceptualize economic discrimination; whether economic models adequately describe behaviors of discriminators as documented in court cases and government hearings; the extent to which economic theory and econometric techniques aid our understanding of actual marketplace discrimination. Prerequisites: introductory microeconomics and at least one additional course in Economics, African American Studies, Ethnicity, Race, and Migration, or Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. |
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T 9:25-11:15a | |
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Introduction to Latin American Studies: History, Culture and Society |
What is Latin America? The large area we refer to as Latin America is not unified by a single language, history, religion, or type of government. Nor is it unified by a shared geography or by the prevalence of a common language or ethnic group. Yet Latin America does, obviously, exist. It is a region forged from the merging of diverse cultures, historical experiences, and processes of resistance. This course provides an overview of Latin America and the Caribbean from the 16th century up to the present. |
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MW 2:30-3:45p | |
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Latinx Ethnography |
Consideration of ethnography within the genealogy and intellectual traditions of Latinx Studies. Topics include: questions of knowledge production and epistemological traditions in Latin America and U.S. Latino communities; conceptions of migration, transnationalism, and space; perspectives on “(il)legality” and criminalization; labor, wealth, and class identities; contextual understandings of gender and sexuality; theorizations of affect and intimate lives; and the politics of race and inequality under white liberalism and conservatism in the United States. |
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Th 1:30-3:20p | |
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The Global Gandhi: Histories of Nonviolent Resistance |
At a time of rising violence and polarization both within and between nations, what can we learn from the history of nonviolent political action? This course examines the life and the afterlives of Mohandas (“Mahatma”) Gandhi, who led India’s struggle for independence from British colonial rule. Gandhi’s practice of nonviolent struggle was shaped by multiple influences—by reading Thoreau and Tolstoy, by his experiences as a migrant Indian lawyer and journalist in South Africa, as well as by multiple Indian religious traditions. |
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MW 2:30-3:45p | |
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Immigration Law |
This survey course provides a foundation in the constitutional principles and statutory framework governing the regulation and rights of noncitizens and the immigration admission and removal process. The course then explores selected legal and policy issues related to immigrants’ rights and immigration reform as well as the normative values informing the treatment of noncitizens. |
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T 10:35 - 12:00 PM , Th 10:35 - 12:00 PM | |
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Advanced International Refugee Assistance Project |
A fieldwork option. Prerequisite: International Refugee Assistance Project. Open only to JD and MSL students. Permission of the instructors required. |
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HTBA | |
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Advanced Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic: Seminar |
A weekly seminar session only for returning students. Advanced Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic: Fieldwork is a co-requisite. Students enrolled in the seminar section must also be enrolled in the fieldwork section. Prerequisite: Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic. Permission of the instructors required. |
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Wed 9:10 -10:00 AM | |
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Constitutional and Civil Rights Impact Litigation |
This seminar will explore strategic and doctrinal issues related to bringing impact litigation to defend and advance civil and constitutional rights in today’s legal environment. The course will draw on the instructor’s decades of experience litigating immigration and civil rights law reform and class action cases in federal courts nationwide as founder and director of the ACLU Immigrants Rights’ Project as well as on service in the Obama and Biden administrations as a senior policy advisor at DOJ and DHS. |
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Wed 4:10 - 06:00 PM | |
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Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic: Seminar |
Students will represent immigrants and low-wage workers in Connecticut in labor, immigration, and other civil rights areas, through litigation for individuals and non-litigation advocacy for community-based organizations. In litigation matters, students will handle cases at all stages of legal proceedings in Immigration Court, Board of Immigration Appeals, U.S. District Court, the Second Circuit, and state courts. |
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Thu 10:10 -12:00 PM | |
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Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy: Fieldwork |
The Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy clinical seminar and fieldwork must be taken simultaneously in both terms. |
|
HTBA |