History
The Immigration Debate
HIST-214-401
T 1:30 PM-4:30 PM
Michael B Katz
BFS Sector II
In the years since the 1965 repeal of nationality based quotas, immigration to the United States has surged. Not only has the number of immigrants reached record highs, they have come from different places. During the last great wave of immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, immigrants came largely from southern and eastern Europe. Today, they come from Latin America and Asia. Formerly, they usually settled in cities, moving outward as their prosperity increased; today, many bypass cities, heading straight for suburbs where a majority of immigrants now live. This new immigration has touched off a fierce national political debate that makes arguments about immigration which often contain assumptions or assertions about the history of immigration –often inaccurate – that influence positions on policy. There are few public issues in which history matters as much as it does for immigration.
This seminar will provide the historical back ground essential for framing discussions of immigration today. It will consider the origins, demography, and geography of immigration and will pay special attention to the history of immigration policy. Requirements include reading approximately one book per week, writing several short commentary papers on readings, and leading workshops on the primary sources for the study of immigration history.
The Novel and Marriage
HIST-251-401
W 2:00 PM-5:00 PM
Joan Elizabeth Dejean
Human Rights and History
HIST-414-301
M 2:00 PM-5:00 PM
Benjamin Nathans
BFS Sector II
The idea of universal, inalienable rights – once dismissed by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham as “nonsense upon stilts” – has become the dominant moral language of our time, the self-evident truth par excellence of our age. Human rights have become a source of inspiration to oppressed individuals and groups across the world, the rallying cry for a global civil society, and not least, a controversial source of legitimation for American foreign policy. This seminar asks: how did all this come to be? We will investigate human rights not only as theories embodied in texts, but as practices embedded in specific historical contexts.
Are human rights the product of a peculiarly European heritage, of the Enlightenment and Protestantism? Did human rights serve as a “civilizing” mask for colonialism? Can universal rights be reconciled with genuine cultural diversity? Through case studies and close readings, the seminar will work toward a genealogy of human rights.