Human Rights in the Middle East

Undergraduate / Graduate

This seminar explores the broad range of human rights struggles, concerns and activism in the contemporary Middle East region. The class will examine human rights issues posed by authoritarian, dictatorial and single-party state formations in the Middle East particularly by looking at the effects of internal security apparatuses, mechanisms of state violence, and struggles for political participation and liberty. We explore ongoing indigenous struggles for recognition and autonomy, such as the Kurdish, Sahrawi and Amazigh cases, while also contextualizing the region's complex history of colonial and neocolonial interventions by force and their human rights implications. We will examine the varied roles that non-state actors play in Middle Eastern human rights spheres, from militias to NGOs to religious and communal structures. The course will look to local actors and movements to explore forms of resistance, struggle, and social change while maneuvering through often highly-constrained political spaces. We pay particular attention to marginalized communities by looking at the rights struggles of minorities, women, children, migrant workers, the disabled, and the LGBTQ+ community in Middle Eastern contexts. Personal Status Laws and their effects on rights, especially with regard to marital relations and parental rights are considered. Interdisciplinary and varied modes of knowledge production including film serve as source materials.