Human Rights Track

Human Rights Track

The Human Rights track provides a deep, critical, and interdisciplinary understanding of human rights issues. The track offers graduate course options that approach the field of human rights and practice from multiple disciplinary and thematic perspectives within the regionally diverse geography of the Americas, thus enabling comparative and international perspectives. Students in this track benefit from a range of human rights initiatives at the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies: the Frances S. Patai Program in Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights The Americas Film Festival of New, whose focus is cinema that deals with human rights; the Rights Talk podcast, hosted by Prof.  Danielle A. Zach, as well as the tri-divisional Human Rights Forum  and Human Rights Conference.

Students in this track will be able to conduct and apply original research, use technological tools appropriately, and communicate with varied audiences effectively. In particular, by giving students an appreciation of grave human rights violations as well as recent normative and institutional developments within and across borders, this track contributes to advancing one of the core missions of the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies: to encourage global citizenship. 

Taking advantage of the existing interdisciplinary framework of the MA in the Study of the Americas, the Human Rights track consists of four courses that count as part of the seven electives students must take. Students must fulfill the following Requirements: taking two foundational courses and completing either a Thesis or Capstone.

UPCOMING: The 3rd Human Rights Forum Conference

RIGHTS TALK 🎧  Podcast

With authoritarianism, nationalism, and xenophobia on the rise, gaping global wealth disparities, and the accelerating climate emergency, human rights appear increasingly fragile. Rights Talk is devoted to engaging contemporary challenges around the world across the human rights spectrum of civil and political rights; economic, social, and cultural rights; and solidarity rights, including to a safe and healthy environment. The podcast invites critical perspectives and questions the future of rights in the twenty-first century.

LATEST EPISODES

E37: "Discontent on the African Continent: Youth, Inequality, and Rural Radicalism with CUNY Baruch Prof. Zachariah Mampilly
E36: "‘Power and Politics Lead, Rights Follow’: Advancing Rights in the 21st Century" with Columbia University’s Prof. Jack Snyder
E35: Creating a “Beloved Community” in the School House: Centering Black Women Leaders and Girls for Just and Inclusive Education with CCNY’s Prof. Terri N. Watson
E34: Genocide as “the Crime of Crimes” and Its Limitations with CCNY’s Prof. Dirk Moses
E33: Reproductive Oppression: An Expanding “Appetite to Criminalize” with CUNY School of Law Prof. Cynthia Soohoo
E32: Medicine, Science, and Human Rights with Christian De Vos and Payal Shah of Physicians for Human Rights
E31: Russia’s War on Ukraine Explained: Motivations, Dynamics, and Consequences with CCNY’s Prof. Emeritus Rajan Menon
E30: CCNY’s Hostile Terrain 94 Global Art Installation: Undocumented Migration and US Policy with CCNY Prof. Matthew Reilly and Students Catie Hernandez and Eloisa Martinez Jimenez
E29: Russia’s War Against Ukraine with Human Rights Watch’s Louis Charbonneau
E28: “A New Age of Impunity and Indifference”: Torture, Refugees, and Conflict Zones with CVT President and CEO Simon Adams
E27: Eating NAFTA: Circulating Avocados, NYC Tacos, Criminalized Migrant Labor, and Chronic Disease in Mexico with Lehman Prof. Alyshia Gálvez
E26: “A Crisis of Care,” the “She-cession,” and Gender Inequality in the United States with CCNY Prof. Kathlene McDonald
E25: Mental Health, War, Forced Migrants, and FGM/C with CCNY Prof. Adeyinka Akinsulure-Smith
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