Download Date:

Date: November 16, 2009
To:
ARCC
From: Rosemary Nagy, Interim Chair GESJ
Re:
Course title and description changes
The following modifications of course descriptions and/or course titles have been approved by
the department of Gender Equality and Social Justice. The following motions are proposed:
MOTION 1: That ARCC recommend to Arts & Science Executive that the description for GEND
3037 Applied Activism be modified.
MOTION 2: That ARCC recommend to Arts & Science Executive that the title and description
for GEND 3207 The United Nations and International Justice be modified.
Detailed information follows below:
Course: GEND 2306 Art and Social Justice
Old Description: Throughout history, artistic expression has been used to address such
politicized issues as gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, as well as forms of power and
equality. This course will focus on a range of issues and debates concerning art, politics and
social justice. Our study will include a variety of media, including textiles used to depict life
under the repressive Chilean military government, the Mexican muralist projects, the art of the
Depression, feminist approaches to art, artistic responses to AIDS (such as the NAMES Project
AIDS Quilt), as well as current themes in art and society. Through this study, we will consider
the notion of "political art" as well as its effectiveness in terms of creating social change.
New Description: How have art and representation been used both to marginalize groups and,
conversely, to galvanize protest and resistance? Beginning with the ideological role that art and
representation played in colonization, this course looks at how social injustice is often created
and supported through traditional and modern visual arts. Paradoxically, art and representation
have also been central to many social justice movements, forming a vital medium for imagining
and instigating action for social change.
Rationale: The course description has not been taught in several years and needed updating.
The description meets the new requirements and is more generic so as to allow various
approaches within a given year.
Old Course Title: GEND 3207 The United Nations and International Justice
New Title: The United Nations and the Responsibility to Protect
Short Title: The UN and Responsibility to Protect
Old Course Descripton: This course will provide students with an overview of the structure and
function of United Nations and other international organizations, courts and tribunals designed
to protect human rights. It will examine the nature and scope of human rights obligations
established by international law, and the mechanisms for enforcing human rights norms bother
internationally and regionally through interstate complaint procedures, periodic reporting
requirements, and sanctions. We will address challenging issues of international justice,
including gender-related claims and the capacity of international systems to contribute to social
and economic reform.
New Description: How have the United Nations and other international organizations fared in
their “responsibility to protect” human beings from genocide, war crimes, and crimes against
humanity? Inquiring into the three main principles of the "responsibility to protect"—to prevent,
to react, and to rebuild—we examine intervention, justice, and peacebuilding through an
overview of the structure and functions of the United Nations, and through an examination of its
record of protection in specific cases including gender-based violence.
Rationale: This description better reflects how the course is being taught. It also moves GEND
3207’s current focus on “international justice” away from overlapping with GEND 3227
Transitional Justice. In the literature, much of “transitional” justice is international justice.