Semester 2 has begun!

A new year is here and the work starts up again. I am looking forward to my courses (until the essays come due, of course ;-)

My schedule:

Tuesdays: American Foreign Policy 11-1pm
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course examines the foreign policy of the United States. It places contemporary foreign policy in historical context and examines its evolution, especially since the end of the Cold War, with 9/11 and the Iraq war as key reference points. Specifically, the course will focus on how the architecture of US government, domestic political factors, and the politics of Homeland Security shape policy, as well as the possible roles of alliances and international organizations in the so-called War on Terrorism. The major theme will be the nature of POWER, and whether America’s hard military power can compensate for the apparent diminution of its attractive or ‘soft power’. Students will be encouraged to grapple with the questions: is the United States still the only genuinely global power in the 21st century? Does its power translate to influence?

I am expecting to bring a lot of this information into my classroom back at Rogers!

Thursdays: Political Theory of International Human Rights 12-2pm
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course aims to assess competing accounts of the basis and implications of human rights in a global context. The course analyses the formal features in virtue of which talk about rights in general, and human rights in particular, is normatively distinctive, conceptually intelligible and practically applicable; it critically evaluates competing accounts of the normative basis of human rights, with particular reference to the question of how to reconcile universalistic claims with historical specificities of the human rights discourse; it seeks to understand how and why some human rights are more controversial than others, and to appreciate and assess the various criteria that are proposed for distinguishing 'genuine' human rights from 'mere aspirations'; and it aims to appreciate the mutually illuminating linkage between theoretical disputes about the basis and content of human rights and practical issues of political organisation in a global context.



Fridays: Social and Political Movements 2-4pm
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Why do social movements occur? How do they occur? What form of protest is used? Are the movements successful.

I selected all of these (unlike my core courses) so, in theory, I should LIKE all of them very much.

Here's to a good semester.