ENROLL

Barbara Allen

What justifies self-defense and retaliation in defending civil rights and liberty? What moral reasoning and strategies offer alternatives to using physical violence in a social movement to gain civil rights? Our seminar examines the American Civil Rights Movement 1954 and 1968, and compares the writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X to learn about nonviolent direct action, self-defense, and the use of "any means necessary" to right the wrongs of racial injustice.

Barbara Allen

How do we know if a news organization is ideologically biased? How do we show that gender influences how world leaders approach defense policy? How do we track the growth in misinformation in political advertising worldwide? One foundational methodology for studying questions like these is content analysis. This course will enable you to analyze the texts of speeches, debates, news stories, tweets, press conferences, letters, ad texts--and the visual representations that accompany many of these forms of communication. Students will learn the basics of defining content, operationalizing variables, and conducting the analysis to get valid, reliable data.

2nd 5 weeks

Barbara Allen

“Every civil rights bill was passed for white people, not black people. I am a human being. I know … I have right(s). White people didn’t know that. … so [they] had to … to tell that white man, 'he’s a human being, don’t stop him.' That bill was for the white man…. I knew [my rights] all the time.” Stokely Carmichael spoke for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee viewpoint in 1966. The Black Panther Party enacted basic civic responsibilities in their programs. Ella Baker spoke of autonomy in community. This seminar brings voices across generations speaking to current affairs.

Barbara Allen