2010 New Jersey Scholars Program
Sunday, June 27 through Friday, July 30
Human Rights: Past. Present. Future.
During the Program, the faculty assigned several short papers and one major interdisciplinary research project to be handed in at the conclusion of the Program. This final project was the culmination of the Scholar's experience. The following gives an idea of the seminars and the final research projects:
ART & ARCHITECTURE
KATE DODD
M.F.A. Columbia University
Columbia High School, Maplewood, NJ
The NJSP 2010 Program’s focus was on Human Rights, with lectures and seminars emphasizing four main areas: Politics and History, Religion and Philosophy, Literature and the Law, and Art and Architecture. The art component of the course had a three-pronged approach, beginning with an art historical framework for viewing social struggle, continuing on to visual and media literacy, and ending with freedom of expression case studies. These topics were explored through hands-on visualization, critique, reading and analysis, a walking tour, museum visit, artist talk, debate, role playing, interactive activities and a journal record. The art history portion of the program focused on depictions of authority, and the resulting visual conventions, apparent in art up through the Enlightenment. Images of protest, reflecting both the outer world and art itself, from the Enlightenment on, were presented. Ideas concerning commemoration of struggle and suffering, and redefining The Other through self-identity in contemporary art were investigated. Finally, issues of documentation, the role of photography, and the evolution of these themes in popular culture were examined in conjunction with images from Abu Ghraib and its aftermath. In both breadth and depth, these students were exposed to a rich conceptual and cultural mix.
Scott Greenberg Can It Be Shown That Lady Justice Is A Human Rights Icon?
Jackie Grossman Can the Portrayal of Fidel Castro As an Authority Figure Be
Determined as Positive or Negative When Viewed Without
Context?
Bridget Hovell How Did Artistic Portrayals of Joan of Arc Defy Gender
Conventions When Compared To Female Religious Figures Such
As The Virgin Mary and Eve?
Alex Ioffreda Was The Dzhanov Doctrine Successful When Comparing Musical
Loss to Communist Party Gain?
Jacob Kaufman Did the Nazi’s Ultimately Succeed in Crafting an Artistic Policy
That Consistently Separated “Degenerate” Art from Pure
“German” Art”?
Chantal McStay Do Public Art Organizations, Like the Philadephia Mural Arts
Program, Provide a Comparable Legal Alternative to Graffiti In
Terms of Providing a Venue of Expression for the
Disenfranchised?
Shayla Reid The Revolution of The Carnations: Was It Representative of
Portugal as a Whole, or only Representative of Those Who Lead
It?
Kristin Shiu What Were Picasso’s Intentions in Painting “Guernica” in the
Context of the Spanish Civil War?
Jacqueline Weiss What Ethical Standards Does the “Triptych of The Last
Judgement” by Hieronymous Bosch Depict?
HISTORY & POLITICS
NINA McCUNE
Ph.D. University of Michigan
Pratt Institute and New Jersey City University
Over the course of these five weeks, the history/political science component of the New Jersey Scholars Program on Human Rights has offered a rigorous, global study of intellectual, philosophical, political and legal histories that structure contemporary human rights policy and practice. After examining framing philosophies and their broader implications, students learned about institutional legacies of the Humane Warfare and Universal Suffrage movements along with the 1899 Hague Peace Treaties and the League of Nations that contributed to the development of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the United Nations. Considering the complexities that such a theoretical document poses, students went on to debate the systematic international recognition and codification of what comprises the International Bill of Rights – and how the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights support and complement fundamental guarantees of human rights. Students considered human rights in foreign policy, through case studies of universal jurisdiction, monitoring and methodologies in human rights data collection, reporting and enforcement strategies, group rights, and the subtleties of human rights in the “day-to-day” context as well as the extremes of warfare and war-related human rights and international humanitarian law violations. The study of these complex ideas, legal instruments, and practices served ultimately to promote awareness and the cause of international human rights, and encouraged students to continue applying their intelligence, creativity and passion to such an important field.
Reem Alsalman Latent Criminal Behavior: Israel’s International Human
Rights Violations in Occupied Palestine.
Joy Chen China's One-Child Policy: Its Implications for the Present and
the Future.
Danielle Fitzgerald The Genocide of Rwanda: “Cutting the Tall Grass”
John Hastings Churchill and the Communists: Churchill's Foreign Policy
Towards Russia.
Adam Hersh An Analysis of Claims of White Phosphorus Use in the Gaza War.
Naomi Lee Not-So-Parallel Evolutions of Human Rights Traditions: The
Diverging Paths of the United States of America and the Republic
Of China (Taiwan) towards International Human Rights Law
through their Constitutions.
Zoe Malkin Issues in Contemporary Sex Trafficking.
Charlotte Mara The Mirabal Sisters: Life and Death Under Trujillo.
Richard Ressler Collective Identity and Mass Violence: How What We Call
Ourselves Affects How We Think.
Bryan Santos The Relationship Between Multi-National Corporations and
Human Rights.
LITERATURE
CHAMP ATLEE
M.A. Millersville University
The Lawrenceville School
The New Jersey Scholar’s 2010 Program took up Human Rights as its theme, and the literature section of that study took up human rights as they occur in the day to day lives of people, which is to say in courtrooms, where they collide with one another in suits or in prosecutions, but always in situations where people believe their rights have been violated. This study seemed to provide a more fruitful ground for raising questions than would a study of known human rights cases. Having said that, I should note the study did not avoid historically significant cases. The first work of literature was Ron Harwood’s Taking Sides, which portrays the interrogation of the conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic on the charge that he collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. Significantly, the play leaves open whether or not he did, leaving it to discussion. From there the students took up Robert Bolt’s A Man For All Seasons, a play in which the protagonist represents freedom of religion and the rule of law. As he says in a signal phrase, “I would give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety’s sake.” The accompanying essays and Supreme Court opinions certainly supported that notion. But we also know, in Leszek Kolakowski’s phrase, that “Hell is not empty,” and this century has taught us that to catch the Devil we must take risks with the law. Certain kinds of crimes cry for a “human victory.”And so the students studied Saul Levitt’s The Andersonville Trial and two essays on the Nuremburg Trials. Both trials required legal risks, risks which have been validated by the various genocides of the second half of the century. The students discussed with great seriousness which risks were acceptable – and which were not. The study closed with Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, the classic study of an American murder, a book which raises all of the necessary questions of psychology which surround such events, from malice aforethought to diminished capacity, and on to the agonizing issues of capital punishment.
Aleksandr Ayvasov Choice in Vasily Lukyanenko's The Stars Are Cold Toys, and How
We Discover That the Freedom to Choose Is Our Most Precious
Right.
Elise Backman How Eastern Texts Chronicle the History of Human Rights and
How These Texts Might Inform Future Legislation.
David Chough The Character of Jefferson Davis and What Caused a Man of Such
Personal Virtue to Be Vilified as an "American Hitler."
Grace Denoon Shakespeare's Portrayal of Human Rights in The Merchant of
Venice and on the Playwright's Efforts to Humanize Shylock, Despite the Demands of the Time.
Brendan Dwyer The Question of the Real Consequences of the Citizens United
Supreme Court Decision Relative to the Imagined Consequences.
Danielle Noel What Values Emerge as Most Significant in the Nuremburg Trials
and in its Dramatic Equivalent, the Andersonville Trial.
Conor Quinn The Possibility That Those Who Commit Egregious Human Rights
Violations Have Forfeited Their Right to Jurisprudence, and Examined the Question of How We Then Deal With Them.
Priya Sharma The Question of an Individual's Right to End His or Her Life and
What Informs a Free Decision.
Michael Sotsky How Josef Stalin's Personality Evolved and How That Evolution
Contributed to the Most Dramatic Human Rights Abuses of the 20th Century.
Michael Zhang How Systems of Education Pave the Way for Human Rights
Abuses, Using Mainland China's Schooling as the Example.
RELIGION
The New Jersey Scholars Program began on June 27th, 2010. Thirty nine talented, inquisitive, and enthusiastic young people gathered on the campus of The Lawrenceville School. Within 24 hours, they were engaged in thoughtful and deep reflection/discussion regarding the nature of Human Rights. Is human dignity a transcendent concept that overrides law and culture? Or, do we assign dignity and construct rights because nothing inherent in nature provides a foundation for these structures? Who is in our moral community? What duties do we have to each other and why do we have them? What do religious leaders and scholars have to say on the subject?
Kimaya Abreu Peeling the Apple: The Psychological Roots of Human Evil.
Prateek Agarwal Dr. James Orbinsky: Hope for a Better Humanitarian Future.
Hunter Dougherty The Masked Motivator: How to Mitigate the Often Ignored Male
Demand Driving the Sex Trade.
Angela Gu Child Soldiers: Peter Singer and Frances Myrna Kamm's
Exploration of Children's Rights Violations in Uganda's Lord's
Resistance Army.
Kevin Kirk Western Islamophobia: Stereotyping Muslims as Terrorists.
Oluwaseyi Lawal A Failure to Act or a Government Looking out for its People: An
Analysis of the United States' Actions during the Rwandan
Genocide.
Samuel Peinado The New Rules of War: An Examination of a Detainee's right to
Dignity in the ‘War on Terror’.
Brian Thorn Should a Muslim own a Slave? An Exploration into the Theory
Behind Slavery in Islamic Texts.
Emily Voorhees The Woman's War: The Fight against Sexual Violence in the
Congo.
Eric Ziyao Wang Confucian Duty: An Exploration of the Compatibility of
Confucianism and Negative Rights.