Assignment and Evaluation

1. Participation (including facilitation (10) and blog posts/class contributions (20) 30%
2. Presentation 20%
3. Critical Reflection of Play 10% (Due Sept 30 by midnight – after class).
4. Class Project (due Friday Dec 10, 2016, 4pm) 40%

Participation  The success of the seminar depends on the participant’s thorough preparation and willingness to engage in open and respectful discussion grounded in thoughtful engagement of ideas in the texts. At a minimum, all participants are expected to: attend all seminar meetings; have read all of the assignments for that meeting; and be prepared to critically discuss those readings and their broader implications. Through participation in seminar discussion, each person refines her/his/their own understanding of the material, helps others think issues through, and practices valuable analytic and communication skills. Our goal in the classroom is collaboration and the exchange of ideas. To achieve this, come to each class prepared with what you believe are the central arguments, concepts and ideas of each reading, how they relate to the others and to your own work, and how they relate to the overall themes of the class. You may wish to organize your thoughts in response to questions posed for each week in the syllabus and by reading one another’s blog entries.

Blog  Before midnight the night before the class, please summarize the central argument of each author/reading (200-300 words max), and to identify 1-2 short, specific questions, quotes or sections you wish to discuss in class. Don’t summarize everything, just what is the most thought-provoking and interesting, and why. The blog will be available to each person to view, so you can prepare in advance; the blog posts will be used to help form the basis of discussion in the class.

Class facilitation  You will select one week to facilitate the class discussion. The aim is to identify major themes and to get the discussion started. Your presentation should: a) briefly summarize main ideas from readings and questions or areas for discussion; b) include an activity/process to discuss some of the key questions/comments from the readings (based on your own questions but also opening room to discuss other students’ questions).   You should consider presenting this visually, selecting no more than four images to show the class on power point that you feel represent/ help unearth the discussions and questions, and with no text on the slides.

 Class facilitation will be evaluated based on: clarity of ideas presented and linkage to the course material/discussions; thoughtfulness and coherence in the design of activity/process of engagement. Your presentation and introduction of activity should not last more than (nor less than) 15 minutes.

Presentation  In the final part of class each week, 1-2 persons will present on a critical thinker, documentary, creative work or artists who engage in different media to contest, protest and advance human rights or justice. Some of the presentation topics address meta-narratives, power and representation – for instance, they seek to pierce through accepted truths by revealing patterns and structures of power; others present ways artists, activists and people subject to domination resist through the articulation of counter-narratives, performance and visualization, thereby creating space for valuing alternative truths, stories that reveal power and offer possibilities for political action.

You must introduce the artist/activist/project and present a) the context of the artistic interventions; b) how the artist/activist/project approached his/her/their intervention or piece and what it reveals (here you can draw on the readings of that week to interpret and bring your own understanding of the piece \ for consideration); and c) engage the class in an exercise to explore the topic further.

Each presentation is to be 30 minutes in total. The presentation itself should be 15 minutes, followed by an exercise for 12 minutes (past students have used pedagogical strategies such as art, responses to video or photographs, creative writing, discussion of a question, and games). The final 3 minute should be used to explain or summarize the meaning of the exercise to the topic / what was concluded (this is very important to assessment. Ensure it relates to a critical idea in the presentation; many students in the past forget this). You will be evaluated for a) clarity of presentation; b) outlining and engaging in a critical reflection of the approach; c) making connections to the readings that week (or previous readings if it applies – this can be nuanced, don’t take it too literally), d) effectively developing an engaging exercise to involve the class in the process of learning and e) being able to demonstrate the value of the exercise / a summary of what was learned.

Note: You may wish to offer a different presentation than the one currently suggested. This is fine but must first be discussed and agreed to with the instructor.

Critical Reflection of Antigona’s Court of Women You will attend the play Antigona’s Court of Women and to write a 500-800 word critical reflection of it. In late September this year a theatre group from Colombia, Aluna Teatro, will be coming to Vancouver. This group’s play brings together female artists and women victims of the war in Colombia. It presents a very powerful performance that provides testimony to the suffering and violence against women during the war but particularly to the historical resistance of women against it. The play has received much national and international acclaim. The director of the theatre, Carlos Eduardo Satizábal, is a professor at the Colombian National University and a well recognized theatre director.

The Theatre Department and the Frederic Wood Theatre at UBC are supporting the presentation of the play during two evenings at UBC as well as my program on Memory and Justice. The play will be held on September 26th at 7:30 pm and September 27th at 6:00 pm and followed by a forum with the director and actors and it will be a great educational opportunity for any student or faculty interested in Colombia, women, social movements, human rights, transitional justice or resistance.

To assist in the reflection and your presentations, you may want to read about the role of political art and performance:

1. Eliza Garnsey. “Rewinding and Unwinding: Art and Justice in Times of Political Transition.” International Journal of Transitional Justice (2016).
2. Art, Residential Schools & Reconciliation: Important Questions: https://canadianart.ca/features/art-and-reconciliation/

Final Project – For the final project, you must engage with the materials of the class and apply it to a current policy topic area related to human rights and justice. This might be to read critically a set of current policy pieces by the state, by civil society members, networks and activists, the media and / or other public personalities; or to craft your own project as a response to a human rights and justice issue, designing (but not implementing) a project that would seek to generate discussion over a silenced or ignored justice issue (one year, a student created posters that replaced UBC posters with human rights causes, for example), accompanied by a short narrative explanation of the project. The final project can take the form of a paper, a policy, a media piece or a work of creative non-fiction.