Admission requirements
This course serves as Global Citizenship component and/or 200 level course for the Human Interaction Major.
This course is the second component of the track Diversity and Integration, as such is a prerequisite for DII 301 Case-studies and the challenges of Diversity and Integration.
Description
Against the fundamentalists’ threat of homogeneous unity, this course examines the role of the individual. If diversity refers to increasing patterns of differentiation, the individual is one of the basic unities of analysis. Starting form the recognition of citizenship rights as rights conferred to the individual, the course examines how problematic this becomes when individual bodies are bounded by inclusion criteria. Subsequently, it addresses the cosmopolitan challenge to liberal conceptions of the individual and proposes to center the analysis rather in the concept of individuality and its necessary collective determinations, both crucial to foster social cohesion and democracy.
Course objectives
To provide students with the critical ability to understand the risk of homogenous thinking when addressing questions of social justice and the right to be different in contemporary societies.
By the end of the course, students should have attained:
Knowledge regarding crucial definitions and problematiques affecting the concept of citizenship.
An ability to examine, question and take positions regarding the role of the individual in reproducing structures of discrimination and exclusion, as well as her/his responsibility to change them.
The critical capacity to reflect about the bonds that unite us as well as those elements that invariably reproduce difference and distinction among us.
Timetable
See LUC The Hague website
Mode of instruction
Students continuous and active participation is fundamental for this course development. It is our course, which means it requires the work of all, students and lecturer alike, to produce a learning community.
Biweekly seminars will form the main body of this course. The structure of the seminars is based on lectures (45-60 minutes) and students’ presentations and debates (45-60 minutes). This ensures the introduction of knowledge and materials and the ongoing test of students’ understanding of this knowledge through discussions, constructive criticism and debates.
Documentaries and other media will be used regularly to ensure exposure to diverse resources, forms of knowledge and types of evidence.
Students will prepare for seminars by completing the assigned readings, which will be available in the Blackboard site. In addition, each student needs to complete one “reflective note” per session based on his/her thoughts on the topic, quotidian examples, readings and ongoing debates of each week.
Assessment method
Students will be assessed in various ways. Emphasis will be placed on their active interaction and engagement with the themes and debates posed in class.
- Active engagement with the course content: assessed through In-class participation and reading presentations (20% of final grade): Ongoing Weeks 1 – 7
- Critical understanding of the key arguments at stake in the course: assessed through reflective notes (approx. 350 words) to be discussed each session (30% of final grade, 2.5% each):Weeks 2 – 7
- Visualizing and applying theoretical queries to observe daily life: assessed through group project-Research proposal (1500 words;10% of final grade): Week 4, (Friday 3rd May)
- Critical analysis of the course central arguments applied to a case study: assessed through Group project – Final report (5000 words;40% of final grade):Week 8 (Friday 1st June)
Blackboard
This course will be supported by a BlackBoard Site
Reading list
A reader for the course will be compiled and will be electronically available in Blackboard site before the beginning of the course. Students are expected to bring the weekly assigned readings in paper for discussion during the seminars, together with their “reflective notes”.
Registration
This course is only open for LUC The Hague students.
Contact information
For further information please contact Dr. Daniela Vicherat Mattar d.a.vicherat.mattar@luc.leidenuniv.nl:mailto:d.a.vicherat.mattar@luc.leidenuniv.nl
Weekly Overview
WEEK 1 Difference and diversity: Thinking beyond unitary and binary definitions
WEEK 2 In defense of the individual: Citizenship rights
WEEK 3 Bounded bodies I: Questions on gender and race
WEEK 4 Bounded bodies II: (Dis) Able bodies
WEEK 5 Unbounded bodies: Cosmopolitan citizenship and social inequality
WEEK 6 Democratic individuality and social solidarity
WEEK 7 Assembling the world: language and culture matter
WEEK 8 Reading Week
Preparation for first session
Information will be provided in due course.