Program Overview
This one-year full-time or two-year part-time course delves into human rights, their origins, and their application in various contexts. It offers a comprehensive understanding of human rights research and practice through an interdisciplinary social science lens. The program equips students with expertise in advocacy, research, and policy, preparing them for careers in the human rights field.
Program Outline
Degree Overview:
This course explores human rights and their historical origins, philosophical foundations, global expansion, everyday practice, and possible futures. It aims to equip students with specialist knowledge in the field of human rights research and practice, grounded in an interdisciplinary, critical social science approach. The program examines a range of topics, including:
- Advocacy, activism, and social justice
- Human rights and culture
- Decolonization and anti-racism
- (State) violence, civil liberties, and counterterrorism
- Globalization and neoliberalism
- The environment and climate change
- International human rights organizations
- Children's rights
- Indigenous and minority rights
- LGBTQ+ rights
- Women's rights and gender equality The course is designed to provide students with the expertise and global perspective necessary for a career in the field of human rights.
Outline:
Duration:
1 year full-time, 2 years part-time
Start Date:
September 2024
Application Deadline:
1 August 2024 (international), 1 September 2024 (UK)
Modules:
Core Modules:
- Autumn Teaching:
- Human Rights and the Politics of Culture
- Human Rights in International Relations
- Spring Teaching:
- Research Methods and Professional Skills
- Summer Teaching:
- Dissertation (Human Rights)
Options:
- Spring Teaching:
- Activism for Development and Social Justice
- Civil and Political Rights: Contemporary Challenges
- Indigenous and Minority Rights
- LGBTQI Rights: International and Comparative Perspectives
- Reimagining Peace and Justice
- Socioeconomic rights: economic violence, social justice, and human rights law
- Women and Human Rights
- Summer Teaching:
- Dissertation with Placement (Global Studies)
Placements:
- Optional placements are available for up to 12 weeks in the summer term and vacation.
- Students can write their dissertation based on their placement experience.
- The careers team can assist with finding employers, drafting applications, and preparing for interviews.
Recent Dissertation Titles:
- The depoliticisation of homelessness: spaces of care and resistance in a voluntary homelessness organisation in Brighton
- In sickness and in health: the relevance of HIV healthcare strategies in securing the rights of marginalised communities
- Self-serving or self-effacing? An analysis of the Zimbabwe-UK diaspora's role in human rights advocacy
Teaching:
- The course is taught by a research-active faculty with expertise in international relations, anthropology, law, and human geography.
- The program utilizes an interdisciplinary, critical social science approach.
- Students benefit from guest lectures and seminars, providing opportunities to network with academics and professionals worldwide.
Careers:
- The program prepares students for careers in human rights advocacy, research, and policy.
- Recent graduates have secured roles as:
- Change Executive, Digital Transformation Programme at Save the Children UK
Other:
- The course is based in the interdisciplinary School of Global Studies.
- Students become part of an active student community on campus, participating in debates, lectures, films, and social events covering global and political issues.
- The program emphasizes the importance of critical reflection on traditional perspectives on human rights.
