Loyola University Chicago

 
Mr. Todd W. Waller

Course Description
Theory, actuality and application of select human rights issues in the Mediterranean region as viewed from the perspective of Rome. This course includes 24 hours of required practical engagement with the local community.

Class meets once per week for 2 ? hours. In addition, students will have a two hour per week community service requirement (does not include travel time to and from the service location).

Background
The primary focus of this course is for students to further understand the context of their service work while in Italy by studying social and political issues impacting Rome and the Mediterranean region. In addition, in the Jesuit tradition of working to educate the whole person each class session will incorporate readings and creative methods for allowing students to reflect on their strengths, weaknesses, values, and personal worldview. By examining one's service work while in Rome, broader applications may be made to Italy in general, a country in the heart of the Mediterranean and at the doorstep of the Middle East, the Balkans and North Africa. A few of the themes to be addressed in this course will be: the illegal trafficking of humans from the Balkans and Africa, the influence of Islam in the Mediterranean region, the need for Italy to welcome more immigrants in the face of a declining birth rate and the racism encountered by many immigrants upon legal entry into Europe. Documentary films will be used as a primary teaching tool in the course and local human rights filmmakers will be invited as part of the classroom discussion. Activists from Rome will also lecture during the course of the semester. A twenty-four hour (minimum) community service requirement is expected above and beyond the seventeen hours of in-class sessions.

Course Structure
The course will include lectures, class discussions and student presentations. Films primarily acquired from the Bologna Human Rights Night Films Festival will augment the readings in the course. There will be two components to each class discussion. The first half of each class will focus on current political or social issues impacting Italy, while the remainder of the class will be a reflective session in which students analyze their work in the community. Each student will be placed with a Rome based Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) which is the equivalent of a non-profit agency in the United States.

Objectives
Theme 1: Social and political review of contemporary issues within Italy and the broader Mediterranean region.

• To identify issues of status, power and privilege in Italy.
• To learn about Italian and Mediterranean movements for social change.

• To analyze some of the philosophical roots of community service specifically in light of the Jesuit vision of education.
• To move beyond the intellectualization of social issues and reflect on the potential for personal and emotional growth as a result of one's service experiences.

Schedule

• Week 1: Introduction and class description
• Week 2: Immigration: racism and xenophobia
• Week 3: Power and privilege (Issues of race, gender, and class)
• Week 4: Italy and Islam
• Week 5: Illegal trafficking of humans
• Week 6: Models of social change (Grass-roots approaches to social change / Charity vs Justice)
• Week 7: Class review of service sites
• Week 8: Roma (Gypsy) and Roma
• Week 9: Moral Development
• Week 10: Youth
• Week 11: Final Paper: individual presentations
• Week 12: Papers due

Reading Packet
Italy and the Mediterranean

• Barber, Benjamin R. 1990. Jihad vs. McWorld. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. Selections
• Gramsci, Antonio. An Antonio Gramsci Reader. Selections
• Havel, Vaclav. 1997. "New Year's Address to the Nation." in The Art of the Impossible: Politics as Morality in Practice. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
• International Organization for Migration. 2004. Fact book on Italy and migration.
• Pratt, Jeffrey. 2002. "Italy: Political Unity and Cultural Diversity." The Politics of Recognizing Difference; Multiculturalism Italian Style.
• Putnam, Robert D. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (with Robert Leonardi and Raffaella Y. Nanetti). Princeton: Princeton University Press. Selections
• Said, Edward. 1997. Covering Islam. Vintage Press, pp. 1-36

Community Organizing and Social Change

• Freire, Paulo. 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum. Selections
• McKnight, John. 1989. Assets Based Community Development, Building Communities from the Inside Out. Northwestern University Press. pp. 1-25
• Sontag, Susan, May 5, 2003. "Courage and Resistance," The Nation.
• Lakey, George. 2001. "Training in Nonviolent Intervention," The United States Institute for Peace, Peaceworks No. 36.
• "Rachel's War," March, 2003. The Guardian.

Self and Service

• Boyt, Harry. 2003. "Putting Politics Back into Civic Engagement." Campus Compact Reader. pp. 1-8.
• Illich, Ivan, S.J., A Celebration of Awareness. Selections
  Illich, Ivan, "To Hell with Good Intentions."
• Hanh, Thich Nhat. 2003. Audio taped lecture on youth and social change given at Plum Village, France.
• Hanh, Thich Nhat. 2004. "The Practice of Peace." Not Turning Away, The Practice of Engaged Buddhism. Boston. Shambala Press.
• Kornfield, Jack. 1990. The Path With Heart. Shambala Press. Selections
• Moon, Susan. 2004. "On Beggers." Not Turning Away, The Practice of Engaged Buddhism. Boston. Shambala Press.
• Mother Teresa, 1978. Audio taped lecture given at Boys Town in Omaha, NE.
• Palmer, Parker, To Know as We are Known. Selections
• Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Selections
• Schallert, Eugene S.J. and Krishnamurti. 1996. "How Do We See That Which Is Most Real," Questioning Krisnamurti. Thorsons Publisher, London
• West, Cornell 1999. The Cornell West Reader. Basic Civitas Books. Selections

Documentary Films
Possible films to be viewed in their entirety or in-part during the course:

• The Brothers (Italy 2002 / 8.30 Minutes / Simone Salvemini) A look at two Albanian brothers and their attempts to find work in Italy.
• Foreigners Out (Austria 2002 / 90 Minutes / Paul Poet) Perspectives on anti-immigration and xenophobic behaviors towards immigrants in Southern Europe.
• Bella Ciao (Italy 2001 / 60 Minutes / Marco Giusti) Perspectives on the anti- global movement within Italy. The film focuses on the death of an Italian protester during the 2001 G-8 World Summit in Geneva.
• The Voice of the Prophet (USA 2001 / 8 Minutes / Robert Edwards) A Morgan Stanley Vice-President predicts his own death and the fall of the World Trade Towers.
• No Risk No Champagne (Italy 2001 / 91 Minutes) The recruitment of young Russian women to brothels in Western Europe.
• Kosovo - Kosova (Italy 2001 / 60 Minutes / Jody Barrett) Perspectives from college students living in Kosovo about their futures and whether to stay or flee to Europe. Filmmaker and Rome resident Jody Barrett may appear in class.
• Under the Sky of Baghdad (Italy 2003 / 55 Minutes / Mario Balsamo) Shows Iraqis in the market, in the streets, in the poor district of Saddam City just months before the US led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Filmmaker Mario Balsamo may appear in class.
• Third and First World (Italy 2001 / 15 minutes) A prison satire about first world and third world polarization.
• The Luckiest Peanut in the World (Great Britain 2002 / 20 Minutes / Emily Jones) Perspectives via cartoon and documentary footage about the European Union and World Bank trade policies and the impact of these policies on poor countries.
• Trafficking Tariff. Documents the journey of North Africans into Spain.
• God is My Co-Pilot (Holland 2002 / 50 Minutes / Karen Junger) A view of the United States military presence in the Mediterranean region. Specifically looks at US fighter pilots and their religious beliefs.
• Frontiers (France 2002 / 105 Minutes / Mostefa Djamdjam) Attempts by a group of North Africans to smuggle themselves into Europe.
• Killing Time: women activists awaiting justice. (Italy & USA 2000 / 28 minutes / Todd Waller and Lorenza Fabretti) Follows the lives of women in Bosnia as they seek their missing sons and husbands who are buried in mass graves.

Major Areas Covered

• Illegal trafficking of humans
• Islam and Italy
• Racism and xenophobia
• Power and privilege
• Models of social change
• Issues of race, gender, and class
• Grass-roots approaches to social change
• Charity vs justice as models of change

Grading

• A. Class participation (125 points)
  Attendance will be taken every class period. Students are expected to attend all class periods and to come to class having read the material for the week and willing to discuss the content.
• B. Community service (125 points)
  Students choose a non-profit (non-governmental) organization which is working on issues of social change. They will spend 24-35 hours there during the semester as a volunteer. Students will get to know the agency's work, mission, etc.
  Possible sites: Missionaries of Charity, San Egidio Soup Kitchen, International Youth Action for Peace, Roma Advocacy Group, Jesuit Relief Services.
  During class periods, students may be asked to discuss their service learning experiences. Typically, students will be asked to describe their specific on-site activities and relate their experiences to the topic being discussed in class. Students are expected to participate in these discussions.
  While volunteering at a local service organization, students will be expected to act in a responsible manner. Each student must keep scheduled work hours and complete assigned duties. Students also are expected to maintain good working relationships with supervisors and peers. Conduct that is deemed unacceptable to the agency supervisor may result in the student being dismissed from that placement and from the course.
• C. Mid-term 4-page paper (50 points)
  AGENCY / VOLUNTEER SITE ANALYSIS. Students are expected to address each of these points:
  (a) communicate the most salient points of this organization and the social cause it is trying to solve
  (b) what did the student learn from studying this organization and its cause?
  (c) how does this relate to what is being taught in class?
  (e) how does/did this cause (movement) contribute to a more just society?
  (g) critique the agency and its strategies for social change
  (h) how was the student challenged by studying this agency and its cause?
  (i) if appropriate, relate to class readings.
  Do not just talk about the agency, its cause or social movement but apply it, interweaving the responses to the issues viewed in class films and the topics discussed in the class readings and films. (Examples include - Catholic Worker Movement, OTPOR Student Movement in Serbia, Volunteers in Palestine, No Global Movement in Italy.)
• D. Journal entry / collected twice (50 points)
  Students will write two journals on this experience (25 points each; due in Week 5 and Week 9). Each journal should include a summary of volunteer activities, what the student has learned, the relevance of the experience to readings and discussions from class, and anything else a student might think important. Journals may be handwritten but they must be legible. Write only on one side of the paper.
• E. Final paper: Agency analysis and proposals for change (150 points)
  For the final 8-12 page paper, each student will choose a topic which relates to issues of social change and to his/her volunteer site. Examples would include gypsy lifestyles, immigration, trafficking of humans, the future of Islam in Italy, human rights, etc.; this is not an exhaustive list. After a topic has been chosen, a student will analyze it from the definition of social justice that was discussed in class, as well as the concepts of social change. STUDENTS MUST DISCUSS THEIR TOPICS WITH THE INSTRUCTOR BEFORE THE MID-TERM BREAK. Use at least five sources other than the readings from class. At least three of these should be written sources, but a student is welcome to experiment with interviews, videos, and other types of sources. Students must interweave into their proposal some of the readings from class.