GLOBAL MINORITIES
SOC 305.01
SYLLABUS
FALL TERM, 2001
WEST VIRGINIA WESLEYAN COLLEGE

Dr. John Warner, Jr. Professor

warner@wvwc.edu

Kresge Hall in MRC at 10:00 A.M. MWF

Description of the Course

• This is a relatively new course. Before 1996 the course "Racial and Ethnic Minorities" covered both racial and ethnic conflicts in the USA (five weeks) and internationally (nine weeks). In 1996 we split the course into two separate courses, and this is entirely an international study. The USA section went into another new course for me, American Minorities since 1865. To the best of my knowledge this course in global minorities at West Virginia Wesleyan College is the only such course taught in the world. It is not taught in any other college on Planet Earth.
• In the Fall of 1997 I took my 3rd sabbatical leave. I focused on this class. My wife and I traveled in Northern Ireland in August 1997, talking with Catholics and Protestants about "The Troubles." Later I studied the diversity of India, of Afghanistan, and The Basques of Spain and France, adding these studies to my earlier studies of minorities on a global scale. In the summer of 1998 I prepared the power point lectures on South Africa and Yugoslavia.
• In the summer of 2001 I prepared a lecture on the human rights of women, a global perspective. I developed this into a power point lecture, and I will present it at the Third World Studies Conference in Omaha in October 2001. I am entitling this project The Silence of Women, the Voices of Women.
• We will examine sociological theories which attempt to explain and describe the patterns of relationships between racial, religious and ethnic groups. In order to see the patterns we will take a global view, examining patterns outside the USA. This year we will survey many ethnic minorities caught in the struggle for cultural survival, basic human rights, or seeking some level of autonomy or independence. We will consider the issues related to "ethnic cleansing" and national consciousness. We will search especially the issues of diversity, assimilation verses pluralism.
• We will be experimental in that we will follow the Christian Science Monitor for reading assignments. You will read it "on line" in the Internet system. I will explain in class.

Syllabus and study guides are "Online."

• You will need to learn how to access material through the MARS icon in the 'Neighborhood.' Path is: Neighborhood Network, MARS, class, Sociology and Anthropology, Soc 305.01, and then "Gypsy" or "Bulgaria," etc.

Christian Science Monitor assignments.

• You will have weekly assignments from the archives of the Christian Science Monitor.
• Students are responsible for International Ethnic Conflict in such places as Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, South Africa, Afghanistan, Basques of Spain and France, the indigenous peoples of the Americas (but not the USA), Northern Ireland, India, Women everywhere, and the Middle East. Students will be graded on a scale of 3 points each report (x 7 reports = 21 points). Written Monitor responses will usually be due on Fridays. You must read and understand the "news." Points off for late reports!
• Footnotes. Each CSM report must carry a footnote. The note must follow this format! Author, Title of article, CSM, date. See illustration here:
• Celia W. Dugger. Abortion in India Is Tipping Scales Sharply Against Girls. New York Times. April 22, 2001.

Ethnic Conflict in the World Today

• Today there are about a dozen absolutely critical issues facing mankind. These include the destruction of the ozone layer; the greenhouse effect and the melting icecaps; the destruction of the forests of the Amazon; drought; the exponential explosion of the AIDS epidemic; chemical and biological warfare; famine; nuclear weapons; freedom and totalitarianism; independence and autonomy of smaller nationality groups; nationalism, and racial, ethnic and religious conflict. In this class we will take on the last issue in that list, and we will survey it from a global perspective.
• Ethnic or Religious conflict is reason for fighting in the former Yugoslavia, in Chechnya (Russia), Northern Ireland, Palestine, Rwanda, the Basques of Spain and France, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Southern Africa, and in Sri Lanka. It explains why the Iraqi government used poisonous nerve gas against the Kurdic villages in the summer of 1988. Ethnic conflict is now erupting in Yugoslavia and in the (former) Soviet Union. It is the source of pain, human indignities, and mass murder in many places today and throughout human history. When you complete this class I hope you will have widened your horizons and will have gained some insight into why people are so unkind to each other.

Gender minorities, inequality and oppression.

In the Spring Semester of 2001 I asked my students for the first time to search the world wide web (www) for information on gender minorities. My students found, sadly, the beastly stories of the oppression of women on a global scale. They found reports on female infanticide and abortion, unjust labor practices, female genital mutilation (so-called female "circumcision), suttee, dowry murder, honor killings, female self-immolation, purdah, inheritance and judicial injustice towards women, sexual slavery, violence against women, and gender inequality in many other forms. We will include "gender" in our minority studies this semester.

Departmental Statement of Objectives

• In order to fulfill the promises made in the Wesleyan Mission Statement, the Department of Sociology and Anthropology adopts the following Statement of Objective (related to this course):
• To demonstrate a knowledge and concern about social issues at the local, national and international levels and to appreciate their inter-relatedness as well as one's own location in the total process.

Required Reading

All materials listed below are written by me unless otherwise noted.

--- On-line resources ---

Access these at: (Go online, then) Wesleyan homepage, Library, Services, Electronic Reserves, SOC305 Global Minorities.

• Wernick, Robert. The Basque History of the World. Book review from Smithsonian, April 2000 v88 i12 p34(2)
• Belakian, Peter. A Memoir Across Generations: Baby-Boom Suburbs, the Armenian Genocide, and Scholarly Corruption in America. Opinion from The Chronicle of Higher Education; June 12, 1998.
• Fonesca, Isabel. Among the Gypsies. from The New Yorker; September 25, 1995. pp 84 - 97.
• Nolen, Stephanie. Can the Inuit Keep Their Voice?. from The Globe Review; July 25, 2000.
• Cernetig, Miro. The Great Mongolian Circus Trick. from The Globe Review; July 24, 2000.

--- From Printed Material (Warner essays) ---

1. Ethnic Minorities in Bulgaria. 1993
2. Gypsies in Eastern Europe. 1993
3. One Thousand Nations
4. The Star of Communism 1994
5. Titanic1994
6. Vitosha 1994
7. My Favorite Christmas Card 2000
8. Ethnic Minorities and the Collapse of Yugoslavia. 1994
9. Yugoslavia, Stage of Cosmic Drama. 1993
10. Map of former Yugoslavia
11. Yugoslavia: Sketch of Republics.
12. Bosnia: A Fact Sheet. November 1995
13. The Troubles of Northern Ireland. 1997
14. Stalin's Holocaust. 1995
15. Minorities in the USSR
16. Anti-Soviet Feelings Unleashed. 1990
17. Jews in the USSR
18. Armenians in the USSR
19. Ethnic Minorities under Glasnost and Perestroika 1989
20. Tatars Seek Independence
21. Detail on former USSR Republic
22. Map of USSR. 15 Republics
23. The Chechens Seek Independence 1994-1995
24. Amnesty International Report on Chechnya. 1995
25. Nonviolence: from Montgomery to Gdansk.
26. USSR Map. 8 rivers, 6 seas/oceans, 1 lake, 5 zones, 5 mountains
27. Ethnic Minorities in the Middle East 1992
28. Death by Nerve Gas No Solution (Kurds)
29. Map of Middle East.
30. The Many Faces of India. 1997
31. Donald F. Ebright. The Saura of India. 1951
32. The Sands of Time
33. The Bells are Tolling
34. South Africa's Startling Change
35. South Africa 1994
36. Map of South Africa.
37. The Myth of Race: The Rwanda Apocalypse of 1994
38. Horn of Africa Sounding Taps (AIDS epidemic)

International Studies Requirement

• West Virginia Wesleyan College requires all students to take one course that meets the "international studies" requirement for graduation. This class meets that requirement.

How to Read the Lessons

• As you read your assignments, please try to answer the following questions. These questions will appear on quizzes and examinations, and will be the basis of class discussions. Use them as your guide.

Who are these people and where do they live?

1. What are the major high points of their cultural history?

2. Do they experience any form of oppression because of their ethnic, racial or religious identity? Why?

3. Who are the people who oppress them? Why do they oppress?

4. What are the desires, the dreams, the goals of the ethnic minority, and how and why are these thwarted by another ethnic community?

5. What are the goals of the oppressing society, and how does the minority frustrate those goals?

6. What are the forms of oppression? Lack of freedom? Discrimination in jobs or housing? Lack of human rights or human dignities? Different treatment? Inability to speak their own language or worship as they want? Etc.

7. How do the aspirations of the ethnic community threaten or injure the goals of the larger society of which they are a part?

8. Are the ethnics "backward?" in seeking their own identity? Do they deny freedom to their own young people who may want to escape and join the larger society?

9. Should an ethnic community have the right, within their own cultural tradition, to oppress women or to hinder the education of their own young people? Is it another ethnic community? Are some ethnic communities bad or less moral than others?

10. What can or should be done on both sides to reduce the conflict?

11. How does the situation threaten regional or world peace?

Films and AV Materials in Class (TBA this year)

• September 3, 5, 7. Kundun. 135 minutes. The story of the current Dalai Lama of Tibet, and China's invasion of Tibet. 791.437 K962t
• October 15, 17, 19. Nicholas and Alexandra. 947.083 N514g
• November 5. Video: The Wall (bride self-immolation)(Part 4 of "The Soviets) 947.0854 So89a pt 4

Minority Rights Group Reports

• A series of more than seventy documents on racial and ethnic communities outside the USA facing pressures or conflicts from governments or other societies will serve as a primary resource for the class. In Library at 341.481.

The Map

• Because many assignments deal with ethnic communities outside the USA, students will be required to locate these communities on the map. Several maps are included in your syllabus. Students will be responsible for map assignments. Maps include Former USSR, Yugoslavia, Middle East, South Africa.

The Final Examination …….

The final examination will include some or all of the following items.

1. Know all words in the glossary at back of syllabus.
2. Be able to provide historical details of the problems and issues faced by any or all of the racial or ethnic communities studied in this course.
3. Be able to explain why some ethnic communities want 'in' while others want 'out.'
4. Be able to explain any of the major theories discussed in this class.
5. One section on Christian Science Monitor.
6. Be prepared to answer the questions given in the section, "How to read the lessons."

Quizzes

• Eleven 10-point quizzes will be given, one each week except on exam weeks unless otherwise noted. The quizzes will be taken from the reading assignment for that day, films or videos, Christian Science Monitor readings (and occasionally from the previous week's lectures). Your BEST EIGHT quizzes will be counted to develop one third of your final grade. Your worst three quizzes will be dropped. A final quiz score will result from the average of the eight quizzes at ten points each, times ten (average of 8 x 10) (80 points maximum). There will be no excuses for missed quizzes. If you must be absent at quiz time, count that as one of the quizzes to be discarded. If you take all eleven quizzes, your three lowest scores will be dropped.

Examinations

• Three examinations count 100 points each. Each exam will cover reading and class experiences, (lectures and power point lectures, films, discussions) during that exam period. One section of that final exam will probably be comprehensive.

Examination Dates

First Exam ……………………Wednesday, September 26
Second Exam …………………Wednesday, October 24
Final Exams …………………...Thursday, December 13 - 8 a.m.

Grades

Semester grades will be based on:

Eight quizzes……….……………….80
Seven CSM reports (3 pt ea.)…….…21
Three exams (100pt ea.)……….…..300

TOTAL possible………………..401
(See also attendance policy and extra credit).

A = 92% - 100%
B = 84% - 91.499%
C = 75% - 83.499%
D = 65% - 74.499%
F = less than 65%

Taking Notes

• I suggest that each of you keep a notebook with a separate section for each racial or ethnic community. For most of the groups you will learn from specifically assigned readings, from class lectures, films or videotapes, and from Christian Science Monitor essays.

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READING AND QUIZ SCHEDULE

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WEEK ONE (begins on Wednesday, August 29)

Class organization.
Logging on to the Christian Science Monitor.
Power point lecture: Romani of Eastern Europe (Gypsies)

Take-home assignment due on Friday. Please write a short (1/2 page single space) review of each of the following three essays. (Your first Quiz!)

Electronic Library Reserve essays

1. Nolen. Can the Inuit keep their voice? From the Globe and Mail (a newspaper out of Toronto.) July 25, 2000
2. The Great Mongolian Circus Trick. From the Globe and Mail (Toronto - a national Canadian paper). July 24, 2000
3. The Basque History of the World. By Mark Kurlasky. A book review in the Smithsonian.

They are found on the Wesleyan Library web site. Path: Wesleyan homepage - Library - Services - Electronic Reserves - Global Minorities - (password case sensitive SOC305) -- "Can the Inuit …" etc.

WEEK TWO (Quiz on Friday, September 7th)

1. John Warner. Global Minorities: A Curriculum Innovation. (This is in your note book or in the MARS network folder.)
2. Take home short paper on Tibet and the Dalai Lama. See below.

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An in-class video MWF
Kundun
The Story of Tibet

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I want a short paper on Tibet and the Dalai Lama - turned in next
Monday, September 10. Use this film and also some internet resources. You may want to ask Yahoo for help, but also use these websites.

www.fotwa.org

www.dalailama.com

www.dalailamainfo.com

www.savetibet.org

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(Monday, September 3 -- is Last Day for
schedule changes, late registration, pass/fail)

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Friday, September 7th, 7:30 p.m. in Atkinson Auditorium
Shenandoah Shakespeare Express: Hamlet
1% extra credit with 2/3 page typed response

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WEEK THREE ( Quiz on Wednesday, September 12th)

ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN EASTERN EUROPE
-- Essays in 3 hole binder --

1. Ethnic Minorities in Bulgaria. 1993
2. Gypsies in Eastern Europe. 1993
3. Christian Science Monitor report No. 1 due Friday (This must be a report on an ethnic minority not in the USA! You must use proper footnote (see requirement stated above!)

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Power Point Lecture

Yugoslavia

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WEEK FOUR (Quiz on Wednesday, September 19)

ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

1. The Collapse of Yugoslavia. 1994 (Yugoslavia packet)
2. Yugoslavia, Stage of Cosmic Drama. 1993 (Yugoslavia packet)
3. Christian Science Monitor report No. 2 due Friday

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Power Point Lecture
Northern Ireland

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WEEK FIVE (September 24, Exam Week -- no quiz)

1. Belfast: Northern Ireland
2. Northern Ireland: The Troubles
3. Christian Science Monitor report No. 3 due on Friday.

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Northern Ireland Power Point Lecture

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FIRST EXAM
Wednesday, September 26
Tibet, Gypsies, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland
My paper on Global Minorities - a curriculum innovation

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Family Weekend
September 29 - 30

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WEEK SIX (Quiz on Wednesday, October 3)

1. Ethnic Minorities under Glasnost and Perestroika.
2. Christian Science Monitor report No. 4 due Friday.

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WEEK SEVEN (Quiz on Monday, October 8)

1. Stalin's Holocaust (Matching quiz)
2. Minorities in the USSR (write a response)
3. Nonviolence: from Montgomery to Gadansk (write a response)
4. Christian Science Monitor report No. 5 due Friday.

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Tuesday, October 9th, 7:30 p.m. in Atkinson Auditorium
Common Ground. Irish step dance.
1% extra credit with 2/3 page typed response

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Fall Recess
No classes
Friday, October 12

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WEEK EIGHT (Quiz on Wednesday, October 17)

1. Armenians in the USSR
2. The Chechens seek Independence
3. Tatars seeking Independence
4. Jews in the USSR
5. Balakian, Peter. A Memoir Across Generations: (Armenians in America) (Write a ½ page response for this.) Access this on internet: path = WVWC, Library, Services, Electronic Reserves, Global Minorities, (password case sensitive! SOC305), then choose the essay "Memoir …"

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Friday, October 19th
Founders Day
Saturday, October 20st
Homecoming

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WEEK NINE (Exam week of, October 22)

ETHNIC MINORITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST

1. Ethnic Minorities in the Middle East (on exam as B-P-K)

a. Bedouin
b. Mountain Tribes of Persia
c. Kurds

2. Death by Nerve Gas no Answer (written response)
3. Christian Science Monitor Report No. 6

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SECOND EXAM

Wednesday, October 24

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WEEK TEN (Week of October 29) -- (Quiz on Wednesday October 31)

1. The Many Faces Of India (1)
2. Christian Science Monitor Report No. 7

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Tuesday, October 30

Last day to withdraw from full-semester classes

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WEEK ELEVEN (Three reports due on Wednesday, November 7)

Women and human rights. For this assignment you must search the internet and give three half-page reports. Find out how women fare in other nations around the world. Use the following www sites, or find others. (If you are "on line," you may go to this page and double click on any of these addresses -- to go immediately to the site.)

1. www.unifem.undp.org/campaign/violence/seeit.htm

2. www.unifem.undp.org/archive.htm

3. www.unifem.undp.org/index.htm

4. www.womenink.org

5. www.un.org/womenwatch

6. www.un-instraw.org

7. www.igc.org/igc/gateway/wnindex.html

8. www.now.org

9. www.unicef.org/gender

10. www.womensenews.org

11. www.oneworld.org/guides/gender

12. www.globalfundforwomen.org

13. www.iwhc.org (international women's health coalition)

14. www.sigi.org (Sisterhood is global)

15. www.awid.org (Assoc for Women in Development)

16. www.equalitynow.org

17. www.crlp.org (Center for Reproductive Law and Policy)

18. www.mnadvocates.org/women/program.htm (Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights)

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Video: The Wall
(bride self-immolation)
(Part 3 of "The Soviets)
in class

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WEEK TWELVE (Take-home quiz on Wednesday, November 14)

1. Take-home: ½ page responses to four major essays on the Amnesty International page on the internet: www.amnesty.org

2. The Saura (By Don Ebright) (Take home response to items in study guide. One sentence each item.)

** ** * The Saura * ** **
** ** * Power Point Lecture * ** **

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Thanksgiving Vacation
November 17 - 25

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WEEK THIRTEEN (Quiz Wednesday, November 28)

-- South Africa --

1. The Sands of Time
2. The Bells are Tolling
3. South Africa's Startling Change
4. South Africa 1994

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Extra Credit essays by Fonesca and Warner due Friday!

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Apartheid in South Africa
A power point lecture

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WEEK FOURTEEN Week of December 3

(no quiz this week, but read … for exam…)

1. The Myth of Race: The Rwanda Apocalypse of 1994
2. Using a search engine (Yahoo, Alta Vista, etc.), find 3 reports on AIDS in Africa, and write a one-page report.

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FINAL EXAM

Thursday, December 13

8:00 A.M.

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Joyous Solstice

Happy Chanukkah

Merry Christmas

Pleasant Kwanza