The Right to Have Rights: Arendt, Ambedkar and Du Bois

The course engages with three formidable thinkers of the early and mid-twentieth century-W. E. B. Du Bois, B. R. Ambedkar, and Hannah Arendt. The purpose of this course is to understand how these three thinkers raised fundamental questions about the philosophical and anthropological idea of humanity. These questions allowed them to transcend their contexts and to reflect on the lives of those represented as the “other.” This global concern addresses the suffering and pain present in human society and the capacity of human beings to move beyond their specific contexts toward a shared understanding of human fulfillment, articulated in the form of human rights and related values. We will explore the role of humanity and the human being in each of their thought and the way in which their reflections on humanity allowed them to develop, challenge, and critique political values. By staging this dialogue between three great thinkers, operating across the color line, and the global north and south, we will enrich and complicate narratives about 20th century universalism.