Course DescriptionHuman rights, an idea that has come to mean a set of core practices and values that society believes are inherent to each and every individual, was not a construct that sprang from a vacuum. In this course we will address the development of the term human rights, from ancient times through to the present day. As a class, we will focus on the religious, moral, and social implications of believing in such inalienable rights, the development of the concept of individual rights and responsibilities, the conflicts and complications that made contemporary human rights what they, and the 20th and 21st century struggles that have pushed human rights near to a breaking point.As a history course covering a single topic on a global scale, this course will entail a significant amount of reading, and will focus on the tools and practices necessary for successful comprehension of historical materials, both in the primary and secondary form. Through this class, students will learn to differentiate between primary and secondary historical sources, successfully deconstruct both sets of materials, and understand how to summarize and integrate individual sources with the larger historical narrative of human rights. Finally, this course will rely solely on Open-Source Educational Materials, grounding the importance of the democratization of knowledge.