HUM 597 Special Topics in the Humanities

Winter 2021 | 1 credit (c/nc), open to graduate and undergraduate students
HUM 597A
Humanitarianisms Part II:
Comparative Humanitarianism
Cabeiri Robinson, Jackson School of International Studies & Anthropology
This micro-seminar is the second in a three-part series of micro-seminars offered in conjunction with the Sawyer Seminar series, Humanitarianisms: Migrations and Care through the Global South. This quarter’s micro-seminar explores otherthan- Western ideologies, movements, values, and beliefs that underlie a concern with the suffering of distant others. We will engage a genealogical study of humanitarianism that begins, not with European moral sentiments from the eighteenth century, but with the traditions, philosophies, and values—such as service, hospitality, giftgiving, or mercy—which preceded and perhaps influenced such moral reasoning. We ask: what other humanitarian logics shape when and how communities provide care and refuge to migrants or victims of emergencies? How do practices of care function as a part of daily experiences and ethical ideals of both care-givers and carereceivers? What kinds of moral reasoning regulate the recognition of suffering; what does caring labor look like; and how is it managed? This focus will allow us to consider vernacular humanitarianisms by exploring the new global humanitarian project as one founded on hybrid formations of the management of care—through practices that recognize human suffering, the labor and principles of providing care, and the transformations produced though exchanges of material and affective expressions of care.
Incorporating insights from the Middle East (Jordan, Syria, Egypt), Asia (Tibet, India), and Africa (Uganda), the readings and speakers in Comparative  Humanitarianisms address the ethical systems, logics, and rationalities of care that underlie everyday practices of humanitarianism as a form of caring labor across cultural and religious traditions in the Global South.
Learning Objectives
The participants will be able to locate their own research interests within cutting-edge scholarly discussions about humanitarian ethics and and practices of care in the Global South.
Requirements, Grading, and
Evaluation
Students will be asked to (1) participate in synchronous discussion sessions on the days noted below; (2) attend (synchronously or asynchronously) the webinars slated for the Winter 2021 Sawyer Seminar; (3) submit reading responses prior to each synchronous session. Grading will be based on participation in seminar discussions and short reading responses.
Course Meetings
January 14, 28, February 11, 25, from 3:30 – 4:30pm
Remote (Zoom) and Synchronous
For questions on this course, please contact Cabeiri Robinson, Jackson
School of International Studies & Anthropology, at cdr33@uw.edu.