human rights in the curriculum

[clay dube]

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo passed away last week. Below are some questions and resources that might be useful in teaching about Liu, his decades devoted to promoting democracy in China, and how the Chinese state responded to those efforts.

Possible organizing questions:

1. What did Liu Xiaobo advocate as a cultural critic and as a political activist?
2. What did Liu Xiaobo do to make his views heard and to mobilize others to his side?
3. What laws did the Chinese state decide Liu Xiaobo had violated? How did it punish those violations?
4. At the time of his last conviction, Liu argued he was merely using every Chinese citizen’s right to free speech. What rights does the Chinese constitution promise it citizens?
5. Liu Xiaobo was detained for the last time in December 2008. He was convicted in 2009. They next year he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Liu remained in jail and his essays supporting democracy are easily circulated within China today. Still, the Chinese state sought to limit discussion about his passing on social media. His incarceration and his passing, however, were widely noted outside of China. What do you think the case of Liu Xiaobo teaches?

Possible readings:

Obituaries
Clayton Dube, Liu Xiaobo, 1955-2017, July 13, 2017
Obituaries
Clayton Dube, Liu Xiaobo, 1955-2017, July 13, 2017
http://www.china.usc.edu/liu-xiaobo-1955-2017
(includes links to his writings, to the 2009 court verdict against him, to the 2010 Nobel decision and the award speeches)
Chris Buckley, “Liu Xiaobo, Chinese Dissident Who Won Nobel While Jailed, Dies at 61,” New York Times, July 13, 2017.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/world/asia/liu-xiaobo-dead.html
Remembrance
Perry Link, “The Passion of Liu Xiaobo,” New York Review of Books, July 13, 2017.
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/07/13/the-passion-of-liu-xiaobo/
Criticism
Barry Sautman and Yan Hairong, “Do supporters of Nobel winner Liu Xiaobo really know what he stands for?” The Guardian, December 15, 2010.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/15/nobel-winner-liu-xiaobo-chinese-dissident
and a longer piece in Positions, (2011)19:2, 581-613.
http://positions.dukejournals.org/content/19/2/581.full.pdf+html
“Who is Liu Xiaobo?” China Daily, October 27, 2010.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-10/27/content_11465957.htm
Xinhua, “Some foreign media misunderstand Liu Xiaobo’s case: criminal law expert,” PRC Embassy in Washington, November 5, 2010.
http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/gdxw/t766972.htm
Coverage of how his death was handled
Jonathan Kaiman, “Chinese Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo's death sparked an outpouring of grief online. Then came the censors,” July, 14, 2017.
http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-liu-xiaobo-censors-20170714-story.html
Associated Press, “How Beijing controls the Liu Xiaobo story,” July 13, 2017.

https://yp.scmp.com/news/international/article/106769/how-beijing-controls-liu-xiaobo-story
Supplementary materials
Chinese constitution
http://china.usc.edu/constitution-peoples-republic-china-1982
Dualing human rights reports

US looking at China
http://china.usc.edu/us-department-state-2015-human-rights-china-april-13-2016
China looking at the US
http://china.usc.edu/prc-state-council-human-rights-record-united-states-2015-april-14-2016

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

Today's forum regarding teaching about human rights in the school curriculum was fantastic! It made me realize how much teaching about human rights fits into my Modern World History class. Although issues related to human rights are virtually silent in the standards, there is a diversity of ways it can be integrated or even serve as a foundation for certain units. I was especially fascinated by the origin of human rights law arising from the ashes of WWII and the Holocaust - great for the classroom.

Also, Doctors Without Borders and Amnesty International have some great curriculum online. Check it out.

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