The Human Rights Project helps the Bard community examine the theory and practice of human rights through teaching, research, and public programs.
The Human Rights Project (HRP) is an exploratory research and action initiative at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Through teaching, public programs, research, and engagement with communities in the region and globally, the HRP aims at once to foster critical discussions of human rights theory and practice, and to engage with practitioners on the leading edges of human rights research. Founded in 1999, the HRP developed the first interdisciplinary undergraduate degree program in Human Rights in the United States in 2003. The Project inquires into the philosophical foundations and political mechanisms of human rights, maintains a special interest in freedom of expression and the public sphere, and explores the too-often neglected cultural, aesthetic, and representational dimensions of human rights discourse.
The Human Rights Project (HRP) is an exploratory research and action initiative at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Through teaching, public programs, research, and engagement with communities in the region and globally, the HRP aims at once to foster critical discussions of human rights theory and practice, and to engage with practitioners on the leading edges of human rights research. Founded in 1999, the HRP developed the first interdisciplinary undergraduate degree program in Human Rights in the United States in 2003. The Project inquires into the philosophical foundations and political mechanisms of human rights, maintains a special interest in freedom of expression and the public sphere, and explores the too-often neglected cultural, aesthetic, and representational dimensions of human rights discourse.
Community and Campus Initiatives
Technology and Society Project
Launched in January 2024, the Technology and Society Project examines emergent technologies and their impact on global societies. We provide research and policy analysis to facilitate exchanges of information between the United States and Global Majority countries. Our cornerstone is developing methodologically rigorous research that serves as input for accountability campaigns. The Project's focus is on digital advertising, the dynamics of the creator economy, the use of antitrust law, and virality trend tracking. In the past year our team has published several reports in collaboration with a range of partner organizations. The findings were featured in the Washington Post, Associated Press, The Guardian, BBC and Bellingcat, among others, leading to the identification and takedown of bad actor networks.
We work closely with faculty from across departments and host student internships year-round. To contact us, please reach out to Inayat Sabhikhi at [email protected] or [email protected].
We work closely with faculty from across departments and host student internships year-round. To contact us, please reach out to Inayat Sabhikhi at [email protected] or [email protected].
Advocacy Video: Clemency
Advocacy Video: Clemency is a course jointly taught by professors Thomas Keenan & Brent Green in which students work collaboratively with law students and faculty, to do hands-on human rights research and advocacy, and to create work that has real-life impact. The class will alternate between video production and the study of clemency and pardons, emotion and human rights, first-person narrative, and persuasion by visual means.
Past Campus and Community Initiatives
Below is a list of past Human Rights Project Initiatives. If you are interested in learning more about the history of these projects or revitalizing one, please get in touch with: [email protected]
Human Rights Radio
Human Rights Radio launched in Spring of 2014 as an auditory platform exploring contemporary topics and issues in human rights. Among other things, we’re interested in exploring the politics of voice and how we think of questions of agency, authenticity, and affect in relation to “public” voices. Human Rights Radio is also interested in the story of (terrestrial) radio transmission and its role in political struggles in many parts of the world, and how international and national regulatory frameworks play a role in governing these transmissions.
The Migration Track in the Human Rights Program
The courses within the Migration Track in the Human Rights Program are designed to provide a conceptual framework for thinking about migration not as an isolated (nor recent) phenomenon, but one that is deeply connected to historical, political, economic, legal, and environmental contexts and conditions that are best approached through interdisciplinary study.