AT Comparative Politics & Global Relations: 2020

Monday, May 25, 2020

Week 9 Remote Learning Plan (5/25-5/29)

Click here for the Week 9 Remote Learning Plan (5/25-5/29).

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Week 8 Remote Learning Plan

CLICK HERE for the link to the Week 8 Remote Learning Plan.

Monday, May 4, 2020

Week 6: Remote Learning Plan

CLICK HERE for the Remote Learning Plan for Week 6.

Sunday, April 26, 2020

CLICK HERE for the Remote Learning Plan for Week 5 (April 27-May 1).

CLICK HERE for the Google Slides presentation in which you will slot your working resolutions today.

CLICK HERE for the Sign-Up Sheet to Pick Your Options Group for the Final Choices Activity on Nigeria or Brazil.

Monday, April 20, 2020

Week 4: Remote Learning Plan

Click LINK HERE for the Week 4 Remote Learning Plan: we are required to use this to communicate our plan for the week.

Click LINK HERE for the Google Slides of the common patterns and themes that emerged from 4/20 Monday's Zoom breakout rooms on the Law of Sea and Space Law.

Friday, April 10, 2020

Week 3 Remote Learning Plan: The Law of the Sea, The Law of Space

Our asynchronous class calls will be on Monday and Wednesday from 9:40-10:25 via Zoom. You will receive an invitation with a password via your email account. Zoom #1 will be a full class format to explain directions for the mini-units, followed by work-time toward the project.

Prior to our calls, you should have completed the SIGN UP SHEET.

On Monday when your third remote learning week begins, you may find the curriculum materials in our Schoology COURSE entitled "AT Comparative Politics and Global Relations." Go to our course, then go to "Materials," locate either the folder labeled "Mini-Unit Law of the Sea" or the folder labeled "Mini-Unit Law of Space." Read the introductory description to the mini-unit. Then click on the folder itself. Now you should be inside a folder that gives you sequential activities to complete.

Zoom #2 will be a full class format to answer questions, followed by work-time toward the project.

Please plan to finish your videos and turn in your completed HOT ASSIGNMENT (i.e., your own unique mind-map) to Schoology by the end of the day on Thursday.

Your FINAL PRODUCT (i.e., speech) is due to be given verbally Week Four, Zoom #1 (Wednesday, April 22). We will begin at 9:40 am. Speeches will be a minimum of 2 minutes and a maximum of 2 minutes 30 seconds.

After speeches, we will move into deliberative discussion to discuss our multiple perspectives on moving forward with the issues that arose. We discussed whether this should be a 75 minute Zoom call, and students decided this should be a 45 minute Zoom call (9:40-10:25 am). Make sure to be PROMPT.

Friday, April 3, 2020

Week 2 Remote Learning Plan: Contemporary Iran

Our asynchronous class calls will be on Monday and Friday from 9:40-10:25 via Zoom. You will receive an invitation with a password via your email account. Zoom #1 will be a full class discussion of materials provided by Ms. Gerst immediately below; Zoom #2 will involve breakout groups on the individual group topics.

Zoom Call #1

PREP: Please review the videos and charts sent by Ms. Gerst ahead of the call.

Deliberative discussion question: How does the electoral system work in Iran?

Make you sure have watched Ms. Gerst's entire Week 1 VIDEO and the Week 2 VIDEO (try to watch at least 15 minutes to hear 2 opposing views) on the blog linked HERE before class starts at 9:40 am. Please save the below charts to your computer for class.

Zoom Call #2

PREP: Please review the projects of the other groups posted on our blog HERE. And don’t forget to complete the survey I sent you. Only 50% have responded so far.

Mixed Expert Groupings for Contemporary Iran Discussions

We agreed to mix up the original working groups, placing one expert from each original group into a new group so that every group has representatives from all of the original groups. Group assignments for break-out groups for next week are sorted by student initials. Next week, we will have one video call in which we breakout into the new groups for these topics and one video call in which we stay to together to discuss my video topics (i.e., political analysis and role in the region). I'm pretty sure I can enter the break-out groups as a moderator, rotating from group to group randomly to listen in on the discussion.

Break-out Group #1

P.S. (I-I War)

N.R. (Women)

S.S. (Nuclear)

C.D. (Nuclear)

J.C. (Women)

Break-out Group #2

B.R. (I-I War)

E.G. (Women)

M.S. (Nuclear)

C.C. (Nuclear)

A.K. (Women)

Break-out Group #3

N.A. (I-I War)

M.W. (Women)

F.W. (Nuclear)

B.C. (Nuclear)

G.S. (women)

E.F. (Iran-Iraq)

Break-out Group #4

S.A. (I-I war)

G.M. (women)

A.A. (nuclear)

A.B. (nuclear)

A.G. (women)

Monday, March 9, 2020

Week 1 Contemporary Iran: I.R. Perspectives Projects

Students decided which of the following topics to focus their project.

#1 Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)

Group 5 Project

#2 Trajectory of Women's Issues (1980-present)

Group 1 Project

Group 2 Project

#3 Comparative Political Systems (e.g., constitutional and electoral change)

Gerst Video Part I

Gerst Video Part II

#4 Transformation of Regional Response

Gerst Video Part III

#5 The nuclear issue

Group 3

Group 4

Your project must integrate multiple perspectives of International Relations:

Liberalist
Realist
Economic Structuralist
English Rationalist
Feminism (which contains multiple perspectives as well)
Social Constructivist
Critical Theory
Governmentality
Network theory

Your project must incorporate the three themes of International Relations:

Security
Economy
Identity

Your project must have a bibliography that reflects your use multiple scholarly sources in order to ensure reliability, corroboration, competing narratives, and multiple perspectives. Scholarly sources may be drawn from the class blog, Choices.edu (both the Iran module and the "Teaching in the News" and the "Video" link), ABC-CLIO, World History in Context.

Your may choose one of the following products, which may incorporate audio and visual elements (e.g., a "few" slides, mindmap, and visual scribe).

1. TedTalk

2. Mini-Documentary

3. Podcast

4. Website

Sources to Find Multiple Perspectives within the 1979 Revolution

Choices Brown University on the Iranian Revolution (notice the video tutorials on various subtopics)

Iran Oral History Project (Harvard University, unless you read Farsi, filter for 64 English translations)

Iran 1979: Legacy (al Jazeera)

BBC Collects Recollections on 30th Anniversary and University of Manchester Digitization Project

Oxford Bibliography (which contains many of the sources I located independently below)

What to Read to Understand the Revolution (Brookings Institute)

Tehran Bureau PBS Frontline

Documenting Iran-U.S. Relations, 1978-2015 (National Security Archive, George Washington University), includes Iran Revolution Revisited and 1979 Revolution documents

What to Read in Order to Understand the Iranian Revolution (Brookings Institute)

Crash Course: Iran's Revolution

Ideology and Iran's Revolution: How 1979 Changed the World

Anti-Capitalism/Anti-Imperialism (Marxist and Islamic (Shariati))

Documents of the Iranian Revolutionary Movement

The Stolen Revolution: Iranian Women of 1979 (CBC Radio, March 2019)

Minoo Jalali is a women's rights activist, retired lawyer and chair of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants in London, UK. She fled Iran in 1983.
Haideh Daragahi was a professor of English Literature at Tehran University when Khomeini took power. She has lived in Sweden since 1984 and worked as an academic, women's rights activist and journalist.
Shahin Navai is an activist in the women's movement and a researcher in the field of Entomology. She fled Iran in 1984 and has since lived in Berlin, Germany.

From Marxist Organization to Feminism: Iranian Women's Experiences of Revolution and Exile

The Role of the 1953 Coup

How the CIA Overthrew Iran's Democracy in 4 Days

Don't Just Blame Washington

Bazargan and the LMI

Sources in addition to everything posted on the website.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/lifeinfocus/mehdi-bazargan-iran-revolution-anniversary-islamic-republic-middle-east-khomeini-prime-minister-a8777916.html

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4310757?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2012/03/the-nationalist-religious-movement-part-2-the-revolutionary-era.html

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mehdi-Bazargan

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/11/07/bazargan-government-resigns-in-iran/e4360d7c-31ba-4cd0-9cbb-4649d24f50f2/

Friday, February 21, 2020

I.R. Textbook Pages

Monday, February 10, 2020

Unit 5: Iran, Power & Diplomacy Begins

1. Discuss how 1979 transformed not just relations between Iran and USA, but the region itself. The toxicity of relations, however, created a "smog" that shapes even controls how actors are viewed. The toxicity of relationships - and events themselves including the subsequent war with Iraq - had negative repercussions for Iranians living in the United States as well. Think social constructivist lens of international relations.

2. What basic formative questions do you need to have answered to have a working understanding of Iranian society, history, and the revolution?

3. Watch the first 13 minutes of the video. Try to come up with at least 4-6 differing groups represending differing perspectives (e.g., communists, interim government). Who do you need to know more about in order to understand different voices and agendas?

4. Some of you asked why the hostages were released. While conventional history points to the Algiers Accord, actual text linked, there is a bit of "October surprise conspiracy," which was looked at more seriously at after the Iran-Contra scandal. It proffered that there was a backchannel by Republicans to Iran during the 1980 election. See, for example: 2017 LA Times Story, written by a President Carter biographer. But, you'd need to look more into it, of course.
It's a little in the weeds for me.

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Round II

Teams 3 and 4 advanced to the finals tomorrow, congratulations. :)

Friday, January 24, 2020

Round I, Hearing III

Team 6 advanced after Hearing I.

Team 2 advanced after Hearing II.

Team 4 advanced after Hearing III.

The wild card spot goes to Team 3.

This means that Teams 2, 3, 4, and 6 will draw to argue in Round II on Monday, 1/27 and the following Monday, 2/3. We will only do one argument on Monday, 1/27. Based on my random draw, team 4 will argue against team 6 on 1/27 and team 2 will argue against team 3 on 2/3, unless team 2 and 3 want to add 15 minutes to 1/27 class period. Let me know. You will flip for side on Monday.

Terrific (and FUN)(and ENGAGED)(and SOPHISTICATED) (and MIGHTY) (and BRAVE) job done by one and all, all week. The judges rendered the following legal decisions in the different hearings all week:

Chamber 1 (Wednesday)
Jurisdiction: Yes
Charge 1: Pursue - insufficient evidence to convince court not to proceed, duress unclear
Charge 2: Pursue - the pines should be protected as a monument

Chamber 2 (Thursday)
Jurisdiction: Yes - defense ceded that the court did have jurisdiction
Charge 1: Drop - duress clearly established
Charge 2: Pursue under Art 82biv - Defendant went above and beyond; no evidence he was under duress, historic monument

Chamber 3 (Friday)
Jurisdiction: Yes time lapse alone not valid
Charge 1: Drop clear duress; point of conscription unclear
Charge 2: Pursue under Art 82biv insufficient evidence duress applies. prosecution had sufficient evidence site constituted historic monument; does not need to be a building

Round I, Hearing II

Team 2 will advance to Round 2.

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Round I, Hearing I

Round I, Team 6 emerges from the first moot court hearing. Congratulations!
Both sides argued persuasively, with incredibly sophisticated grasp of the Rome Statute
as well as the facts!

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Pre-Trial Chamber of ICC Protocol for our Moot Hearings

A student just randomly drew the moot hearing pairings from six shuffled cards in my hand for Round I:

Wednesday: Team five vs. team six

Thursday: Team two vs. team one

Friday: Team four vs. team three

Next week, we will run three moot hearings on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Each hearing will be held within 45 minutes. The hearing with the highest score that did not win its first round will also proceed to the second round. This second round will be held on Monday, February 3, with one more trial and the arguments of a second hearing. The rebuttals of the second hearing will proceed on Wednesday, February 5. Round II victors will face off on Thursday, February 6. Each side should expect to have 22 minutes total, possibly 15 minutes for its opening/argument and 7 minutes for its rebuttal/closing. Total time limit is 22 minutes for each side. More information will be distributed in class on Thursday, January 16.