HJS 310 Comparative Perspectives on Justice

3 hours 

This course will study justice in the non-Western world as it is variously represented in historical, literary and philosophical texts. A sequel to HJS 250: Justice in the Western Traditions, it builds upon the analytical skills developed in that course and extends its geographical boundaries to the Mideast, Asia, Africa and the other Americas. By studying how social, political, and religious institutions shape understandings of justice and injustice, and how these concepts define race, gender, ethnicity and class, the course focuses on articulations and practices of justice that are different from the Western constructs considered in HJS 250. Through comparative investigations of encounters between societies resulting from conquest, trade and social exchange, it will explore justice as culturally inflected, the product at once of a particular regional or national identity and history, and of intercultural contact.