Academic Overview

IHRE is a rigorous multidisciplinary program that emphasizes intellectual openness.  In keeping with liberal arts pedagogical principles, classes are small (average size 20).  Students are encouraged to think critically, question received ideas, and subject theory to the test of experience.  Courses are taught by professors from Wits and North American institutions.

Structurally, IHRE is a hybrid of the British lecture and marking system used at Wits and the American seminar and grading system.  Students from North American institutions are full-time and usually earn 16 credits.  At the end of the semester North American students receive a transcript from Bard College.

All IHRE students are required to take the semester-long core course Human Rights: Perspective from the Disciplines (4 credits).  The core course is complemented by the IHRE Guest Lecture Series. 

Most students also choose to enroll in the core seminar Engagement in Human Rights, also a semester-long course worth 4 credits, which is twinned with a mentored internship at a local NGO in Johannesburg. 

Students then choose from a wide range of electives, including:

• Development, Welfare Economics and Human Rights
• Gender and Human Rights
• Human Rights and African Literature
• Human Rights and Culture
• Human Rights and the Media
• Islam and Human Rights
• Migration and Human Rights
• Philosophy of Human Rights
• Politics and Human Rights
• Psychosocial Perspectives on Human Rights and Social Justice
• State Sovereignty and Human Rights
• Theater and Human Rights

While many electives are offered over the course of one semester, others are offered for one "block" (or half of a semester).

Click here for IHRE course descriptions

In substitution for the core seminar (Engagement in Human Rights) students may elect to take any first-year course offering in Humanities, or may choose from among a number of approved 2nd and 3rd level courses.  The substitute Wits course should be semester-long and count as 4 credits.  The core course (Human Rights: Perspectives from the Disciplines) is required and may not be replaced.