Contemporary (1950 CE - Present)
Short Teaching Module: Modern Racism in the U.S. and South Africa
This module has students examine the roots of “modern” racism and make connections between the status of Black individuals in the United States and in South Africa. This approach is designed to foster a discussion on American “exceptionalism,” in particular that U.S.
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" on April 16, 1963 as a response to a letter titled "A Call for Unity" which was written 4 days prior. "A Call for Unity" was signed by eight white clergymen who led churches in Birmingham, Alabama.
Gifts of Speech: Women's Speeches from Around the World
This site offers an archive of speeches by “influential, contemporary women.” Almost all of the speeches in the collection come directly from the authors themselves or from the organizations representing them and have not been published elsewhere.Beauty and Darkness: Cambodia
In order to comprehend these overwhelming atrocities on a personal level, I strongly recommend the chilling oral histories...The accounts would make excellent supplementary reading for a class discussion on the Khmer Rogue and provide a hauntingly human face to the statistics.Voltaire’s Understanding of Inequality
This passage from François–Marie Arouet, pen–named Voltaire, who was perhaps the best–known writer of the eighteenth century, illustrates the spirit of investigation of the Enlightenment.
Short Teaching Module: Humor as Resistance
In order to help students think about the dynamics of power in different kinds of societies, this case study attempts to challenge the black-and-white thinking to which students are inclined when thinking about Communism.