John Martin

This was the most imperial and neocolonial class I have ever taken at Barnard/Columbia. I genuinely want to save any first year from ever taking this class because the overriding message of the entire course was that Third World Countries commit the most violence and are in need of Western countries to go in and change them. The class completely lacked in any critical analysis of human rights as a field / justification for Western imperialism, and completely lacked in tying violence that happens around the world to the human rights abuses of Western civilization. My TA literally asked me once what the American military should do about a conflict between a government in a Southeast Asian country and the indigenous people that live there - as if he was advocating that the American military should enter into the conflict. If you are taking or thinking about taking this class, please do not trust the readings or the professor. HIs framework is ultimately oriented around imperialism and white supremacy, even though he's a nice guy.

I took this class as part of my major and because I was passionate about the subject, expecting to be able to sit through the class with blinders and just get this prof over with. I was wrong. This class had me considering changing my major because other upper-level classes I needed are only taught by this prof, and he is truly VERY bad. Lectures were quite boring and difficult to sit through, and he has the underwhelming tendency of being able to repeat himself five to six times per lecture, making it seem as he didnt bother to prepare much material. Most of the class didnt even show up, unless it was the final or midterm. The class is so basic that you can skip all of the lectures, not that I am advocating that practice, and still manage to get an A+. He is also VERY racially/culturally insensitive and allows students to be this way as well. On many occasions he has asked some Black Americans to speak about their culture, assuming they weren't from the US. He also has a very dangerous 'white savior' outlook to many human rights issues, implying that "wealthy, western countries" need to step in and coddle or heal poor, black and brown countries because they cannot do it themselves and we cannot expect them to make much progress by themselves.

J. Paul Martin is a wonderful, wonderful person, but not so good as a professor. I hate to say that, because criticizing paul martin kind of feels like kicking a puppy. He's just that nice of a guy. However, the course (promoted as a solid research introduction for grad students returning to school after years in the professional realm) was messy, erratic, and confusing. Some students were about to graduate and were just in the class to get feedback and discussion on their almost-completed theses. Good for them - I think they got a few credits and an easy A for showing up and workshopping their research. I do not, however, envy them for spending good money to gain almost nothing from a class, and mostly receive haphazard and often contradictory advice from Martin and the class. As one of the students in the course as a survey of human rights graduate research (again, it was actually billed this way) I was disappointed to find that you cannot do the course unless you know what your thesis topic will be. If anyone tells you otherwise, they are lying to you. It's tempting to believe that "even students unsure of their thesis topic on day one will get excellent guidance toward penning a thesis proposal by the end of the semester." I fell for it myself, and then didn't drop the class because I was naive. Don't make my mistake. The guidance and advice that you get based on your gene…

I like Professor Martin as a person, and I really liked him in Human Rights in Theory and Practice last semester. this class however was just a mess. It had so much potential to be awesome, but we never really discussed anything and the whole class period was spent listening to two to three of your classmates regurgitate the readings. I was so psyched for this course at the beginning of the semester so when it turned into such an epic fail it was disappointing. Avoid this class if you can and get Martin for Theory and Practice instead.

Oh lord, what a wonderfully useless class. I'm the type of person that goes to every class, reads every homework assignment and takes copious lecture notes, but, after the midterm, I hardly went to class, didn't do a SINGLE reading after the midterm (not one, I swear) and didn't take even a page of notes and got an A-. That's because your midterm and final are (in-class) open-internet. Yes. Open-internet. As in, he gives you some questions and you google it (aka, Wikipedia, which is allowed) and answer them. You're not even expected to use class readings because, as prof. Martin stresses, he's not interested in "what you know," he's interested in "how you think." Additionally, the two short papers that you have to write don't relate to the readings either. Human rights majors, this class is a gift to you, as it counts for your intro class. On the other hand, it's a complete and utter waste of time if you know even the basics about human rights and the UN. I mean, really, for the second half of the semester, "homework" consisted of links to websites that gave outlines of human rights topics (not even readings?) as well as REPEATS of readings that we already did. Really a huge waste of time, but also an easy A.

Very Easy. Only two papers due, both under 4 pages. A midterm and final that only consists of looking things up online.

One presentation of the readings, done with a group. You basically regurgitate the readings, it is not very difficult. One 15-20 page paper (10-15 in the syllabus, he changed his mind a few weeks before it was due) on the topic of your choice, as long as it relates in some way to the course. One 10/15 minute informal presentation on the paper

The way that Prof Martin conducted this class was appalling. The review before mine was right- he teaches from a neoliberal white savior complex point of view that can sometimes be so naive and offensive that I have to get up and leave class to take a breath and come back. He has referred to Africa, ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS, as an entire country. Apparently he did field work in several countries there, however he failed to recognize the distinct differences between countries, cultures, and the human rights violations/concerns that different countries deal with. On another note, the class itself, despite his disgusting rhetoric, is unorganized and a waste of time. The way he goes over the readings is terrible; he essentially just reads through the whole text and calls it a discussion because he asks a few arbitrary questions that no one wants to answer- you might as well not read beforehand. I don't. I have an A in the class.. The only reason I did well on the midterm was because of the definition sheet he put on the syllabus. No, he did not go over most of these definitions in class. I taught myself through google and the text book. Which reminds me-- the textbook is written from the same white, privileged, naive, ignorant perspective that Prof. Martin teaches from. If you'd like to learn what it's like to live inside the head of an old British man who was a former missionary (yes…

This class was literally terrible. If you're interested in neoliberal, white savior complex human rights, then go ahead and take this class. I feel like John Martin doesn't know anything about human rights and that if I studied international law for a year I could do as good or better of a job. The TA doesn't know anything about human rights either - he's a lawyer and he said he was asked 3 weeks before the class started if he wanted to TA it. I literally did not learn anything of value the entire semester. John Martin's viewpoints are so limited and watered down, I find myself constantly confused by what he's saying and can't imagine that ideas would improve anyones life besides rich white people.

This is not the type of course you should just jump into without consideration. Firstly, if you do not know much about Human Rights, you will inevitably end up doing a lot of research on the side about major human rights crises, the UN, and current HR happenings in general. Particularly around the midterm and final, this course becomes very time-consuming because of this. Secondly, it can become a bit overwhelming (and thus, depressing) because the course covers many aspects of human rights: everything from conflict resolution/peace-building to maternal health to the structure of the UN. I find it to be very important that students are educated about human rights issues and what our world faces, but the course sometimes seemed to be without a concrete focus and we never knew what we would (or sometimes, would not) get out of each class. In other words, it was unpredictable, so if you are looking to learn something concrete or specific about HR, you should probably go into this course with much more of an open mind. Finally, as other reviewers have suggested, Professor Martin is very committed to providing students with opportunites for interships and networking. I really, really appreciated this, but it does take up large chunks of some class times. Also, if you plan to meet with him outside of class, he wants to know you as a person and will end up discussing career and inter…