Course overview

• Instructor: Julian E. Gerez (please call me Prof. Gerez)
• TA: Steven Green
• Lectures: Mondays and Wednesdays 5:00–6:20 p.m. (Humanities Gateway 1800)
• Grades
  • Participation (primarily via Perusall and Poll Everywhere) - 20%
  • 3 in-class quizzes - 30%
  • Short film response paper - 10%
  • Final group project: policy brief and presentation - 40%
• My office hours: Mondays 1:00–3:00 p.m. (Social Ecology II 3317)
  • Sign up here!
  • My email: jgerez@uci.edu
• TA office hours: Wednesdays 10:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m. (Zoom)
  • TA email: greensa1@uci.edu

Why does this course matter? Argentina, 1976–1983

Guiding questions

All states use violence. This course examines when that violence becomes a “crime”

• We ask what it means for the state to commit atrocities including:

  • Genocide

  • Torture

  • Forced disappearances

  • …and other human rights violations

• What conditions enable or constrain crimes of the state

• How societies reckon with these crimes in their aftermath

A note on the material

• I want lectures to be interactive: come prepared to discuss, critique, and comment
• This course obviously deals with very difficult materials
  • This includes real violence, real victims, and ongoing events
  • Treat them with the seriousness they deserve
• We are bound to disagree on some issues
  • No one in this room has a monopoly on opinion or reason, including me
• Respect others’ backgrounds, identities, and perspectives
  • Critique an idea, not the person
  • When in doubt… err on the side of kindness
• Let people express themselves without interruption or derision
• Let me know if you feel these norms are being violated
• If something in the course is affecting you personally, please reach out

This course deals with deeply political and social issues

But there are important differences between doing politics and doing criminology

Course calendar

Part I: Foundations (Weeks 1–2)

• What is the state? Are violence and the state inseparable?
• How do we constrain state violence? Regime types? Human rights?

Part II: Types of state crimes (Weeks 3–5)

• Genocide and mass killings
• Disappearances and torture
• Policing and carceral violence
• Forced displacement and labor
• Gender-based state crimes

Course calendar

Part III: How different factors shape crimes of the state (Weeks 5–7)

• State crimes and autocracy
• State crimes and democracy
• Information, propaganda, and state violence

Part IV: Consequences and responses (Weeks 7–9)

• Legacies of state violence
• Truth commissions and memory
• Justice and tribunals
• Student presentations

Required materials

• All readings uploaded to Perusall, accessible through Canvas
• Perusall is a collaborative annotation platform—more in a moment
• Film response requires watching one film from a provided list
  • Stream, rent, or borrow from the UCI Library
  • You can also propose your own film with instructor approval
• You need access to the internet and a computer
  • If this is an issue, please tell me immediately—we will find accommodations

Assignments at a glance

Participation - Readings (10%)

• Readings are completed on Perusall, not just read
• You will be randomly assigned to a group of ~15 students
• You are expected to read all the material
• … and leave thoughtful annotations: comments, questions, responses
• Do this before class!

Participation - Poll Everywhere (10%)

• Lectures will include polls
• You will not be graded on the “correctness” of your answers

Testing Poll Everywhere

In-class quizzes (30%)

• Three short quizzes on April 13, April 29, and May 13
• Each consists of a short-answer prompt related to recent readings and lecture
• Closed-note
• No make-up quizzes… but if you miss a maximum of one quiz
  • …You can visit a campus event, museum, historical site, etc., related to the class
  • Submit documentation (proof of your presence) and a short reflection on Canvas
  • You are responsible for finding an appropriate activity, subject to approval by professor/TA

Film response paper (10%)

• Watch one film from the list on the syllabus (or propose your own with approval)
• Write a 4-page double-spaced individual response
• Connect what you observed to one or more topics or theories from class
• You can approach it however feels most meaningful—but:
  • Clearly describe what you saw
  • Explain how it relates (or doesn’t!) to course material
• Due: end of Week 7

Film list

Policy brief (40%)

• In groups of ~4, you will produce a policy brief

  • In the style of a professional human rights organization

    • (e.g., Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International)

  • …on a human rights situation or security crisis

• You will:

  • Analyze the situation

  • Explain how it developed

  • Assess what has been done to address it

  • Recommend concrete steps for governments, international organizations, or other actors

• Self-select into groups—if you’re having difficulty, contact me.

• Part of your grade will be based on peer evaluation, so don’t shirk!

Policy brief: three components

Proposal (5%) — Due end of Week 4

• 2–3 pages (double-spaced)
• Describe your topic, how it connects to course material, your timeline
• Goal: early feedback on viability

Presentation (20%) — Week 10

• ~5 minutes with slides
• Present your brief to the class

Written brief (15%) — Due during finals week

• 6 pages (double-spaced); citations don’t count toward page limit
• Draw on secondary and primary sources
• Make a clear, evidence-based argument

Email and office/student hours

Email: for logistics and small conceptual questions

• I will attempt to respond within 24 hours on business days
• If I don’t respond within 48 hours, email again
• This policy also applies to emailing the TA
• Always use your UC Irvine email address
• Always copy both me and the TA on all your communications

Office/student hours: for deeper questions, feedback, career/academic advice

• Mondays 1:00–3:00 p.m., Social Ecology II 3317
• Sign up here!
• Come! This is what they are for

TA office/student hours:

• Wednesdays 10:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m. (Zoom)

• First-come, first-served

Late work, grade disputes, and other course policies

Late work

• Extensions must be requested in writing at least 24 hours before the deadline
• Without an approved extension: −1/3 letter grade per 24 hours (B+ → B → B− …)
• Work submitted more than 72 hours late without approval: failing grade

Grade disputes

• Submit a written explanation (<1 page) within two weeks of receiving the assignment back
• Wait 48 hours after receiving the assignment or your request will not be considered!
• I reserve the right to raise or lower your grade upon re-evaluation

Other policies

• Something is bound to happen that I do not have a policy for
• Please just communicate with me
• We can figure it out!

Artificial intelligence

• My view on LLMs: like most tools, they can help or harm learning
• LLMs are great at engineering (this includes computer programming)
• Why are LLMs great at engineering?
  • Well-defined problem
  • Try a bunch of different solutions
  • Evaluate solutions against clear criteria
• However, this logic breaks down in other contexts, aka this class:

  • This course is about reading, thinking, writing

  • LLM output can be polished but substantively wrong, shallow, or fabricated

  • Moreover, without knowing what the LLM is doing, you are less able to find errors

  • And, you learn less while using LLMs (Anthropic Study)

Academic integrity

The upshot on LLMs: always verify sources and output directly—you own the consequences

• I will not police LLM use for take-home work and won’t pretend I can
• But LLM-generated writing tends to be detectable, and we will grade accordingly
• Build the habit of drafting your own work; if you want to use AI, use for feedback only
• Any hallucinated reference submitted as your work will be treated as plagiarism

For Wednesday: are violence and the state inseparable?

We start with a provocative question:

Are violence and the state inseparable?