Justice & Society (JUS)

The goal of this course is to familiarize students with the rich tradition of Catholic social teaching in order to develop skills for critical reading and appropriation of this canon of magisterial documents. Students will examine papal, conciliar, and episcopal texts from Rerum novarum (1891) up to the present time, identifying operative principles, tracing central theological, ethical, and ecclesial concerns, and locating each document within its proper historical context. Students will hold recurring themes in conversation with the broader theoretical framework of Catholic social thought and relevant secondary literature. Finally, students will examine some foundational topics in the early weeks of this course, such as the Biblical roots of CST, its natural law underpinnings, and its ecclesiological influences.

In this course we ask: Why are people poor? We take an interdisciplinary look at poverty to better understand the forces that maintain poverty and the forces that resist it. From sustainability to social entrepreneurship, from economics to creative writing, we explore a variety of mindsets and methods for understanding, representing, and assessing poverty. Through academic and experiential learning, we gain a deeper understanding of the public and private programs and institutions that address poverty on the local, national, and global level. We also gain a deeper understanding of what has worked and what hasn't in domestic and international efforts to reduce poverty. Finally, students consider how they are called to address poverty in their personal and professional lives, exploring individual actions and careers that align with their skills and interests related to poverty. This course was formerly titled "Introduction to Poverty Studies." It counts as the gateway course for Justice & Society minors in the Poverty Studies curriculum and as an elective for those in the Justice & Society curriculum.

Dialogue is a way of talking and listening together that cultivates shared understanding. Especially when we face divisive issues, dialogue provides a valuable alternative to debate. In this class, students lead conversations about controversial issues such as abortion, gun control, economic justice, and immigration – and practice withholding judgment, empathetic listening, and questioning assumptions. Reflecting on the theory and practice of dialogue, this course develops interpersonal and small-group communication skills for engaging conflict, building community, representing vulnerable people in conversation, and facilitating discernment.

Put your education to work for justice. The study of justice—discerning how to know what is right, just and fair---is an ancient, multi-disciplinary pursuit. This interdisciplinary course offers students a foundational understanding of this rich theoretical tradition while also providing them with the research tools and skills to both explain and indeed respond to today’s most challenging questions of justice in the areas of environment, labor, incarceration, migration, poverty, and technology. What does it mean to live and act justly, both individually and collectively? Explore the answers in Doing Justice.

This interdisciplinary research lab enlists students in the efforts of the Just Wage Initiative (JWI), a collaborative research and advocacy project of the Higgins Labor Program at the Institute for Social Concerns. Students will help develop, refine, and update the Just Wage Framework, a multistakeholder online tool designed to advance a more inclusive and equitable economy. Students will also undertake research projects connecting their own intellectual interests and disciplinary expertise to the JWI's foundational question: What makes any given wage just or unjust? In addition, students will collaborate with the instructor and local, national, and international practitioners to envision and execute collaborative research and advocacy campaigns to promote a just wage economy. Extended weekly class sessions will feature visits by scholars and activists, as well as facilitate interactive group discussions and collaborative experiments.

“Reentry” is one of the key fields of justice the U.S. must address in the 21st century: how to engage the millions of incarcerated people who reenter the outside world from prisons and jails every year, often with significant barriers to voting, housing, education, employment, and other staples of society that help create strong communities. This course will explore what it means to reimagine reentry, from small, technical questions of policy and programming to the deep moral issues that underlie them. What changes in policy and programming would most help those returning from prison or jail? What are the most transformative new models for thinking about reentry support? What responsibilities do returning citizens have to their communities and governments, and what responsibilities do their communities and governments have to them? Is “reentry” something that starts at the moment of release, or does it begin long before release, and end long after? As part of the national Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, this course will bring together inside students (people incarcerated at the South Bend Community Reentry Center) and outside students (people enrolled at Notre Dame) learning with and from one another and breaking new ground together. Most weeks of the semester Notre Dame students will travel to the Community Reentry Center for class alongside the inside students. All are responsible for the same reading and writing assignments and will participate equally in class activities and discussions, together exploring transformative new models for thinking about reentry. Full attendance is required. Travel to and from the class site provided. Apply online via the Institute for Social Concerns website: socialconcerns.nd.edu/courses.

How has the use of fossil fuels for heat, energy, and raw material shaped contemporary Christian ethics and social teachings? Has the Catholic pursuit of virtue and the common good driven climate change? Is there a need to “decarbonize” Christian concepts, cultures, and communities? While the concept of decarbonization is most commonly applied to technology, policy, and the economy, what would a “decarbonized” vision of human flourishing and the common good look like? In this course, we will generate responses to these questions by examining the extent to which fossil fuels have shaped Catholic concepts of moral virtue, human dignity, and the common good in the modern world, as well as how Catholic moral and social teachings can inform a just transformation of energy systems. In recent years, scholars from multiple disciplines have argued that there is a two-way influence between the material properties of things, like coal and oil, and human values and cultural ways of life. These dynamics are the object of our study in this course. In addition to engaging with developments in history, we will also explore emerging models of non-carbon intensive human flourishing and the common good as well as the virtues and practices needed to sustain them. Throughout the course, each student will conduct a case study of one moral virtue or Catholic social principle both to examine how it has been “carbonized” and to develop an argument about whether or how it should be “decarbonized.” This course in energy and environmental studies engages with perspectives drawn from history, environmental/climate studies, ethics, theological studies, philosophy, and cultural anthropology. There are no required prerequisites.

This research lab will employ an interdisciplinary approach to research on a range of issues related to mass incarceration. Collaborating with faculty, scholars, activists, practitioners, those impacted by systems of incarceration, and other classmates, students will develop, refine and implement a research project which contributes to the overall body of scholarship on incarceration. Students will be able to design projects (exploring moral, normative, and/or empirical etc. dimensions of incarceration) which connect their own academic and intellectual interests to emerging research questions at the Institute for Social Concerns. This research lab is open to students in all disciplines.

Environmental justice has emerged as one of the most significant frameworks shaping contemporary environmental policy and scholarship at local, national, and international scales. Less well known is that it originated and has been led at the grassroots level with social movements making connections between racial, gender, and economic justice, political empowerment, and vastly unequal exposure to environmental harms and hazards. In short, the meanings, values, strategies, and concepts that make up the environmental justice (EJ) framework have been driven by grassroots leaders and organizations with a transformative vision. This course in environmental humanities and social sciences examines this transformative approach to EJ as it has emerged in places as diverse as rural North Carolina, urban New York, Louisiana's “Cancer Alley,” tropical forests around the world, and most recently transnational networks of grassroots leaders responding to climate change. Through interdisciplinary engagement with scholarship in environmental studies, religion, ethics, history, sociology, anthropology, and politics, as well as analysis of primary source documents, this course equips students to analyze the dynamic relationship between human cultures and environmental realities at local and global scales. In particular, it equips students to answer questions such as: To what extent has the EJ movement been shaped by religion and culture? How do transformative approaches to EJ differ from other approaches? How do diverse concepts of the sacred, nature, and justice factor into contemporary debates about environmental and climate action? What moral and political resources do EJ communities draw on to sustain their commitments? What commitments inform students’ personal approach to EJ issues?

Throughout this course, students will examine the social and cultural aspects of sport through an exploration of the unique ways that race and identity influence sport participation, access and engagement. This course will engage topics such as: Sport and Identity; Identity, "Success" and resilience; Media Imagery, Identity and Power; and, Race in American Sport.

This course introduces some of the issues behind calls to reform the US criminal legal system, including mass incarceration and supervision, racial disproportionality, and the challenges of "reentry." But the heart of the course is our exploration of deeper concerns, including why our criminal legal system relies on punishment, how we might cultivate other forms of justice, and what responsibility we have for the systems that operate in our names. As part of the national Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, the course involves inside students (people incarcerated at the Westville Correctional Facility in Westville, IN) and outside students (people enrolled at Notre Dame, St. Marys, or Holy Cross) learning with and from one another and breaking new ground together. Most weeks of the semester, outside students will travel to Westville for class sessions with the inside students. All students are responsible for the same reading and writing assignments, and participate together in class activities and discussions. Together, we will examine myths and realities related to crime and to punishment, explore the effects of current criminal legal policies, and develop ideas for responding more effectively to harm and violence in our communities.

Direct readings and/or capstone with one of the Minor's affiliated faculty. The student will produce a product as approved by the faculty member (research project, research paper, manuscript, work or art, composition, poster board display of research results, etc.). Prior approval is required by one of the Justice & Society Minor Directors.

In this collaborative workshop, you will learn the craft of public scholarship as you explore a variety of methods and venues for communicating research findings to wider publics. The culmination will be your own effort (an op-ed, a policy memo, an exhibit, etc.) to showcase the fruits of your justice research conducted throughout the minor.