Course description
The course approaches humanitarianism as a form of governance carried out in the name of protecting human life while examining the criticisms humanitarian action has generated. By combining historical case studies with contemporary debates, students analyze how humanitarian action remains both a powerful global project and a deeply contested practice.

After briefly introducing the emergence of "humanitarian sentiment" in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the West, the course focuses on the modern period, when humanitarian institutions and practices expanded across the world. Particular attention is given to the circulation of humanitarian ideas, institutions, and practices across Europe, the United States, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East after 1945. At the same time, the course examines major criticisms of humanitarianism, including accusations of paternalism, neo-colonial dynamics, and the depoliticization of conflicts and social crises. Readings draw on critical scholarship by Didier Fassin, Samuel Moyn, and Silvia Salvatici, who analyze the power relations embedded in humanitarian action. Rather than offering a celebratory account of humanitarianism, the course explores its contested meaning across periods and geographies.

Topics include:

• Abolitionism and the rise of transnational humanitarian activism
• The "humanization of warfare" and its contradictions
• Humanitarian action in colonial and post-colonial contexts
• Humanitarian Photography: Representations of the Suffering Body
• Doctors Without Borders: Merging Humanitarianism and Human Rights Advocacy
• "Humanitarian warfare" since the end of the Cold War
• The global migrant crisis and the politics of "saving strangers"
• Critiques of humanitarianism by activists, scholars, and affected communities.

Learning outcomes
At the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Trace the development of global humanitarian practices and representations of suffering, from the nineteenth century to the present.
• Engage anthropological, political, and legal critiques of humanitarian action
• Apply these debates to contemporary crises such as humanitarian intervention and global migration politics.

This seminar-style course is designed to draw students from various disciplines. It does not require prior knowledge. The course uses clear case studies and avoids highly-specialized historiography. The focus is on one key question examined through political, anthropological, and legal perspectives: how efforts to relieve suffering can also produce new forms of dependency, inequality, or power over the people they seek to help.

Evaluation method
Evaluation is based on the following components:

• Weekly one-page "reaction papers" -- talking points on the readings, preparation for class discussion: 20%.
• Two class presentations based on short opinion papers (4–6 pages) – 20% each (40% total). Students submit a 4–6 pages opinion piece addressing a specific topic discussed in the course and present their argument in class.
• One final research paper (approximately 15-18 pages): 40%. Under my mentorship, students formulate and answer a research question using sources from one or more relevant disciplines.

Reading list

Davide Rodogno and Heide Fehrenbach (eds.), Humanitarian Photography: A History (2015). Silvia Salvatici, A History of Humanitarianism, 1755–1989: In the Name of Others (2019).

Didier Fassin, Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present (2012).

Samuel Moyn, Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War (2021).

Miriam Ticktin, Casualties of Care: Immigration and the Politics of Humanitarianism in France (2011).

Peter Gatrell, The Making of the Modern Refugee (2013).

Course duration: 40 hours of tuition
Credits equivalence: 6 ECTS

Last updated: August 7, 2026