Senior Lecturer
B.A. Slavic, University of Washington
Ph.D. Slavic, University of Michigan
Office: UW1-239
Phone: 425-352-5364
Email: bkochis@u.washington.edu
Mailing: Box 358530, 18115 Campus Way NE, Bothell, WA 98011-8246
Teaching
I abandoned the banking model of teaching ("I deposit into students' brains and hope the interest grows.") quite a while ago, and have replaced it with a method of teaching based upon a learning communities/conversational model ("Here's what some in the past and currently have been thinking about this issue. Now what do you all think? Why?"). To that end I rely extensively on seminars (even in large classes), case studies, student projects, extensive reading, and intensive writing. In every course I teach there is a component of field research that links the theory of the class with the practice of the world. Finally, central to the ethos of the classroom is the notion of the responsible intellectual-faculty and students together who must take responsibility for that world, and not just analyze it.
Recent Courses Taught
BIS 335 Human Rights in America
BIS 338 Political Institutions and Processes
BIS 403 Washington DC Human Rights Seminar/Trip
BIS 414 Topics in Human Rights
BPOLST 500 Dimensions and Contexts of Contemporary Policy Issues
Research/Scholarship
His current research is a comparative analysis of the construction and implementation of human rights in developed and developing societies with particular attention to how discourse shapes political and cultural agendas. For example, the term "human rights" is deployed by various state and non-state actors to achieve a variety of ends, some of which might be consistent with the international human rights regime, while others might not. Under this analysis, "human rights" is viewed not as absolute moral category but as an open discourse in which individuals, cultures, and societies debate their ultimate values and goals.
Selected Publications
"Human Rights Discourse and Political Legitimacy in Yugoslavia," (forthcoming, 2002, in Serbia after 1989, Sabrina Ramet and Vjeran Pavlacovic, eds.)
"Discourse of/in Propaganda in Early Soviet Film Theory," (forthcoming , 2003, From Golivud to Hollywood: Entertainment and Propaganda in Soviet Film of the 1920s and 1930s, Galya Diment and Jacob Kaltenbach, eds.)