No topics related to the arts are mentioned in the NHD Theme Book or list of suggested topics this year. Here are a few suggestions, split up by type of art. I might update this throughout this semester, and given the topic this year, this will be shorter than the science lists.
Dance
Soviet ballet defection (I think it's a stretch to relate this to responsibilities, but if you come up with something, it could be fantastic!)
Censorship/propaganda in Soviet-era Russian ballet (a really good starting resource would be Apollo's Angels)
I haven't read it, but there's a book called Dance, Human Rights, and Social Justice that looks really interesting and could be a good jumping off point for a project!
Dancing bans (legal or religious, and again, responsibilities might be a stretch)
Film
The Hollywood blacklist -- could go a lot of directions from here. Could talk about naming others to HUAC or not, pamphlets like Red Channels, or the Writers' Guild working to give proper credit to those who were blacklisted.
Propaganda films and how that relates to rights and responsibilities, either of people or of governments.
Man With a Movie Camera and revolution in the Soviet Union -- this is a really cool film impacted by the idea that a social and political revolution should also induce a revolution in the arts, and it really shows the industrialization occurring in the late 1920s.
Literature/Writing/Philosophy
Thomas Paine's Common Sense and/or Rights of Man
John Locke
Thomas Hobbes
Ayn Rand and objectivism
Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations
Banned books and freedom of speech -- either in general or focusing on specific books
What is To Be Done? (by Chernyshevsky, by Lenin, or both!) and Bolshevism
Literature and civil rights -- could focus on James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, or Lorraine Hansberry
Uncle Tom's Cabin
To Kill a Mockingbird
(This could be such a long list, and here I've focused on just a couple of ideas and given some suggestions. If you come up with a rights issue, search for related literature!)
Visual Art
Political cartoons and freedom of expression. Could choose particular cartoonist, incident/cartoon, etc.
Propaganda posters and the relationship to the rights and responsibilities of people/governments. Choose a country and time period and possibly even a theme within it. (I'm in a Soviet Union class right now, and there are some great examples of propaganda posters here: http://www.iisg.nl/exhibitions/chairman/sovintro.php)
(So sorry there is no music or theater here! I think a lot of the ideas from the others could be carried over to those, but I just don't know the details.)
