Richard Parks

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Richard Parks

Richard Parks , J.D., Ph.D.

Associate Teaching Professor
LB Course Subject Area: Science and Society

Holmes Hall, E-35
919 E. Shaw Lane
East Lansing, MI 48825
United States

LBC Courses Taught

LB 492: Senior Seminar

Biography

My focus, as an academic specialist, is to create a classroom environment that increases critical thinking skills in my students. To that end, I teach courses that emphasize logic, analysis, and forming well-reasoned conclusions. Learning how to garner facts, assess evidence, and form arguments is key to success in any profession: whether art or science. Although personal philosophy is important, the development of critical thinking helps us recognize a breadth of opinions with a focus on self-awareness, eliminating bias, and mindful problem solving.

Education

• Ph.D., University of Minnesota School of Medicine 

• J.D., Tulane University School of Law 

• Certificat, Institut d’Etudes politiques de Paris 

• B.A., New York University 

Honors and Awards

• Cogut Center for the Humanities Fellow, Brown University 

• American Institute of Maghrib Studies long-term Grant 

• Fulbright full-grant to Tunisia 

• Critical Language Enhancement Award (Arabic), U.S. Dept. of State 

• Social Science Research Council IDRF 

• Foreign Language and Areas Studies Fellowship (Arabic), U.S. Dept. of State 

• United State Holocaust Memorial Museum Fellow, 2009 and 2010.

Publications

• Medical Imperialism in French North Africa (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2017). 

• “Divide et Impera: Public Health and Urban Reform in Interwar Tunis,” Journal of North African Studies, vol. 17, no. 3 (2012), 533-46. 

• "The Jewish Quarters of Interwar Paris and Tunis: Destruction, Creation, and French Urban Design," Jewish Social Studies 17:1 (Fall 2011): 67-87. 

• “Doe v. Mutual of Omaha: Insurance Policy Discrimination against People with AIDS” Tulane Journal of Law & Sexuality 10:277 (2000). 

• “A Right to Die: International Perspectives” Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law 8: 447 (2000).