The Routledge Companion to Literature and Human Rights / Edition 1

by Sophia McClennen, Alexandra Schultheis Moore

Overview

The Routledge Companion to Literature and Human Rights provides a comprehensive, transnational, and interdisciplinary map to this emerging field, offering a broad overview of human rights and literature while providing innovative readings on key topics. The first of its kind, this volume covers essential issues and themes, necessarily crossing disciplines between the social sciences and humanities. Sections cover:

• subjects, with pieces on subjectivity, humanity, identity, gender, universality, the particular, the body
• forms, visiting the different ways human rights stories are crafted and formed via the literary, the visual, the performative, and the oral
• contexts, tracing the development of the literature over time and in relation to specific regions and historical events
• impacts, considering the power and limits of human rights literature, rhetoric, and visual culture

Drawn from many different global contexts, the essays offer an ideal introduction for those approaching the study of literature and human rights for the first time, looking for new insights and interdisciplinary perspectives, or interested in new directions for future scholarship.

Contributors: Chris Abani, Jonathan E. Abel, Elizabeth S. Anker, Arturo Arias, Ariella Azoulay, Ralph Bauer, Anna Bernard, Brenda Carr Vellino, Eleni Coundouriotis, James Dawes, Erik Doxtader, Marc D. Falkoff, Keith P. Feldman, Elizabeth Swanson Goldberg, Audrey J. Golden, Mark Goodale, Barbara Harlow, Wendy S. Hesford, Peter Hitchcock, David Holloway, Christine Hong, Madelaine Hron, Meg Jensen, Luz Angélica Kirschner, Susan Maslan, Julie Avril Minich, Alexandra Schultheis Moore, Greg Mullins, Laura T. Murphy, Hanna Musiol, Makau Mutua, Zoe Norridge, David Palumbo-Liu, Crystal Parikh, Katrina M. Powell, Claudia Sadowski-Smith, Mark Sanders, Karen-Magrethe Simonsen, Joseph R. Slaughter, Sharon Sliwinski, Sidonie Smith, Domna Stanton, Sarah G. Waisvisz, Belinda Walzer, Ban Wang, Julia Watson, Gillian Whitlock and Sarah Winter.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415736411
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/06/2015
Series:	Routledge Literature Companions
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	6.88(w) x 9.69(h) x (d)

About the Author

Sophia A. McClennen is Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature (affiliated with Spanish and Women’s Studies) at Pennsylvania State University, USA and Director of The Center for Global Studies.

Alexandra Schultheis Moore is Associate Professor of English and Program Faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Aporia and Affirmative Critique: Mapping the Landscape of Literary Approaches to Human Rights Research, Sophia A. McClennen and Alexandra Schultheis Moore Part 1: Subjects Introduction 1. A New Universal for Human Rights?: The Particular, the Generalizable, the Political, Domna C. Stanton 2. "Commonly Human": Embodied Self-Possession and Human Rights in Jamaica Kincaid’s The Autobiography of My Mother, Elizabeth S. Anker 3. Who is Human? Disability, Literature, and Human Rights, Julie Avril Minich 4. Queer Rights? Greg A. Mullins 5. Gendering Human Rights and Their Violation: A Reading of Chris Cleave’s Little Bee, Elizabeth Swanson Goldberg 6. Contingent Vulnerabilities: Child Soldiers as Human Rights Subjects, Wendy S. Hesford 7. In Flight: The Refugee Experience and Human Rights Narrative, Eleni Coundouriotis 8. Immolation, Peter Hitchcock 9. Remembering Perpetrators: The Kunstlerroman and Second-Generation Witnessing in Edwidge Danticat’s The Dew Breaker, Sarah G. Waisvisz Part 2: Forms Introduction 10. Vanishing Points: When Narrative is Not Simply There, Joseph R. Slaughter 11. The Reemergence of the Slave Narrative Tradition and the Search for a New Frederick Douglass, Laura T. Murphy 12. Reading Human Rights Literatures through Oral Traditions, Katrina M. Powell 13. Beyond the Trauma Aesthetic: The Cultural Work of Human Rights Witness Poetries, Brenda Carr Vellino 14. Ending World War II - Visual Literacy Class in Human Rights, Ariella Azoulay 15. Inventing Human Dignity, Sharon Sliwinski 16. The Legible Face of Human Rights in Autobiographically Based Fiction, Meg Jensen 17. The World-Form of Human Rights Comics, Christine Hong 18. Sorry Business, Gillian Whitlock 19. From "Tutsi Crush" to "FWP": Satire, Sentiment, and Rights in African Texts and Contexts, Madelaine Hron 20. #NotABugSplat: Becoming Human on the Terrain of Visual Culture, Keith P. Feldman 21. Fragmented Forms and Shifting Contexts: How Can Social Media Work for Human Rights? David Palumbo-Liu 22. What about False Witnessing? The Limits of Authenticity and Verification, Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson Part 3: Contexts Introduction 23. Nature and Society in Revolutionary Rights Debates, Susan Maslan 24. The "Rites of Discovery": Law and Narrative in the Sixteenth-Century Atlantic World, Ralph Bauer 25. Natural Rights and Power in the Spanish Comedia after the Conquest, Karen-Margrethe Simonsen 26. Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL): An Essay in Bibliography, Barbara Harlow 27. Localizing Human Rights: Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India and the Lacuna in International Justice, Audrey J. Golden 28. Colonialism, Inherited Rights, and Social Movements of Self-Protection, Ban Wang 29. Transition and Transformation: Human Rights and Ubuntu in Antjie Krog’s Writings after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Mark Sanders 30. Violence, Indigeneities, and Human Rights, Arturo Arias 31. Human Rights and Cultural Representations of Mexico--US Border Migration, Claudia Sadowski-Smith 32. Journeying into Rwanda: Placing Philip Gourevitch’s Account of Genocide within Literary, Postcolonial, and Human Rights Frameworks, Zoe Norridge 33. "Where is the World to Save Us from Torture?": The Poets of Guantánamo, Marc D. Falkoff 34. Human Rights and Minority Rights: Argentine and German Perspectives, Luz Angélica Kirschner 35. States of Cynicism: Literature and Human Rights in Israel/Palestine, Anna Bernard 36. Bringing Human Rights to Bear in American Literature, Crystal Parikh 37. Sites of Human Rights Theory, Hanna Musiol Part 4: Impacts Introduction 38. With Double-Binds to Spare - Assuming the Rhetorical Question of Human Rights Language as Such, Erik Doxtader 39. "Inverted Sympathy": Empathy and Mediation in Literary Transactions of Human Rights, Sarah Winter 40. Human Rights, Literature, and Empathy, James Dawes 41. The Right Time for Rhetoric: Normativity, Kairos, and Human Rights, Belinda Walzer 42. Values Without Qualities: Pathos and Mythos in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Mark Goodale 43. Is the Age of Human Rights Over? Makau Mutua 44. Freedom of Expression and Cultural Production in the Age of Vanishing Privacy, Jonathan E. Abel 45. Poetry and the Limits of Human Rights, David Holloway 46. Film After Atrocity: An Interview with Joshua Oppenheimer, Alexandra Schultheis Moore 47. The Graceful Walk, Chris Abani

Editorial Reviews

"The contributors offer nuanced analyses of works of literature and human rights subjects, and they do not all share the same perspective; indeed, this is one of the book’s strengths...A valuable resource for those interested in the intersection of literature and human rights. Summing Up: Highly recommended." - K. Sorensen, CHOICE

From the Publisher