Theoretical Perspectives on Human Rights and Literature (Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature)

Synopsis

What can literary theory reveal about discourses and practices of human rights, and how can human rights frameworks help to make sense of literature? How have human rights concerns shaped the literary marketplace, and how can literature impact human rights concerns? Essays in this volume theorize how both literature and reading literarily can shape understanding of human rights in productive ways. Contributors to Theoretical Perspectives on Human Rights and Literature provide a shared history of modern literature and rights; theorize how trauma, ethics, subjectivity, and witnessing shape representations of human rights violations and claims in literary texts across a range of genres (including poetry, the novel, graphic narrative, short story, testimonial, and religious fables); and consider a range of civil, political, social, economic, and cultural rights and their representations. The authors reflect on the imperial and colonial histories of human rights as well as the cynical mobilization of human rights discourses in the name of war, violence, and repression; at the same time, they take seriously Gayatri Spivak’s exhortation that human rights is something that we "cannot not want," exploring the central function of storytelling at the heart of all human rights claims, discourses, and policies.

Copyright:

2011

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

302 Pages

ISBN-13:

9781136646379

Related ISBNs:

9780203805190, 9780415890977, 9780415704045

Publisher:

Taylor and Francis

Date of Addition:

08/12/22

Copyrighted By:

Routledge

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Literature and Fiction, Social Studies, Language Arts, Politics and Government

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.

Edited by:

Elizabeth Swanson Goldberg

Edited by:

Alexandra Schultheis Moore