Writing Human Rights

The Political Imaginaries of Writers of Color

Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Cultural Studies, Minority Studies, Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, American, Political Science
Cover of the book Writing Human Rights by Crystal Parikh, University of Minnesota Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Crystal Parikh ISBN: 9781452954677
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press Publication: October 17, 2017
Imprint: Univ Of Minnesota Press Language: English
Author: Crystal Parikh
ISBN: 9781452954677
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Publication: October 17, 2017
Imprint: Univ Of Minnesota Press
Language: English

The legal texts and aspirational ideals of human rights are usually understood and applied in a global context with little bearing on the legal discourse, domestic political struggles, or social justice concerns within the United States. In Writing Human Rights, Crystal Parikh uses the international human rights regime to read works by contemporary American writers of color—Toni Morrison, Chang-rae Lee, Ana Castillo, Aimee Phan, and others—to explore the conditions under which new norms, more capacious formulations of rights, and alternative kinds of political communities emerge.

Parikh contends that unlike humanitarianism, which views its objects as victims, human rights provide avenues for the creation of political subjects. Pairing the ethical deliberations in such works as Beloved and A Gesture Life with human rights texts like the United Nations Convention Against Torture, she considers why principles articulated as rights in international conventions and treaties—such as the right to self-determination or the right to family—are too often disregarded at home. Human rights concepts instead provide writers of color with a deeply meaningful method for political and moral imagining in their literature.

Affiliating transnational works of American literature with decolonization, socialist, and other political struggles in the global south, this book illuminates a human rights critique of idealized American rights and freedoms that have been globalized in the twenty-first century. In the absence of domestic human rights enforcement, these literatures provide a considerable repository for those ways of life and subjects of rights made otherwise impossible in the present antidemocratic moment.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

The legal texts and aspirational ideals of human rights are usually understood and applied in a global context with little bearing on the legal discourse, domestic political struggles, or social justice concerns within the United States. In Writing Human Rights, Crystal Parikh uses the international human rights regime to read works by contemporary American writers of color—Toni Morrison, Chang-rae Lee, Ana Castillo, Aimee Phan, and others—to explore the conditions under which new norms, more capacious formulations of rights, and alternative kinds of political communities emerge.

Parikh contends that unlike humanitarianism, which views its objects as victims, human rights provide avenues for the creation of political subjects. Pairing the ethical deliberations in such works as Beloved and A Gesture Life with human rights texts like the United Nations Convention Against Torture, she considers why principles articulated as rights in international conventions and treaties—such as the right to self-determination or the right to family—are too often disregarded at home. Human rights concepts instead provide writers of color with a deeply meaningful method for political and moral imagining in their literature.

Affiliating transnational works of American literature with decolonization, socialist, and other political struggles in the global south, this book illuminates a human rights critique of idealized American rights and freedoms that have been globalized in the twenty-first century. In the absence of domestic human rights enforcement, these literatures provide a considerable repository for those ways of life and subjects of rights made otherwise impossible in the present antidemocratic moment.

More books from University of Minnesota Press

Cover of the book The Poetics of Information Overload by Crystal Parikh
Cover of the book Dead Matter by Crystal Parikh
Cover of the book All Thoughts Are Equal by Crystal Parikh
Cover of the book The Celebrity Persona Pandemic by Crystal Parikh
Cover of the book Archaeology of Minnesota by Crystal Parikh
Cover of the book Body and Soul by Crystal Parikh
Cover of the book A Shadow over Palestine by Crystal Parikh
Cover of the book Mechademia 3 by Crystal Parikh
Cover of the book Celebrating Bird by Crystal Parikh
Cover of the book Speaking of Indigenous Politics by Crystal Parikh
Cover of the book Gay Rights at the Ballot Box by Crystal Parikh
Cover of the book The Uberfication of the University by Crystal Parikh
Cover of the book House, but No Garden by Crystal Parikh
Cover of the book Inheriting Possibility by Crystal Parikh
Cover of the book Inhuman Citizenship by Crystal Parikh
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy