Overview
Provides a novel account of the role of literature in the struggle for recognition and advancement of human rights
A sophisticated and original contribution to the current discourse of human rights
Offers a novel reading of selected texts on lament, laughter, melancholy, and comedy
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Table of contents (4 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
This sophisticated book argues that human rights literature both helps the persecuted to cope with their trauma and serves as the foundation for a cosmopolitan ethos of universal civility—a culture without borders. Michael Galchinsky maintains that, no matter how many treaties there are, a rights-respecting world will not truly exist until people everywhere can imagine it. The Modes of Human Rights Literature describes four major forms of human rights literature: protest, testimony, lament, and laughter to reveal how such works give common symbolic forms to widely held sociopolitical emotions.
Reviews
“Galchinsky combines the lawyer’s flair for categories with the literary critic’s sensitivity to textual complexity. The result is an extraordinary work, reaching across centuries and continents, offering us new yet historically grounded frames for reading novels, poetry, and life-writing. Erudite yet admirably clear and accessible, this is a book I will return to again and again in my own research and teaching about post-conflict cultures.” (Zoe Norridge, Senior Lecturer in English and Comparative Literature, King’s College London, UK)
“Galchinsky’s book provides a novel account of the role of literature in the struggle for recognition and advancement of human rights. Theoretically well informed, yet accessible and engaging in style, the book is a sophisticated and original contribution to the current, broadly leftist discourse of human rights.” (Peter Goodrich, Professor of Law and Director, Program in Law and Humanities, Cardozo School of Law, USA)
“Galchinsky examines how laughter and lament might provide an affective grounding for a larger culture of human rights. Reading across divides of literary form and geopolitical context through an approach of ‘affective formalism,’ he highlights the extra-judicial contributions of cultural production to a shared, global civil society.” (Alexandra Schultheis Moore, Associate Professor of English, University of North Carolina, USA)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Michael Galchinsky is Professor of English, an affiliate of the Center for Human Rights and Democracy at Georgia State University, and a Fellow at the Yale University Center for Cultural Sociology, USA. He writes on human rights literature, international human rights law, and Jewish studies.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Modes of Human Rights Literature
Book Subtitle: Towards a Culture without Borders
Authors: Michael Galchinsky
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31851-6
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-31850-9Published: 25 August 2016
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-81137-6Published: 22 April 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-31851-6Published: 17 August 2016
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 132
Topics: Comparative Literature, Contemporary Literature, Cultural Theory