Joyful Human Rights / / William Paul Simmons.
In popular, legal, and academic discourses, the term "human rights" is now almost always discussed in relation to its opposite: human rights abuses. Syllabi, textbooks, and articles focus largely on victimization and trauma, with scarcely a mention of a positive dimension. Joy, especially,...
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Superior document: | Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DTL Humanities 2020 |
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Place / Publishing House: | Philadelphia : : University of Pennsylvania Press, , [2019] ©2019 |
Year of Publication: | 2019 |
Language: | English |
Series: | Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights
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Online Access: | |
Physical Description: | 1 online resource (304 p.) :; 9 illus. |
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Other title: | Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Preface -- Chapter 1. The Thrill Is Gone -- Chapter 2. A Phenomenology of Joy as Transgressive Affect -- Chapter 3. Whither Joy? -- Chapter 4. Joyful Activists -- Chapter 5. Joyful Perpetrators -- Chapter 6. Joyful Martyrs -- Chapter 7. Human Rights Winners -- Notes -- References -- Index -- Acknowledgments |
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Summary: | In popular, legal, and academic discourses, the term "human rights" is now almost always discussed in relation to its opposite: human rights abuses. Syllabi, textbooks, and articles focus largely on victimization and trauma, with scarcely a mention of a positive dimension. Joy, especially, is often discounted and disregarded. William Paul Simmons asserts that there is a time and place—and necessity—in human rights work for being joyful.Joyful Human Rights leads us to challenge human rights' foundations afresh. Focusing on joy shifts the way we view victims, perpetrators, activists, and martyrs; and mitigates our propensity to express paternalistic or heroic attitudes toward human rights victims. Victims experience joy—indeed, it is often what sustains them and, in many cases, what best facilitates their recovery from trauma. Instead of reducing individuals merely to victim status or the tragedies they have experienced, human rights workers can help harmed individuals reclaim their full humanity, which includes positive emotions such as joy.A joy-centered approach provides new insights into foundational human rights issues such as motivations of perpetrators , trauma and survivorship, the work of social movements and activists, philosophical and historical origins of human rights, and the politicization of human rights. Many concepts rarely discussed in the field play important roles here, including social erotics, clowning, dancing, expressive arts therapy, posttraumatic growth, and the Buddhist terms metta (loving kindness) and mudita (sympathetic joy). Joyful Human Rights provides a new framework—one based upon a more comprehensive understanding of human experiences—for theorizing and practicing a more affirmative and robust notion of human rights. |
Format: | Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web. |
ISBN: | 9780812295740 9783110737769 9783110610765 9783110664232 9783110610130 9783110606485 9783110652055 |
DOI: | 10.9783/9780812295740 |
Access: | restricted access |
Hierarchical level: | Monograph |
Statement of Responsibility: | William Paul Simmons. |