Literature and Human Rights : : The Law, the Language and the Limitations of Human Rights Discourse / / ed. by Ian Ward.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Plus DeG Package 2015 Part 1
• MitwirkendeR: Adami, Valentina,; Aristodemou, Maria,; Baldissone, Riccardo,; Battisti, Chiara,; Bellman, Patrizia Nerozzi,; Carbone, Paola,; Carpi, Daniela,; Dente, Carla,; Doerr, Roxanne Barbara,; Fiorato, Sidia,; Gaakeer, Jeanne,; Lanzoni, Lisa,; Logaldo, Mara,; Mullender, Richard,; Nicolini, Matteo,; Panzeri, Lino,; Porsdam, Helle,; Tomaselli, Alessandra,; Ward, Ian,
• HerausgeberIn: Ward, Ian,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2015]; ©2015
• Year of Publication: 2015
• Language: English
• Series: Law & Literature , 9
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (336 p.)

The idea of human rights is not new. But the importance of taking rights seriously has never been more urgent. The eighteen essays which comprise Literature and Human Rights are written as a contribution to this vital debate. Each moreover is written in the spirit of interdisciplinarity, reaching across the myriad constitutive disciplines of law, literature and the humanities in order to present an array of alternative perspectives on the nature and meaning of human rights in the modern world. The taking of human rights seriously, it will be suggested, depends just as much on taking seriously the idea of the human as it does the idea of rights.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Literature and Human Rights: Interdisciplinary Reflections on the Law, the Language and the Limitations of Human Rights Discourse -- Empathy, Literature and Human Rights: The Case of Elliot Perlman, The Street Sweeper -- Privacy, Blighted Lives, and a Blindspot in British Law -- A Squeamishness about Existing: Fernando Pessoa’s Quiet Rejection of the Human in The Book of Disquiet -- I and Another: Rethinking the Subject of Human Rights with Dostoyevsky, Bakhtin and Simondon -- Dehumanizing the Enemy: How to Avoid Human Rights -- Am I not a man and a brother? -- Mental Illness and Human Rights in Patrick McGrath’s Asylum -- The Role of Forensics in Human Rights Discourse: Kathy Reichs’s Crime Fiction and the Rights of the Dead -- Rumpole and the Rights of Accused Terrorists -- Reality, Theatre and Human Rights -- The Rights and Wrongs of Marriage: Article 16.2 UDHR and the Case of Edith Dombey -- Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters and the Cause of Female Literacy in India -- The Trial of Jomo Kenyatta, by Montagu Slater: Oral Tradition and Fundamental Rights in the Trial -- ‘n Droë Wit Seisoen in die Stormkaap: André Brink and the Fundamental Rights of the Afrikaners in Apartheid South Africa -- The Definition of “Linguistic Minority” -- Rights of Humans/Rights of Nature: The Language of Environmental Rights in UN Documents -- On Crimes, Punishments, and Words: Legal and Language Issues in Cesare Beccaria’s Works -- Dignity and Disgrace in Law and Literature -- Contributors -- Index