I am seeking paper abstracts for a panel on Human Rights and Cultural
Studies to be proposed for the inaugural meeting of the Cultural
Studies Association conference in Pittsburgh, June 5-8, 2003.
The meanings and importance of culture, cultural studies, and human
rights have all undergone transformation in the fifty or so years
since both human rights and cultural studies achieved some
institutional legitimacy. When in 1946 UNESCO declared the centrality
of cultural understanding to its project of international cooperation
by declaring in its constitution that "since wars begin in the minds
of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be
constructed," they did so by setting a field called culture apart
from the individual and the nation, as a separate realm of
interpersonal participation that can exclude or include the
individual and that can be fostered or suppressed by the State. For
UNESCO, cultural difference and interchange was to be made the basis
of peace and mutual understanding, rather than the excuse for war,
imperialism, colonialism, and economic domination. The subsequent
international human rights codes, where they address issues of
culture, have been notoriously controversial even as they envision as
fundamental an individual's rights and duties to it for the "free and
full development of human personality."
I invite proposals for papers that explore any aspect of the roles
and relationships of human rights in cultural studies and of cultural
studies in human rights. What are the intersections between the two?
How are human rights a part of cultural studies work? How is cultural
studies work a part of human rights conceptions and practices?
Please send an abstract (1-2 pages) and a short cv of relevant
publications and presentations before February 3, 2003 by email (no
attachments) to: jrs272@columbia.edu
The full panel proposal needs to be submitted to the organizers of
the CSA no later than February 15, so decisions will be made quickly.
Joseph R. Slaughter
Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature
602 Philosophy Hall
Columbia University
New York, NY 10027
jrs272@columbia.edu
(212) 854-6433
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