[ecrea] Issue 5 of Academic Quarter - Theme: The Aesthetics of Human Rights

Issue 5 of Academic Quarter

Theme:  The Aesthetics of Human Rights

Human rights are a historical, cultural and politico-legal theme with a hig=
h level of contemporary significance.  As Michael Ignatieff has argued, the=
 human rights ideal has undergone a "revolution" in the second half of the =
twentieth century:  its growth from a limited concept pertaining to interna=
tional institutions (specifically the UN) to a broad social concept deploye=
d by ranges of grassroots social movements and individual actors.  Human ri=
ghts are ingrained in both national and international law; human rights gai=
n modicums of representation via both the aesthetics of "everyday life" as =
well as high politics.  The development of human rights in the second half =
of the twentieth century was enriched by the events of 1989.  In line with =
Francis Fukuyama's controversial but nonetheless accurate thesis, 1989 unle=
ashed the forces of liberalism on a global scale - individuality and cultur=
al difference as Fukuyama (as well as Samuel Huntington) have argued, are g=
rounded in the discourses, claims and practices of late twentieth and early=
 twenty-first century international political culture.  Indeed, contemporar=
y deployments of human rights also involve reactions against the preeminenc=
e of liberalism and "Western" cultural practice.  A phenomenological vocabu=
lary, if one is allowed, might discuss a "life-world" of rights - global, e=
veryday environments of rights playing a liminal role in contemporary globa=
l culture.  Human rights gain life, or "animation," via their articulation =
in political culture as well as art, advertising, written fiction, film, el=
ectronic media, the Internet, "lifestyle," fashion and journalistic reporta=
ge.
                This issue of Academic Quarter proposes to address the muli=
tplicious dimensions of "human rights aesthetics."  Work on this exists in =
texts such as Lynn Hunt's (2007) Inventing Human Rights, Joseph Slaughter's=
  Human Rights Inc.:  The World Novel, Narrative Form, and International La=
w (2007), D.  Soyini Madison's (2011) Acts of Activism:  Human Rights as Ra=
dical Performance and articles such as Giovanni Boradori's "Tiny Sparks of =
Contingency:  On the Aesthetics of Human Rights" (2012) (among others).  Th=
e current AQ issue will push this further.  How do we find the representati=
on of rights as part of our daily environments, ingrained into visual, aura=
l and textual spaces making senses of rights, their sustenance and reality =
as "pre-given?"  How do we span representational spaces in which rights are=
 a matter of fiction - film, books, videogames - but also fiction's attachm=
ent to "fact":  actual historical events and concrete human rights violatio=
ns?  How do we gain senses of our times as defined by human rights - human =
rights as a "master term," as Arjun Appadurai phrased it, or "cultural domi=
nant," in the words of Frederic Jameson?  What, after all, are the aestheti=
cs of human rights, and what modes of textual, intellectual-historical, cri=
tical-theoretical, sociological and philosophical-aesthetic investigation m=
ay we bring to bear on rights "culture?"  Authors with human rights interes=
ts from cultural studies, media studies, sociology, history, art history, f=
ilm studies, discourse studies, literary studies, philosophy, intellectual =
history and other relevant areas are asked to submit abstracts to contribut=
e to a thorough treatment of the "aesthetics of human rights."

Suggestion for articles
Suggestion for articles, including an abstract of 150 words to be mailed to=
 Karen-Margrethe Simonsen<mailto:(litkms /at/ hum.au.dk)>  ((litkms /at/ hum.au.dk)<mailto=
:(litkms /at/ hum.au.dk)>) and Ben Dorfman<mailto:(bdorfman /at/ cgs.aau.dk)>  (bdorfman@c=
gs.aau.dk<mailto:(bdorfman /at/ cgs.aau.dk)>) no later than June the 1st 2012.
Accepted articles - using the Harvard System Style Sheet - should be mailed=
 to the editors no later than August the 1st 2012. Articles will then be re=
viewed anonymously. The articles should be around 15,000-25,000 keystrokes =
(around 3,500 words).
The issue will be published in December 2012.

Academic Quarter has been approved according to the Danish bibliometrical s=
ystem for 2011 and forward.

The website of the journal is:http://akademiskkvarter.hum.aau.dk/UK/index.php

Ben Dorfman
Assoc. Prof., Intellectual and Cultural History
Dept. of Culture and Global Studies
Aalborg University
Kroghstr=E6de 3
DK-9220  Aalborg East
+45 9940 9179



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