Human Rights in World Literature and Vis

This course explores contemporary human rights issues in fiction, nonfiction, and film from Africa, Latin America, South Asia, the Caribbean, and the U.S., as well as humanitarian-inspired art, documentaries, television, and music circulated around the world. When decolonial and indigenous writers and cultural workers decide to represent violence in their countries, they risk reproducing racist stereotypes that permeate international media. And yet, human rights violations tied to war, slavery, sexual violence, religious fundamentalism, and ethnic strife are central features of turbulent national histories—including our own in America. How can twentieth- and twenty-first-century writers from the Global South and beyond undermine the harmful stereotypes and dominant narratives that predetermine their stories in the international public sphere without reproducing stereotypes? To better understand strife abroad, we will take an interdisciplinary feminist approach to the politics of representing human rights. Our readings, paired with options for extracurricular events like film screenings in New York City, will prompt us to reflect critically on the ambivalences surrounding human rights in global culture. We will engage literary representations of historical events ranging from the Holocaust to the Vietnam War and the Rwandan genocide, all the way up to extremism in our present moment. Final projects invite students to reflect on methods for representing human rights through creative writing. This course, which fulfills the University Global Core requirement, as well as English major requirements for prose fiction/narrative and comparative/global literature, will appeal to students of not only literature but also in human rights, history, political science, African studies, law, and gender and sexuality studies.