Details

We would like to highlight the complicated relation of the notion of human rights and its ties to the idea of the self-fashioned human subject to the conception of diverse societies. In the last couple of months there is a growing sentiment in Germany, that welcoming refugees from e.g. Syria should be opposed on the grounds of a human rights policy. In that argument human rights are used as a tool to create the idea of a “European supremacy” which should not be surrendered to supposedly more backward countries.

Together with Associate Prof. Joseph A. Slaughter we would like to dissect and discuss the extent as to which human rights serve an ideological tool of the liberal western world. A contemporary and honest assessment of their normative power would be an excellent and necessary addition in the German discourse on the complex refugee situation. We will discuss the topic in a public lecture for a larger audience.

Joseph Slaughter specializes in literature, law, and socio-cultural history of the Global South (particularly Latin America and Africa). He’s especially interested in the social work of literature—the myriad ways in which literature intersects (formally, historically, ideologically, materially) with problems of social justice, human rights, intellectual property, and international law. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Public Voices Fellowship, Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award. His book Human Rights, Inc.: The World Novel, Narrative Form, and International Law (Fordham UP, 2007), which explores the cooperative narrative logics of international human rights law and the Bildungsroman, was awarded the 2008 René Wellek prize for comparative literature and cultural theory. His essay, “Enabling Fictions and Novel Subjects: The Bildungsroman and International Human Rights Law,” was honored as one of the two best articles published in PMLA in 2006-7. He was elected to serve as President of the American Comparative Literature Association in 2016.

Welcome and Introduction

Manfred Strack, Director Amerikazentrum Hamburg, and Annika Meinking, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Hamburg

Lecture on "Universal Human Rights"

Professor Joseph Slaughter

Discussion and Summary

Manfred Strack

Wir laden Sie herzlich zu dieser Veranstaltung ein! Der Eintritt ist frei und Sie können gerne Begleitpersonen mitbringen. Wir bitten um verbindliche Anmeldung bis zum 13. Juni 2017 per E-Mail an kas-hamburg@kas.de an. Die Veranstaltung wird fotografisch begleitet. Die Teilnehmenden erklären mit der Anmeldung ihr Einverständnis, dass die Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V. das vor, während und nach der Veranstaltung entstandene Fotomaterial für Zwecke der Öffentlichkeitsarbeit nutzt. Wir bedanken uns im voraus für Ihr Interesse an unserer Veranstaltungsarbeit und freuen uns auf einen interessanten Abend.

Die Veranstaltung wird gefördert durch Zuwendungen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg.