The Modes of Human Rights Literature - by Michael Galchinsky (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This sophisticated book argues that human rights literature both helps the persecuted to cope with their trauma and serves as the foundation for a cosmopolitan ethos of universal civility--a culture without borders. Michael Galchinsky maintains that, no matter how many treaties there are, a rights-respecting world will not truly exist until people everywhere can imagine it. The Modes of Human Rights Literature describes four major forms of human rights literature: protest, testimony, lament, and laughter to reveal how such works give common symbolic forms to widely held sociopolitical emotions.

From the Back Cover

This sophisticated book argues that human rights literature both helps the persecuted to cope with their trauma and serves as the foundation for a cosmopolitan ethos of universal civility--a culture without borders. Michael Galchinsky maintains that, no matter how many treaties there are, a rights-respecting world will not truly exist until people everywhere can imagine it. The Modes of Human Rights Literature describes four major forms of human rights literature: protest, testimony, lament, and laughter to reveal how such works give common symbolic forms to widely held sociopolitical emotions.

Michael Galchinsky is Professor of English, an affiliate of the Center for Human Rights and Democracy at Georgia State University, and a Fellow at the Yale University Center for Cultural Sociology, USA. He writes on human rights literature, international human rights law, and Jewish studies.

Review Quotes

"The Modes of Human Rights Literature is an ideal text for students of human rights exploring the ways in which literature and the arts both reflect and refract the quest for human rights. For scholars, it provides a compelling synthesis of commentaries on how culture informs universal human values, engenders empathy, and encourages and enables concern for 'others' who are different, distant, or otherwise outside our sphere of immediate personal concern." (Noam Schimmel, Human Rights Review, Vol. 19, 2018)

About the Author

Michael Galchinsky is Professor of English, an affiliate of the Center for Human Rights and Democracy at Georgia State University, and a Fellow at the Yale University Center for Cultural Sociology, USA. He writes on human rights literature, international human rights law, and Jewish studies.