Human Rights and the Humanities

The International Conference on Human Rights and the Humanities will be hosted by American University of Beirut May 9-11, 2012. In the October 2006 PMLA special issue on human rights, Domna Stanton argues that the humanities provides a “set of interpretive and critical discourses and practices … that aim to dissent from and revise traditional or dominant readings and understandings” (1519). As such, when the humanities are placed in conversation with human rights discourse, a space for critique, interrogation, and exploration opens; yet at the same time the humanities remain grounded in a western Enlightenment tradition which often reifies power imbalances present in human rights discourse. Building from this paradoxical relationship, The International Conference on Human Rights and the Humanities at American University of Beirut seeks to continue the push of human rights discourse from exclusively legal and political discourses and open it to alternative framings, questions and perspectives that the humanities can offer. This move creates a space to (re)imagine the ways in which human rights are represented, narrated, implemented, and enforced.

While at its core this conference engages with systemic issues and the globalization of human rights, particular interest will be paid to the ME/NA region in the midst of the ongoing Arab Spring. Beirut’s location as a crossroads of cultures (Phoenician, Roman, Ottoman, French, and Arab to name a few) coupled with its modern cosmopolitan flair provides a unique setting for such a vital conversation.

Questions may be addressed to the conference chair Dr. Alexander Hartwiger:

[email protected].