Human Rights. Feminist- and Gender-Philosophical Perspectives.

This symposium explores human rights and emphasizes feminist and gender-philosophical perspectives.

In recent years especially, international theories of justice and cosmopolitan ethics have addressed questions of justification and implementation of human rights and investigated their moral, political, legal and cultural significance. Nonetheless, the central idea of human rights that all humans are equal still remains not only a major philosophical problem, but also a juridico-political challenge. Hence, we are confronted with a series of fundamental theoretical, as well as practical questions. Especially in the light of the current political developments, namely an authoritarian shift in large parts of Europe and in the United States, the symposium aims at re-discussing, revising and reviving the theoretical status as well as the ethico-political significance of human rights in contemporary debates. By emphasizing a feminist- and gender-philosophical perspective, we especially wish to target problems of gender-related inequality, poverty, and discrimination, but also discuss possible emancipatory strategies.

Accordingly, the topics of the symposium will range from fundamental aspects of human rights to more specific issues – such as (including, but not limited to): fundamental philosophical aspects of human rights; a critical philosophical inquiry into the concept of human rights; the role of human rights in recent political issues (e.g. the pressure situation of asylum seekers); human rights in regard to economic questions (e.g. women and poverty in a neoliberal world-order and women in exploitative situations all over the world); Critical Whiteness; LGBTIQ and human rights; human rights and the precarious situation of children all over the world; human rights and religion as a feminist issue; freedom and security; human rights and the issue of environmental protection; a gender-theoretical and feminist approach to the antifeminist, antisemitic and chauvinistic tendencies inside far-right political parties worldwide; human rights and transhumanism (e.g. the possibility of attributing human rights to cyborgs), and so forth.