Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Human Rights and Literature
- The Cambridge Companion to Human Rights and Literature
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Chronology of Major Works and Events, 1215–2018
- Introduction
- Part I Genealogies and Contexts
- 1 Recounting History, Locating Precursors for Human Rights
- 2 Humanitarianism’s Way in the World
- 3 Literature, Human Rights, and the Cold War
- 4 Human Rights in the Vernacular
- Part II Fashioning Methods
- Part III Generic Representations
- Part IV Writing Human Rights
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
1 - Recounting History, Locating Precursors for Human Rights
from Part I - Genealogies and Contexts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 June 2019
- The Cambridge Companion to Human Rights and Literature
- The Cambridge Companion to Human Rights and Literature
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Chronology of Major Works and Events, 1215–2018
- Introduction
- Part I Genealogies and Contexts
- 1 Recounting History, Locating Precursors for Human Rights
- 2 Humanitarianism’s Way in the World
- 3 Literature, Human Rights, and the Cold War
- 4 Human Rights in the Vernacular
- Part II Fashioning Methods
- Part III Generic Representations
- Part IV Writing Human Rights
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
Summary
This chapter gives an overview of the current debates regarding the way human rights has been defined and historicized. It argues that understanding these debates is crucial for an understanding of the ways in which human lights matter to literary study. Referencing the works of Johannes Morsink, Paul Gordon Lauren, Lynn Hunt, and Samuel Moyn, the author moves the through the varied points of origin and genealogies of human rights as we understand them today. The chapter shows that this present concept is by no means unambiguous, and argues that literature and its analysis provides us with one of the best ways to investigate the historical and political tensions that exist at its very foundations.
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- The Cambridge Companion to Human Rights and Literature , pp. 13 - 26Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019