Joseph R. Slaughter is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and President of the American Comparative Literature Association.
. . .this is a tremendously exciting book, leaping adroitly between
literature, history, politics and philosophy. . . * -M/C Reviews
*
. . . Seamlessly moves between discussions of philosophy, history,
literary criticism, politics, and policy to support an original and
compelling argument. * -Journal of Human Rights *
In Human Rights Ink, Joseph Slaughter reads the Bildungsroman as
the "novelistic wing of human rights," persuasively arguing that
both formations share a telos of incorporation. With a magisterial
command of human rights discourse and sustained theoretical acumen,
Slaughter offers dazzling readings of contemporary novels that are
indebted to, haunted by, and in conversation with the Bildungsroman
form. Doing so, he suggests how the reading of Bildungsroman
becomes part of the process by which contemporary readers are
incorporated imaginatively into a global imaginary of universal
rights and responsibilities. And he explores how postcolonial
writers test the form's limits, open its ambiguities, and reject
its terms, as they represent the trauma of histories of violence.
This book will be obligatory reading for anyone interested in the
intersection of law and literature. -- -Sidonie Smith * University
of Michigan *
Joseph Slaughter has written a bold, imaginative, visionary book.
It is at the cutting edge of interdisciplinary legal scholarship.
It offers a new and persuasive account of the relationship of law
and literature while at the same time articulating a troubling and
provocative account of the impact of human rights policies. This
book is a must read. -- -Austin Sarat * Amherst College *
"Slaughter provides a trenchant analysis of the normative discourse
of human rights by focusing attention on the links between the
literary form of the Bildungsroman and international human rights
law. Imaginative and wide-ranging, Human Rights, Inc. contributes
decisively to the literature on the international English-language
Bildungsroman, and to law-and-literature studies generally." --
-Marc Redfield * Claremont Graduate University *
Human Rights, Inc. is a book of huge erudition that effortlessly
and elegantly combines history, literary theory and political
philosophy. Joseph Slaughter compellingly argues that human rights
operate according to the protocols of the market, turning human
suffering and poverty into commodities and preparing their subjects
for normalised and disciplined life. In a period when human rights
and humanitarianism are used as pretexts for war and imperialism,
this is an important book that brilliantly challenges the ruling
illusions of the era. -- -Costas Douzinas * Birkbeck, University of
London, author of Human Rights and Empire *
Human Rights Inc, is one of the most intense and intelligent
reflections on the relation between the novel and human rights. But
it is also a model of how students and scholars of literature can
respond to the great humanitarian crisis of our time and transform
the culture of human rights itself. -- -Simon E Gikandi * Princeton
University *
Written in the tradition of Raymond Williams, Luka(accent over A)
cs, Ian Watt and Edward Said, the study . . . extracts a fresh
approach to what might be called 'the narrative human.' . . . It
constructs its paradigm around a powerful thesis and demonstrates
its points with clarity, consistency and intellectual nuance. . . .
The tone is both sophisticated and accessible. . . . useful in
courses that deal with the history of the novel, literature and
human rights, and new paradigms of comparative literary
internationalism. -- -Emily Apter * New York University *
The author clearly prefers depth and density--the argument is
approached from multiplace angles, and nailed down tightly at every
turn--and these qualities mark the book's dedication to rigorous
scholarship. * -H-Net Book Review *
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