{"product_id":"writing-human-rights-crystal-parikh-9780816697069","title":"Writing Human Rights: The Political Imaginaries of Writers of Color","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe legal texts and aspirational ideals of human rights are usually understood and applied in a global context with little bearing on the legal discourse, domestic political struggles, or social justice concerns within the United States. In \u003ci\u003eWriting Human Rights\u003c\/i\u003e, Crystal Parikh uses the international human rights regime to read works by contemporary American writers of color--Toni Morrison, Chang-rae Lee, Ana Castillo, Aimee Phan, and others--to explore the conditions under which new norms, more capacious formulations of rights, and alternative kinds of political communities emerge.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eParikh contends that unlike humanitarianism, which views its objects as victims, human rights provide avenues for the creation of political subjects. Pairing the ethical deliberations in such works as \u003ci\u003eBeloved\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eA Gesture Life\u003c\/i\u003e with human rights texts like the United Nations Convention Against Torture, she considers why principles articulated as rights in international conventions and treaties--such as the right to self-determination or the right to family--are too often disregarded at home. Human rights concepts instead provide writers of color with a deeply meaningful method for political and moral imagining in their literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAffiliating transnational works of American literature with decolonization, socialist, and other political struggles in the global south, this book illuminates a human rights critique of idealized American rights and freedoms that have been globalized in the twenty-first century. In the absence of domestic human rights enforcement, these literatures provide a considerable repository for those ways of life and subjects of rights made otherwise impossible in the present antidemocratic moment.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Crystal Parikh\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 081669706X\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780816697069\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Minnesota Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/17\/2017\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 344\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.05lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.40h x 5.50w x 1.00d","brand":"Crystal Parikh","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48086952280319,"sku":"9780816697069","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_57ec3cdd-827f-4d26-a45f-7284653e5a63.jpg?v=1769097444","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/writing-human-rights-crystal-parikh-9780816697069","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}