BAA Conference 2018

THE STATE OF HUMAN RIGHTS: HISTORICAL GENEALOGIES, POLITICAL CONTROVERSIES, AND CULTURAL IMAGINARIES 

Thursday, 5 July - Saturday, 7 July 2018

Since their proclamation in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, human rights have become a dominant language in controversies over ethics around the globe and a normative basis for concepts of a just society and ideas of the public good. This concerns a variety of issues, from slavery and warfare through fights over indigenous rights and disputes over preserving the heritage of minorities, to same sex marriage debates or current conflicts over asylum law and the status of refugees.

 

What is the state of human rights both within and beyond the boundaries of the nation state and how can it be considered from a multidisciplinary angle? 

 

This conference offers perspectives from literary and cultural studies, history, political science, philosophy, sociology, and law, looking at historical controversies on human rights as well as at its current political and imagined state(s). Contributions reflect theoretical implications of interdisciplinary work on human rights agency and also take into account the significance of cultural texts in envisioning and critically reflecting the ‘state of human rights’. 

 

The BAA’s 2018 international conference investigates the role of human rights, both in diachronic and synchronic perspectives and with an interdisciplinary research design. 

 

 

No conference fee - please register for participation at info@amerika-akademie.de

Venue: Amerikahaus München, Barer Str. 19 a

Fon: +49 89 55 25 37-41 / -42

Downloads

Conference Program (1.104 KB)

Abstracts & Bios Booklet (373 KB)

Poster (210 KB)

 

 

 

Conference Program

Thursday, 5 July 2018

13.30 Registration

 

14.00 Young Scholars Panel: Human Rights

Chair: Kerstin Schmidt (University of Eichstaett-Ingolstadt)

• Florian Tatschner (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)
  "We Seek Our Basic, God-Given Rights as Human Beings": Hoping for Human Rights in the Work of César Chávez
• Suncica Klaas (University of Potsdam)
  Writing Wrongs – Righting Wrongs: Human Rights and Testimoniality in the Contemporary American Autobiography
• Katharina Matuschek (University of Regensburg)
  “These People are Animals": Dehumanization and the Effort to Regain Humanity in Prison Autobiographies”

15.30 Coffee Break

• Lars Vadjina (University of Tuebingen)
  Human Rights and Jimmy Carter: On a Mission to Change the World
• Robin Oliver Leick (University of Munich, LMU)
  The Bumpy Development of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union as a Prime Example of the Genesis of Human Rights Codifications

17.30 Coffee Break

 

18.00 Conference Opening

Welcome

• Heike Paul, Bavarian American Academy, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
• Stephen Ibelli, U.S. Consulate General Munich                                                               

Award Ceremony: BAA Dissertation Award

 

19.00 Keynote Address

• Saskia Sassen (Columbia University)
  Toward a New Language of Human Rights

Reception

 

Friday, 6 July 2018

09.00 Panel I: Inventing Human Rights in the Pre-Modern Era

Chair: Prof. Dr. Volker Depkat (University of Regensburg)

• Kerstin von Lingen (University of Heidelberg/ University of Vienna) 
  The Legacy of the Marten's Clause: Debating Crimes Against Civilians, 1899-1945 
• Micheline Ishay (University of Denver)
  Human Rights in the Age of Populism

 

10.30 Coffee Break

 

11.00 Panel II: Democracy and the Quest for Human Rights in Troubled Times
Chair: Jürgen Gebhardt (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)

• Benjamin Gregg (University of Texas at Austin) 
  The Human Rights State Within And Beyond Sovereign Nations 
  
• Regina Kreide (University of Gießen) 
  Human Rights as Placeholders: Between Legitimacy and Criticism

 

12.30 Lunch Break

  

14.00 Panel III: 'Rights on Paper': Intersections between Literature and Human Rights

Chair: Kerstin Schmidt (University of Eichstaett-Ingolstadt)

• Greta Olson (University of Gießen) 
  From Law and Literature to Literature and Human Rights
• Crystal Parikh (New York University) 
  "I Haven't Come Back... I've Come Here": American Innocence and the Refugee Child
• Martin Puchner (Harvard University)
  Cultural Rights and World Literature

 

16.00 Coffee Break

 

16.30 Panel IV: The Cultural Imaginary of Human Rights after World War II in a Transatlantic Perspective

Chair: Heike Paul (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)

• Jane Lydon(University of Western Australia)
• Visualizing Human Rights and Constructions of Indigeneity: UNESCO’s Human Rights Exhibition in Australia, 1951 – The Shared Visual Language of Photography?
• Gerd Hurm (University of Trier)
  “The Family of Man” (1848/1955): Feminist Foremothers, Women’s Rights, and Human Rights

 

18.30 BAA Members Meeting (members only)

 

Saturday, 7 July 2017

10.00 Panel V: Civil Rights and Law

Chair: Erik E. Lehmann (University of Augsburg)

• Peter T. Wendel (Pepperdine School of Law)
  Civil Rights and Law in the U.S.: Historical Roots and Recent Developments
• Thomas M.J. Möllers (University of Augsburg)
  A Comparative and Critical View of Civil Rights and Law in the U.S. and Germany

 

12.00 Concluding Keynote

Chair: Heike Paul (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)

• Heiner Bielefeldt (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)
  Human Rights: Practice and Philosophy

 

13.00 End of Conference

  
The 18^th International Academy Conference is organized by the Bavarian American Academy (BAA) and supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the U.S. Consulate General Munich.