Human Rights, Inc.

Rethinking the Romance Genre

“…67 Yet, Nayantara Sahgal has not faced the same scrutiny for her deployment of romance as Ahdaf Soueif. A key reason for this, I would argue, is her legibility within the languages and literary traditions associated with the postcolonial nation-state.…”

Writing and rights

“…23 This is to interrogate the different ways in which writing and rights share what Slaughter calls a 'deep narrative grammar'. 24 Each of the terms that give this volume its title -'writing', 'rights' -has its own history. Categories such as humanitarianism, empathy, humanity, rights, writing, literature are not givens or grounds out of which knowledge is produced -a construction which would see knowledge as following a trajectory plotted in advance.…”

The Rhetorical Question of Human Rights—A Preface

“…20 There is a great deal happening in this claim about a ''literary and legal collusion'' that, according to Slaughter, supports the ''enabling fiction'' and assertion of human rights. 21 Yet, if this interplay is deemed to unfold through the figuration of common sentiment, the question that remains is the larger rhetorical question of how language is called to ask after the ''taking place'' of language. 22 How does human rights discourse announce (its) language as a question to which it is (mis)addressed?…”