English Language and Literature Commons^™

Charles Gibson And Indian Territory's Periodical Press, Tereza M. Szeghi

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

I argue that Charles Gibson (Creek writer and journalist) offers an important but woefully understudied voice of resistance to the changes imposed upon the tribes of Indian Territory around the turn of the 20th century (such as forced allotment of tribal lands, dissolution of tribal governments, and Oklahoma statehood). In his regular column, “Rifle Shots,” Gibson offered a dynamic space in which to process and comment upon these changes. More specifically, while Gibson was quite outspoken in his critiques of the ways in which U.S. policies threatened Creeks’ sovereignty, culture, and well-being, his column also frequently contained reworkings of traditional …

Why Love Matters For Human Rights, Lena Khor

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Human rights are typically thought of as a matter of justice, but I argue that at its core, human rights are a matter of love. To develop this argument, I analyze select literary representations of human rights at work including Dave Eggers’ What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, a Novel (2006) and Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World (2003). My concept of love builds on the vision of “open love” proposed by French philosopher Henri Bergson in The Two Sources of Morality and Religion …

Transformations Of Free Movement: Syrian Refugee Rights Within Neoliberal Signal Territories, Jordan Hayes

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Alongside representations of the fractious civil conflict in Syria, our media frequently depict victims of forced displacement using their smartphones. In October 2015, Time published images of refugees taking selfies after making the journey from the Turkish coast to Lesbos, Greece. These images show refugees using mobile devices to enjoy human rights like the freedoms of expression and movement. Absent is the state sanction implied by UN compacts such as the 1951 Refugee Convention.

This paper situates these representations, recent scholarship, and my own fieldwork with Syrian refugees sheltering in the Kurdish Region of Iraq within an analysis of human …

Indigenous Rights In The Trump Era, Tereza M. Szeghi

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This paper examines the ways in which the Dakota Access Pipeline and the related protests were divergently covered in mainstream versus alternative news sources and what this divergent coverage suggests about the current status of American Indian affairs and the role of American Indians in the U.S. cultural imaginary. Moreover, the paper will address the status of American Indian tribal sovereignty in the Trump era more broadly, with particular focus on American Indians' treaty-related rights to self-determination in the use of their lands.