The Rights War in Literature and Culture
From Literary Humanitarianism to Savior Victimism
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
The Rights War in Literature and Culture
From Literary Humanitarianism to Savior Victimism
About this book
Rights War tracks how the human rights framework is weaponized against the oppressed, and it makes the case for the central place of literature in understanding this seizure of narrative control. While literary humanitarianism depoliticizes suffering and positions the reader as a savior to traumatized Others, Rights War shows how contemporary fiction by women of color and queer writers across the African diaspora engage innovative narrative paradigms to address structural inequities. It analyzes strategies set out in this literature for disarming savior victimism, which it identifies as a pernicious cultural phenomenon in which the powerful proclaim themselves saviors to and victims of those they marginalize. As the disassociation of national rights from international human rights and the disconnection of civil and political rights from social and economic rights provoke a contest of victimhood, this book offers a renewed argument for the indivisibility of rights and the social justice function of literature.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover Page
- Endorsements Page
- Half-Title Page
- Series Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Credits
- Introduction: Barriers to Indivisibility and Intersectionality in Rights Formations
- 1 The Historical Arc of Institutionalized Racism and Rights in Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing and Claudia Rankine's Citizen
- 2 Examining Cultural Narratives of Misogynist Ethnonationalism in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah
- 3 Reimagining Literary Engagement with State Discourse on Rights in Racially Divided Societies with Zoë Wicomb's David's Story and Mecca Jamilah Sullivan's “Wolfpack”
- 4 Second- and Third-Generation Resistance to Neoliberal Imperialism in Michelle Cliff's No Telephone to Heaven and Chris Abani's GraceLand
- 5 Raced Configurations of Womanhood and Structures of Labor in Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy and Nicole Dennis-Benn's Here Comes the Sun
- Conclusion: Reading in Place: Insights from Alabama's Civil Rights Triangle
- Index