This seminar seeks to examine the cultural aspects that link human rights narratives with different representations of memory and postmemory, as they support new forms of citizenship construction in modern Latin America. The seminar will explore these narratives in relation to human rights advocacy and activism. Transmitting the past into the present through the study of memory in human rights narratives serve not only to explore the grievances against its citizens, but it also provides examples of how the construction of citizenship is cemented through solidarity and the collective struggle for justice. Within the realms of the discourses of humanities and social sciences, human rights narratives can be viewed as ethical and political laboratories in which contemporary problems in Latin America are presented and reflected upon.The novels, films, theater plays, and journalistic chronicles produced in the decades after the cold war, provide a fresh perspective into pressing cases of human rights violations that transcend borders, in a context which has been greatly impacted by the forces of globalization and neoliberalism. The purpose of this seminar is to study how larger political and cultural forces such as ongoing conflicts, femicides, migration, truth and reconciliation commissions, states of exception, and economic policies are contested through different forms of human rights narratives. We will also examine how such factors have influenced the understanding of issues of ethnicity, nation construction, identity, citizenship, postcoloniality, gender, and affect. This seminar will examine the links among human rights narratives and representations of memory, postmemory, and new forms of citizenship construction in modern Latin America. How are human rights conceptualized in an increasingly globalized Latin America? How do these narratives, like fiction, testimonio, poetry, theater plays, journalistic chronicles, support the citizens whose rights are being violated by governments, corporations, and criminal organizations? On the other hand, how are these narratives related to human rights advocacy?

About Nemla2016

Local Host Institution:
University of Connecticut

Hotel:
Marriott Hartford Downtown The Northeast Modern Language Association will meet in Hartford, Connecticut, for its 47th annual convention and will feature approximately 400 sessions, as well as dynamic speakers and cultural events.