Bullock-on assignment 05 and the midterm
In light of our discussion last night about the midterm exam, I re-read your posts this morning on Hunt and Moyn.
In assignment 1, many of you focused on the promise of “human rights” that Hunt attributes to documents like the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. Others of you cannot move beyond the contradictions of these documents that proclaim equality yet do not address all of humanity. Both of these issues are addressed by Hunt. The midterm asks you to consider the relationship of “human rights” to “the rights of man,” a relationship that is treated differently by Lynn Hunt and Samuel Moyn. To understand Hunt’s argument, I recommend reviewing pages 18-19.
Re-reading your responses to Moyn, for assignment 4, several of you underline his point that “the rights of man” are joined to the creation of states and nations. This is a point that he stresses when he argues that human rights should be distinguished from the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. He argues that we must pay attention to the political and economic circumstances surrounding the broader appeal for human rights that emerged in the 1970s. (One place he makes this argument is on page 12. You might also re-read pages 42-43.) Human rights are different from the rights of man, as Moyn explains in conclusion to chapter 1, as they refer to rights that would be placed above the state and nation.
In the chapter we read from her book, Transnational America, Inderpal Grewal begins by underlining that human rights discourse is a relatively new idea: “the only way to address issues of social justice, oppression, and inequality within states and across them” (2005:121). As you consider the relationship of her work to Moyn’s and Hunt’s, I encourage you to re-read pages 123-124 (especially the questions she raises on these pages). Here Grewal considers human rights discourse as a way of understanding relationships among states in a global world. She refers to these relationships as “techniques of governmentality,” a term that signals her view that “human rights” have some positive but also negative implications. I also recommend looking again at pages 126-130. On these pages she notes that the idea of “women’s rights as human rights” gained currency among diverse groups, including the U.S. State Department and rebel groups around the world.
I hope this helps guide you as you begin to prepare for the midterm. Please bring your questions about the exam to class next week or post them on WordPress.
