Translating Human Rights

What do people do with the notion of “human rights” in different sociopolitical contexts? In a world where political vocabularies are increasingly losing shared meaning, this undergraduate seminar explores the global circulation and use of human rights concepts through the lens of translation. Students will engage with diverse strands of social theory, linguistic anthropology, and ethnographic and historical work that help us explore various dimensions of translation—such as linguistic glossing, discourse circulation, mediation and mediatization, colonial knowledge practices and postcolonial critique, ethnographic representation, incommensurability, and regimes of (dis-)information. Special attention will be given to how these dynamics enable and circumscribe certain uses of human rights concepts, particularly the notion of freedom, in concrete and comparative situations. Through weekly reading responses, class discussions, and essays/presentations, students will identify real-world instances of translation and analyze their structures using the conceptual tools from the course readings. In doing so, they will develop critical skills in applying social theory to the political and ethical dimensions of contemporary life.