Back to top

The virtual human rights library brings together resources from multiple libraries and information services, both internal and external, to create an online hub dedicated to the study of human rights. This curation is unique in its interdisciplinary concerns and focuses on writings and research from social sciences, humanities, and law.

The virtual library is continually updated with the latest academic research in issue areas, as well as with relevant films, recorded conversations, and other forms of media.

Please Note:

The Virtual Library is usable by all visitors, but the hyperlinks to materials listed are for UChicago community members with a CNet ID and password.  

Please direct feedback and suggestions to Kathleen Cavanaugh
For technical assistance, email pozenhumanrights @ uchicago.edu.

Searchable Database

Click into the dropdowns to select the disciplines, keywords, and media type for your search, and then hit "Apply."

Themes and Topics

"Rescue of the Jews and the Resistance in France: From History to Historiography."

Renée Poznanski

Two obstacles blocked the incorporation of the rescue of Jews in France into the Resistance movement. The first, which can be traced back to the sources of the social imaginary, had to do with the fear of stirring the old...

 Restricted JSTOR

"Researching children’s rights in education: Sociology of childhood encountering educational theory."

Ann Quennerstedt, Mikael Quennerstedt

This paper aims to explore and develop a theoretical approach for children’s rights research in education formed through an encounter between the sociology of childhood and John Dewey’s educational theory. The interest is mainly methodological, in the sense that the...

"Resignation without relief: democratic governance and the relinquishing of parental rights."

Gillian Slee, Matthew Desmond

Sociologists have long studied the ways people resist oppression but have devoted far less empirical attention to the ways people resign to it. As a result, researchers have neglected the mechanisms of resignation and how people narrate their lived experiences...

"Resisting Globalization?: Turkey-EU Relations and Human and Political Rights in the Context of Cosmopolitan Democratization."

Chris Rumford

Turkey's relationship with the European Union (EU) is dominated by issues of democratization and human rights and is best approached from a perspective which understands the nature of the cosmopolitan regimes which work to regulate the democratic practices of nation-states...

 Restricted SageJournals

"Re‐thinking disability, work and welfare."

Colin Barnes

There is a wealth of evidence that disabled people experience far higher levels of unemployment and underemployment than non-disabled peers. Yet hitherto sociologists have paid scant attention to the structural causes of this issue. Drawing on a socio/political or social...

"Rights beyond Borders: The Global Community and the Struggle over Human Rights in China."

Foot Rosemary

Over the five decades since the establishment of the United Nations Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, issues of human rights have become a dominant feature of our global community. An acceptance has grown of the treatment of individuals...

"Romancing the Shadow: Poe and Race."

Liliane Weissberg

Edgar Allan Poe's strength as a writer lay in fabricating fantisies in settings far removed from his own place and time. This dislocation renders the attitudes embedded in his fiction open to interpretation, and over the years some readers have...

 Restricted Library E-book

"Salvador."

Joan Didion

“Terror is the given of the place.” The place is El Salvador in 1982, at the ghastly height of its civil war. Didion “brings the country to life” (The New York Times), delivering an anatomy of a particular...

 Restricted Library

"Salvation Versus Liberation: The Movement for Children's Rights in a Historical Context."

Cynthia Rae Margolin

I examine the current movement for children's rights in the United States in terms of the history of child saving, and of the recent events concerning human rights. I stress the conflicts between the salvation and liberation of children, especially...

 Restricted Oxford Acadmic

"Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools."

Jonathan Kozol

This book examines what is happening, in the context of segregated and unequal public education, to children from poor families in the inner cities and less affluent suburbs, and describes how children of poor families get less real education, less...

Join our mailing list to receive a weekly digest of Pozen-related news, opportunities, and events.