The South Atlantic Quarterly Spring/Summer 2004

by Balfour, Ian; Cadava, Eduardo

• ISBN13: 9780822365648
• ISBN10: 0822365642
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-05-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

Questions of human rights are among the most pressing and intractable matters at this historical moment. If claims to human rights are by definition universal, the formulation, legislation, and implementation of them tend to be significantly less than universal.And Justice for All?examines the idea and the reality of human rights and their attendant discourses. The essays gathered here-from academics and activists working in law, philosophy, political theory, literature, medicine, and NGOs-collectively interrogate these universal claims to human rights and the political justice that may or may not follow from them.Grappling with the philosophical and theoretical questions at the heart of human rights, these essays take into consideration current political configurations such as sovereignty, genocide, humanitarian intervention, and the neglected domain of cultural rights (the right to a cultural identity). Drawing on Enlightenment thinking about human rights at the same time that they analyze the central concepts at work there-including the "humanity of man" and the nature of rights or of law-the contributors make a necessary intervention in a world system that Enlightenment thinkers could scarcely have envisioned.Contributors: Etienne Balibar; Rony Brauman; Wendy Brown; Rebecca Comay; Jacques Derrida; Paul Downes; Werner Hamacher; Amy Kapczynski; Thomas Keenan; Susan Maslan; Jacques Rancière; Bruce Robbins; Avital Ronell; Elsa Stamatopoulou; Kendall Thomas; Slavoj Zizek

Table of Contents

SPECIAL ISSUE EDITORS: IAN BALFOUR AND EDUARDO CADAVA
The Claims of Human Rights: An Introduction	277	(20)
IAN BALFOUR AND EDUARDO CADAVA
Who Is the Subject of the Rights of Man?	297	(14)
JACQUES RANCIÈRE
Is a Philosophy of Human Civic Rights Possible? New Reflections on Equaliberty	311	(12)
ÉTIENNE BALIBAR
The Last of the Rogue States: The "Democracy to Come," Opening in Two Turns	323	(20)
JACQUES DERRIDA
The Right to Have Rights (Four-and-a-Half Remarks)	343	(14)
WERNER HAMACHER
The Anti-Human: Man and Citizen before the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen	357	(18)
SUSAN MASLAN
Dead Right: Hegel and the Terror	375	(22)
REBECCA COMAY
From Philanthropy to Humanitarianism: Remarks and an Interview	397	(22)
RONY BRAUMAN
Reflections on Culture and Cultural Rights	419	(16)
BRUCE ROBBINS AND ELSA STAMATOPOULOU
Mobilizing Shame	435	(16)
THOMAS KEENAN
"The Most We Can Hope For...": Human Rights and the Politics of Fatalism	451	(14)
WENDY BROWN
Melville's Benito Cereno and the Politics of Humanitarian Intervention	465	(24)
PAUL DOWNES
The Testamentary Whimper	489	(12)
AVITAL RONELL
From Politics to Biopolitics...and Back	501	(22)
SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK
Righting Wrongs	523	(60)
GAYATRI CHAKRAVORTY SPIVAK
Internet Resources	583	(2)
Notes on Contributors	585