We Shall Bear Witness: Life Narratives and Human Rights (Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography)

Personal testimonies are the life force of human rights work, and rights claims have brought profound power to the practice of life writing. This volume explores the connections and conversations between human rights and life writing through a dazzling, international collection of essays by survivor-writers, scholars, and human rights advocates. In We Shall Bear Witness, editors Meg Jensen and Margaretta Jolly assemble moving personal accounts from those who have endured persecution, imprisonment, and torture; meditations on experiences of injustice and protest by creative writers and filmmakers; and innovative research on ways that digital media, commodification, and geopolitics are shaping what is possible to hear and say. The book’s primary sections―testimony, recognition, representation, and justice―evoke the key stages in turning experience into a human rights life story and attend to such diverse and varied arts as autobiography, documentary film, report, oral history, blog, and verbatim theater. The result is a groundbreaking book that sensitively examines how life and rights narratives have become so powerfully entwined. Also included is an innovative guide to teaching human rights and life narrative in the classroom. Contents Foreword: Life Stories in a Human Rights Context - Mary Robinson Acknowledgments Introduction: Life/Rights Narrative in Action - Margaretta Jolly Part One. Testimony I-Witness - Annette Kobak Beyond Narrative: The Shape of Traumatic Testimony - Molly Andrews The Golden Cage: The Story of an Activist - Emin Milli The Price of Words - Nazeeha Saeed Out of the Inner Wilderness: Torture and Healing - Hector Aristizabal and Diane Lefer Part Two. Recognition Recognition - Eva Hoffman Protection - Gillian Whitlock The Justice of Listening: Japanese Leprosy Segregation - Michio Miyasaka Reimagining the Criminal, Reconfiguring Justice - Finola Farrant Part Three. Representation “I Hear the Approaching Thunder”: The Lyric Voice and Human Rights - Patricia Hampl The Fictional Is Political: Forms of Appeal in Autobiographical Fiction and Poetry - Meg Jensen Enter the King: Martin Luther King Jr., “Human Rights Heroism,” and Contemporary American Drama- Brian Phillips Témoignage and Responsibility in Photo/Graphic Narratives of Médecins Sans Frontières - Alexandra Schultheis Moore Representing Human Rights Violations in Multimedia Contexts- Katrina M. Powell Part Four. Justice Sugar Daddies or Agents for Change? Community Arts Workers and Justice for Girls “Who Just Want to Go to School” - Julia Watson E-witnessing in the Digital Age - Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith “Facebook Is Like a Religion Around Here”: Voices from the “Arab Spring” and the Policy-Making Community - Brian Brivati The Importance of Taking and Bearing Witness: Reflections on Twenty Years as a Human Rights Lawyer - mark Muller Part Five. Learning Using Life Narrative to Explore Human Rights Themes in the Classroom - Brian Brivati, Meg Jensen, Margaretta Jolly, and Alexandra Schultheis Moore Contributors Index "Personal testimonies are the life force of human rights work, and rights clams have brought profound power to the practice of life writing. This volume explores the connections and conversations between human rights and life writing through a dazzling, international collection of essays by survivor-writers, scholars, and human rights advocates. In We Shall Bear Witness, editors Meg Jensen and Margaretta Jolly assemble moving personal accounts from those who have endured persecution, imprisonment, and torture; meditations on experiences of injustice and protest by creative writers and filmmakers; and innovative research on ways that digital media, commodification, and geopolitics are shaping what is possible to hear and say. The book's primary sections--testimony, recognition, representation, and justice--evoke the key stages in turning experience into a human rights life story and attend to such diverse and varied arts as autobiography, documentary film, report, oral history, blog, and verbatim theater. The result is a groundbreaking book that sensitively examines how life and rights narratives have become so powerfully entwined. Also included is an innovative guide to teaching human rights and life narrative in the classroom."--Publisher's website Personal testimonies are the life force of human rights work, and rights claims have brought profound power to the practice of life writing. This volume explores the connections and conversations between human rights and life writing through a dazzling, international collection of essays by survivor-writers, scholars, and human rights advocates. In __We Shall Bear Witness__, editors Meg Jensen and Margaretta Jolly assemble moving personal accounts from those who have endured persecution, imprisonment, and torture; meditations on experiences of injustice and protest by creative writers and filmmakers; and innovative research on ways that digital media, commodification, and geopolitics are shaping what is possible to hear and say. The book’s primary sections―testimony, recognition, representation, and justice―evoke the key stages in turning experience into a human rights life story and attend to such diverse and varied arts as autobiography, documentary film, report, oral history, blog, and verbatim theater. The result is a groundbreaking book that sensitively examines how life and rights narratives have become so powerfully entwined. Also included is an innovative guide to teaching human rights and life narrative in the classroom. An International Array Of Human Rights Advocates, Scholars, And Survivor-writers Examine The Profound And Complex Impact Of Personal Testimony About Human Rights Abuses As Expressed Through Autobiography, Documentary Film, Report, Oral History, Blog, And Verbatim Theater.