by Chloë Moore ’24
Last month, SUNY Press published a new book called Technologies of Human Rights Representation. It is co-edited by our very own Professor Jim Dawes and Binghamton University English Professor Alexandra Moore, the mother of this reporter—we promise there is still journalistic integrity. The book’s title plays on the use of “technology” and “representation” to show that, “How we understand human rights depends on the technologies through which claims are made and violations are recorded, and who is represented and how they are represented,” according to Dr. Moore (who graciously conducted this interview via FaceTime while I ate ramen in my dorm). This understanding opens up a new range of narrative devices through which, according to Prof. Dawes, “The field [of literature and human rights] can think about expanding the forms of representation that are considered, for example, sonnets, military photos, after-incident reports,” in addition to traditional literary narratives.
A bit of necessary context: some thirteen years ago, Drs. Moore and Dawes began developing the field of human rights literature together, and have been intellectual colleagues and friends since then. I can confirm this—it was a dinner with Prof. Dawes that led me to apply to Macalester.
Of choosing Prof. Dawes as her co-editor, Dr. Moore said, “I’ve been a long-time admirer of Jim’s work. He’s a deeply elegant thinker and writer… a brilliant editorial voice… his writerly voice is very transdisciplinary. Jim has been doing work on AI human rights violations and has research excellence in this area, where my work was broader, so it was nice to have his expertise.” For his part, Prof. Dawes asked me to print the following: “Your mom was the real captain of the project. She invited me on board. She’s my boss.” In researching this piece, I saw a genuine intellectual friendship (although it is sometimes a bit awkward to hear your professor referred to on a first-name basis). It’s a strange butterfly effect to think that if these two English professors hadn’t become interlocutors, I might not be writing these words to you, my beloved Words reader.
Back to the task at hand. The idea for the book stemmed from the launch event of the Binghamton University Human Rights Institute (which Dr. Moore directs), a conference on technologies of human rights representation. While rooted in the conversation that started at the event, the book is far from a volume of conference proceedings. It had the backing of SUNY Press from the get-go, and the contributors were invited by Dr. Moore after the conference.
The book chapters span fields and themes, but the last three in particular broaden the literary techniques we can use to consider how human rights are represented. The chapters—”Contested Memories: The Intimate Public and Technologies of Affect in Memorializing Holocaust Trauma” by Barbara LeSavoy and Donna Kowal, “Grieving, Breathing, Keeping Time: Rights, Sequences, and Sonnetic ‘Enfleshment'” by Hanna Musiol, and “The Right to Securitization” by Peter Hitchcock—draw on traditional literary criticism, as well as WGSS (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies) and the humanities more generally.
The book is an important step in helping the field of human rights literature to continually expand and evolve. It also gels with Prof. Dawes’ current work on climate change. As he put it, “The climate crisis has dire effects on human rights, so bringing the human rights framework and our coalitions to climate work is important.” And because it’s an edited collection, with each chapter making its own claim, it lays the foundations for plenty of potential policy interventions in the future, ranging from combating the influence of junk science to working on immigration control in Europe. In short, it’s an exciting time to be doing this work, and Drs. Moore and Dawes are leading the way.
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The Words thanks Prof. Dawes for providing an interview, and Dr. Moore for sharing her thoughts, as well as raising, feeding, and clothing this writer so they could come to Macalester.
The author with Dr. Moore (and unfortunately, without their glasses).