Trailers and previews of our course texts

Here are some sneak peaks from/about the texts we'll be reading and viewing in class this fall.

Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights.
From the publisher: How were human rights invented, and how does their tumultuous history influence their perception and our ability to protect them today? From Professor Lynn Hunt comes this extraordinary cultural and intellectual history, which traces the roots of human rights to the rejection of torture as a means for finding the truth. She demonstrates how ideas of human relationships portrayed in novels and art helped spread these new ideals far and wide. Hunt also shows the continued relevance of human rights in today's world.



Here's a lecture that Hunt recently gave, summarizing the main argument made in Inventing Human Rights:



Emmanuel Guibert and Didier Lefèvre, The Photographer.
From the publisher: In 1986, Afghanistan was torn apart by a war with the Soviet Union. This graphic novel/photo-journal is a record of one reporter's arduous and dangerous journey through Afghanistan accompanying the Doctors Without Borders. Didier Lefèvre’s photography, paired with the art of Emmanuel Guibert, tells the powerful story of a mission undertaken by men and women dedicated to mending the wounds of war.

Clipped from: www.firstsecondbooks.com (share this clip)

Here's a short piece about how The Photographer was made:




Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness.
From the publisher: The compelling autobiography of a remarkable Catholic woman, sainted by many, who championed the rights of the poor in America's inner cities.

Clipped from: books.google.com (share this clip)

Michael Winterbottom, The Road to Guantanamo.
From IMDB: Part drama, part documentary, The Road to Guantánamo focuses on the Tipton Three, a trio of British Muslims who were held in Guantanamo Bay for two years until they were released without charge.



Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63.
From the publisher: In Parting The Waters, Taylor Branch has created an unparalleled epic of America in the midst of change, poised on the threshold of its most explosive era. Here is a vivid, panoramic portrait of America divided, at war with itself, and finally transformed by a struggle that left no citizen untouched – the civil rights movement, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., borne by the spirit of a generation of young black leaders determined to seize equality and justice.



Kate Burns and Sheila E. Schroeder, SoleJourney.
From the film's website: SoleJourney documents the stories of brave families and individuals from across the United States who have joined the Soulforce movement to confront the dangerous anti-LGBT rhetoric and politics of Dr. James Dobson and Focus on the Family, headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado.



Rebecca Cammisa, Which Way Home.
From the film's website: As the United States continues to build a wall between itself and Mexico, Which Way Home shows the personal side of immigration through the eyes of children who face harrowing dangers with enormous courage and resourcefulness as they endeavor to make it to the United States.



Lucy Walker, Waste Land.
From the film's website: Filmed over nearly three years, Waste Land follows renowned artist Vik Muniz as he journeys from his home base in Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world's largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. There he photographs an eclectic band of “catadores”—self-designated pickers of recyclable materials. Muniz’s initial objective was to “paint” the catadores with garbage. However, his collaboration with these inspiring characters as they recreate photographic images of themselves out of garbage reveals both the dignity and despair of the catadores as they begin to re-imagine their lives.