Waste Land assignment

In class yesterday, we talked about some of the ways in which the nation-state serves, for better or worse, to define our humanity, our relationships to other human beings, and hence our rights and responsibilities. As Catherine pointed out the nation-state is a fiction: that is, it’s a social construction (akin to a novel or a painting), not a natural fact (like, say, DNA or the force of gravity). To say that the nation-state is a fiction, not a natural fact, is not to say that it’s not real; rather, it is to say that the nation-state is not a timeless, inescapable feature of life on earth, like wind, or rain, or the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but one among the many possible and actual ways that human beings have organized themselves into societies. There have been — and are — alternatives.

 For next class, please view the film Waste Land (on DU Course Media) and write a 300–500-word response to ONE of the following questions:

1. How do the artistic fictions we see created in the film serve to criticize, support, or otherwise comment upon the political/legal fiction of the nation-state?

OR

2. What is ONE alternative form of social organization to the nation-state that the film explicitly or implicitly explores? Do you think that alternative is more just than the nation-state or less just? And why?

N.B. There’s no reading for this week, only viewing.

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: