Fiction and Human Rights
About
This network was funded from January 2015 to January 2017.
When the concerns of the real world are so pressing, what on earth do imagined worlds have to offer?
Fiction and Human Rights is Oxford University’s first collaborative network between the faculties of English and Law. Its specific focus is on the relationship between the novel – in its many languages, forms and politics – and the legal/political discourse of human rights.
Our aim was to generate an interdisciplinary discussion addressing the ways in which the Humanities can contribute to the public sphere and the theoretical, aesthetic or ‘humanist’ issues which underpin legal discourse and practice.
Our inaugural one-day symposium was held in November 2015. Entitled ‘Dignity and the Novel Since 1948', it explored how the ever-evolving themes and forms of the modern novel correspond to the status and function of human dignity as represented in contemporary legal theory and practice. A report on the event can be found here.
For more information:
Subscribe to our mailing list by sending a blank email to fictionandhumanrights-subscribe@maillist.ox.ac.uk*
Contact us at tessa.roynon@ell.ox.ac.uk
General
Network co-convenors: Tessa Roynon and Jonathan Herring
Steering group members: Charles Foster, and Michelle Kelly
*Please note that you will receive an email requesting you to authenticate your joining the list.
This network continues to be promoted by TORCH, but is now hosted by the Bonavero Institute for Human Rights
People
Events
Past Events
Dignity and the Novel Since 1948 (November 2015)
Panel 1 Why Fiction and Human Rights? Why Dignity?
Panel 2 Narrative and Genocide
Panel 3 Novel Rights and Wrongs
Hijacking Human Rights: The Rise of Terrorism and the End of National Liberation (February 2016)
A Postcolonial Writing and Theory Seminar with Joseph Slaughter (Columbia)
Beyond the Bildungsroman? (May 2016)
A seminar on ''Beyond the Bildungsroman? Creating Free Agents Today'. Two critically-acclaimed novelists discussed the way selfhood and autonomy are represented in their latest works.
Elleke Boehmer: The Shouting in the Dark (2015)
Irenosen Okojie: Butterfly Fish (2015)
Writers, Rights, Institutions (June 2016)
A one-day conference on the institutional relationships between literature and human rights, with a concluding panel featuring Larry Siems, editor of Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s Guantanamo Diary, and Ann Harrison, PEN International.
Speakers included: David Attwell (York), Sarah Colvin (Cambridge), Poul Duedahl (Aalborg), Michael Holland (University of Oxford), Peter McDonald (University of Oxford), Marina MacKay (University of Oxford), Emilie Morin (York), Rachel Potter (UEA), Asha Rogers (QMUL), Lyndsey Stonebridge (UEA), and Preti Taneja (Cambridge University).
Urban Comix: Collaboration, Production, Resistance (November 2016)
Part of the Postcolonial Writing and Theory seminar series with Dominic Davies (University of Oxford).
Drawing the Line: Toward an Aesthetic of Transitional Justice (November 2016)
A Postcolonial Writing and Theory Seminar with speaker Carrol Clarkson (University of Amsterdam)
Law and Ethics in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (2005) (November 2016)
A seminar hosted by TORCH Fiction and Human Rights, along with the Medical Law and Ethics Discussion Group (Faculty of Law). Introductory presentations by Michelle Kelly (English) and Imogen Goold (Law) followed by extensive audience discussion.
Edwidge Danticat: Creating Dangerously (January 2017)
A seminar on the Haitian-American novelist Edwidge Danticat, asking what it means to ‘create dangerously’ and examining the role of the ‘immigrant artist’ in an increasingly globalized culture.
Presenters:
Charles Forsdick, Professor of French at the University of Liverpool
Jemima Paine, MSt student in French and English
Chair: Tessa Roynon
Law and Aesthetics in Ian McEwan's The Children Act (February 2017)
Speakers:
Lucinda Ferguson (Faculty of Law, University of Oxford)
Tessa Roynon (Faculty of English, University of Oxford)
Followed by extensive discussion with ample opportunity for audience participation.
Comics and Human Rights (March 2017)
A lecture that explored the relationship between comics and human rights.
Speakers:
Ruth Kelly (Programme Policy Manager of the NGO ActionAid)
Ben Dix (Senior Fellow at SOAS and founder of the PositiveNegatives project)
Dominic Davies (University of Oxford)
Chair: Tessa Roynon (University of Oxford)
TORCH Fiction and Human Rights Network (April 2017)
We hosted a series of lunchtime seminars on the topic of Storytelling and the Law. Short presentations by the speakers were followed by questions and discussion.
Seminar 1 (April 2017) focused on Edward Carson’s opening speech for the defence in the famous case of Oscar Wilde v the Marquess of Queensberry.
Discussion led by:
Charles Foster (Law, Green Templeton)
Peter McDonald (English, St Hugh’s)
Michèle Mendelssohn (English, Mansfield)
Chair: Michelle Kelly (English)
Seminar 2 (June 2017) discussed the judgment of Lord Justice Leveson in the case of Justine McNally v The Queen, a case framed by the court as an alleged sexual assault involving a "woman" purporting to be a "man".
Speakers from Law and English:
Rachel Clements (Law)
Jonathan Herring (Law, Exeter)
Emelia Quinn (English, Wolfson)
David Russell (English, Corpus Christi)
Chair: Michelle Kelly
Great Writers Inspire at Home: Readers and Readings (April - June 2017)
We hosted nine seminars as part of the Postcolonial Writing and Theory seminar series Trinity Term 2017.
1. 'Readers and Readings' with Professor Elleke Boehmer (Director of TORCH) and Erica Lombard(University of Oxford).
2. Kamila Shamsie, author of six novels, in conversation with Elleke Boehmer and also read from her most recent novel, A God in Every Stone (2014).
3. Bernardine Evaristo in conversation with Zoe Norridge and Marsha Hutchinson about her verse novel, The Emperor’s Babe (2001), which tells the story of a black girl growing up in Roman London in 211 AD.
4. Daljit Nagra In dialogue with Rachael Gilmour. He read from and spoke about his debut collection, Look We Have Coming to Dover! (2007).
5. D-Empress Dianne Regisford, Local Oxford performance poet,presented a performance installation piece entitled ‘Hersto-Rhetoric? Na so today!!!’.
6. Nadifa Mohamed one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists 2013, in dialogue with ‘Africa in Words’ editor Kate Haines focusing on her debut novel, Black Mamba Boy (2010).
7. Aminatta Forna: Her Commonwealth Writers’ Prize-winning novel, The Memory of Love (2010), set in post-war Sierra Leone, formed the basis of the discussion with Ankhi Mukherjee.
8. Editors Susheila Nasta and Mark Stein in conversation with contributors Gail Low, Henghameh Saroukhani and Florian Stadtler about their forthcoming Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing.
9. M. NourbeSe Philip, a poet, novelist and lawyer, born in Tobago but now based in Canada, in a panel discussion with Marina Warner, Matthew Reynolds and Elleke Boehmer.
Volcanoes (May 2017)
A panel discussion where researchers on Caribbean literature reflected on the Bodleian Library Volcanoes exhibition.
Speakers from the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages:
Richard Scholar, Annie Castro, Vanessa Lee, Jemima Paine
Chair: Imaobong Umoren (Faculty of History)
The International Ralph Ellison Symposium (September 2017)
A Discussion of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (January 2018)
Speakers:
Tom White (Faculty of English); Liz Fisher (Faculty of Law)
A discussion of Petina Gappah's 'The Book of Memory' (May 2018)
Part of the Fiction and Human Rights Network seminar series, Trinity 2018
Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean lawyer and writer. This 2015 novel explores the experiences and consciousness of a woman on death row in Chikurubi prison, Harare.
Speakers:
Jonathan Herring (Law, University of Oxford )
Nicholas Queffurus (African studies, University of Oxford)
A Discussion of Svetlana Alexievich’s Chernobyl Prayer (June 2018)
Speakers:
Catherine Gilbert (Faculty of English Language and Literature)
Sanja Bogojevic (Faculty of Law)
Migrants and refugees in Germany: Go, Went, Gone (November 2018)
A discussion of Jenny Erpenbeck's novel about migrants and refugees in Germany: Go, Went, Gone
The discussion was led by Tessa Roynon the Research and Teaching Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute and a member of the English Faculty.
Oxford Children's Rights and Fiction (February 2019)
Oxford Children's Rights Network and the Fiction & Human Rights Network co-hosted a discussion of the iconic children's novel, King Matt the First, by the Polish children's rights campaigner and activist, Janusz Korczak.
Fiction & Human Rights Network: Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis (May 2019)
A discussion organised by the Fiction and Human Rights Network of 'Zorba the Greek', Nikos Kazantzakis' classic 1952 novel on friendship and self-discovery.
Discussion led by:
Charles Foster, Faculty of Law, Oxford
Rachel Thanassoulis, a teacher and writer
Film Screening: The Foreigner's Home (June 2019)
A screening of the 2018 short film, The Foreigner's Home, directed by R. Brown and G. Pingree. The documentary centres of the work of African American author Toni Morrison when she was a guest curator at the Louvre in 2006.
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