A Bee with an Electronic Brain: Drone Flights in Cold War America

July 25, 2015 by
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In 1953, a press release by Ryan Aeronautical promoted a previously classified drone with a headline touting the pilotless plane as a “bee with an electronic brain.” Known as the Firebee, the unmanned, jet-powered aircraft trained anti-aircraft gunners in all branches of the U.S. military. Today drones continue to serve as practice targets, even though lethal models deployed by the military dominate the popular imaginary. In the Cold War, however, the bee-like drones generated relatively little public interest; compared with other aerospace developments of the period, Continue reading → Continue reading →

The Banality of Goodness: Humanitarianism between the Ethics of Showing and the Ethics of Seeing

July 25, 2015 by
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The Ironic Spectator: Solidarity in the Age of Post-Humanitarianism Lilie Chouliaraki Cambridge: Polity, 2013. ix + 238 pp. The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence Susie Linfield Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. xiii + 321 pp. Contemporary forms of humanitarianism began to emerge in Europe and the Americas in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, originating from a mixture of religious and Enlightenment ideas.1 In a context marked by the rapid rise of industrialization, urbanization, and market expansion, and the development of modern nation-states, Continue reading → Continue reading →

When We Talk about Human Rights

July 25, 2015 by
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The Language of Human Rights in West Germany Lora Wildenthal Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. 1 + 277 pp. Human Rights in our Own Backyard: Injustice and Resistance in the United States William T Armaline, Bandana Purkayastha, Davita Silfen Glasberg Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. xiv + 325 pp. The Language of Human Rights How do we know we’re talking about the same thing when we invoke human rights? Standard definitions of human rights point to the protection of basic human dignity and Continue reading → Continue reading →

Birth from Death

July 10, 2015 by
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There is this great anecdote that Gershom Scholem tells at the end of his monumental Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. It speaks of the Baal Shem Tov, the eighteenth-century founder of Hasidism, who, when he had “a difficult task before him . . ., would go to a certain place in the woods, light a fire and meditate in prayer — and what he had set out to perform was done.” The tale follows the slow, generational loss of the elements that ensure successful results Continue reading →

Floors, Ceilings, and Beams: What’s Missing in Moyn’s Account of Inequality

June 23, 2015 by
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At the heart of his provocative essay, Samuel Moyn highlights the shortcomings of the human rights framework to confront socioeconomic inequality. His central argument asserts that human rights norms articulate the minimal obligations of states to protect the poor but say nothing about the excesses of wealth, therefore accommodating a neoliberal ideology that fundamentally threatens human dignity. In my view, Moyn produces a brief but inadequate description of human rights provisions for social welfare (floors), overlooks some recent attempts at placing limits on accumulation (ceilings), Continue reading →

Human rights and the age of inequality

May 26, 2015 by
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Some new research I am doing considers what — if anything — the explosion of human rights politics in our time has to do with our recently confirmed explosion of inequality across the same time period. An initial progress report appears in this weeks’s review section of the “Chronicle of Higher Education.” What do you think?

The Abused Politics of “Minorities” and “Majorities”: Quantifiable Entities or Shifting Sites of Power?

May 4, 2015 by
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Scholars, pundits, opinion-makers, and the general public too often agree that the primary concern to address today in the contemporary Middle East is religious diversity and the need to protect religious minorities. As a result, the so-called religious minorities have gradually come to constitute a fundamental feature of state politics. They are usually depicted and discussed as unchangeable entities presenting coherent political assets in international affairs, as well as analytical categories through which a more immediate understanding of the Middle Eastern scenario is finally possible. This Continue reading →

Feed the World or Fight for Justice (or Both)?

April 30, 2015 by
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This is one entry in a roundtable on the NIEO, featuring short articles by scholars who contributed to Humanity’s recent special issue on the topic. Be sure to read other posts by Johanna Bockman and Patrick Sharma. A conference centre in the small town of Haslemere, 43 miles south-west of central London, is an unlikely place to start a revolution. But it was there, in January 1968, that a group of twenty-five “young and disillusioned” members of Britain’s NGO sector (acting in an individual capacity, but happy to be recognised as Continue reading →

The first constitution to make human dignity its leading principle was…

April 23, 2015 by
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…the Vichy constitution of 1944.   Its first article read: “The liberty and dignity of the human person are supreme values and intangible goods.”   I have recently been looking into this, on a tip from James Chappel, with help from my research assistant Rachel Craft, and advice from my honored former colleague Bob Paxton. In case it is of general interest, or anyone out there knows more, I am reporting my findings here, which I am incorporating in the final version of my historical Continue reading →

Conference on International Law and Time: Registration Open

April 23, 2015 by
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The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, International Law Department, is holding a conference entitled “International Law and Time” in Geneva, Switzerland, from 12-13 June 2015. Registration for the conference is now open. The programme features the following panels: Attributing Meaning to Time: Visions of History and Future Role of Time in the Creation of Norms Time and the Operation of International Law Norms International Law between Change and Stability Continuity, Discontinuity, Recurrence Dealing with the Past: Legacy, Retroactivity and Beyond The conveners can Continue reading →

Current Issue

Our long-awaited issue of Humanity journal is out! Its special dossier, Iran under Sanctions, examines the myriad and devastating impacts of international sanctions on society, culture, and politics. The issue includes an essay on the legal case Herero and Nama v. The Federal Republic of Germany to theorize reparations for German colonialism and slavery as they became linked with the aftermath of the Shoah. It also includes essays on T.H. Marshall and the right of access to justice; visual representations of Armenian genocide survivors; and, the concept of radical friendship in relation to the Farmers’ Protests in India.

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