Spectacular Rhetorics: Human Rights Visions, Recognitions, Feminisms

293 Pages·2011·2.187 MB·English

by  Wendy S. Hesford

spectacular rhetorics
S P E C T A C U L A R
Next Wave:
New Directions in
Women’s Studies
A series edited by
Inderpal Grewal,
Caren Kaplan, and
Robyn Wiegman
R H E T O R I C S
human rights visions, recognitions, feminisms
wendy s. hesford
duke university press | durham and london
© 2011 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper ∞
Designed by April Leidig-Higgins
Typeset in Arno by Copperline Book Services, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
appear on the last printed page of this book.
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Hesford, Wendy, and Wendy Hesford. Spectacular Rhetorics : Human Rights Visions, Recognitions, Feminisms, Duke University
For my daughters,
Mia and Lou Fei Cariello
And in memory of my father,
David Hesford (1936–2010)
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Hesford, Wendy, and Wendy Hesford. Spectacular Rhetorics : Human Rights Visions, Recognitions, Feminisms, Duke University
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Hesford, Wendy, and Wendy Hesford. Spectacular Rhetorics : Human Rights Visions, Recognitions, Feminisms, Duke University
contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
one Human Rights Visions and Recognitions 29
two Staging Terror Spectacles 61
three Witnessing Rape Warfare: Suspending the Spectacle 93
four Global Sex Work, Victim Identities, and Cybersexualities 125
five Spectacular Childhoods: Sentimentality and the
Politics of (In)visibility 151
Conclusion: Posthumanism, Human Rights,
and the Humanities 189
Notes 205
References 233
Index 257
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Hesford, Wendy, and Wendy Hesford. Spectacular Rhetorics : Human Rights Visions, Recognitions, Feminisms, Duke University
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Hesford, Wendy, and Wendy Hesford. Spectacular Rhetorics : Human Rights Visions, Recognitions, Feminisms, Duke University
acknowledgments
This book investigates how visual rhetoric has shaped the normative frame-
works of international human rights law and advocacy, and how human
rights principles are culturally translated into a visual vernacular that imag-
ines Western audiences — generally American audiences — as moral view-
ers. To emphasize the rhetorical dimensions of human rights work is not to
diminish or deny its material impetus or consequences, however. First and
foremost, I acknowledge the individuals whose lives have become a part of
a cultural production, human rights campaign, or scholarly pursuit such as
this book represents. Though these cultural productions have kept me at a
safe distance from the violence that many of the subjects represented have
experienced, I want to acknowledge the sufering of those whose human
rights have been violated and the courage of human rights defenders to
speak out even when the risks are severe. Indeed, this safe and critical dis-
tance has enabled me to devote a signifcant portion of the last six years to
beter understanding the visual economy of human rights and to contem-
plating how scholars, activists, and artists (which are not mutually exclusive
categories) respond to crises in ways that make the progressive potential of
human rights imaginable for all.
In this book, I examine a number of cultural sites (flm festivals, photo-
.d graphic exhibitions, and theater productions) that I have had the privilege
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vrese to enter, given my institutional afliations and research support. The Ohio
r sth State University (OSU), in Columbus, provided research and travel support
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.sserP of Humanities. I especially want to thank Valerie Lee for her unfinching
ytisre support during her term as chair of the Department of English, and col-
vinU leagues in English, comparative studies, and women’s studies for their in-
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10 English — particularly Brenda Jo Brueggemann, Jim Fredal, Kay Halasek,
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th Nan Johnson, Jim Phelan, and Amy Shuman — who devoted considerable
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interventions made this a beter book. Thanks to colleagues in comparative
Hesford, Wendy, and Wendy Hesford. Spectacular Rhetorics : Human Rights Visions, Recognitions, Feminisms, Duke University