[psych-hr] Call for papers - Journal of Human Rights

Please find below a call for papers for a special issue of Journal of
Human Rights on "Human Emotion and Human Rights."  The volume is being
co-edited by myself and Thomas Brudholm of the Danish Center for Holocaust
and Genocide Studies.  The focus is on the place and value of so-called
"negative" emotional responses to human rights abuses and crimes against
humanity and their relation to calls for forgiveness, closure, and
reconciliation, but we are open to all ideas and queries.

I'd be very grateful if you could participate in this issue and circulate
the attached call for papers to colleagues whom you think might be
interested in contributing.

Very sincerely yours,

Thomas Cushman
Professor of Sociology
Department of Sociology
Pendleton East, Room 334
Wellesley College
Wellesley, MA 02481
U.S.A
(781) 283-2142
(781) 283-3664 (fax)

Editor, The Journal of Human Rights
JHR@wellesley.edu
http://www.wellesley.edu/JournalofHumanRights

Journal of Human Rights


Call for Papers for a Special Issue on :

"Human Emotion and Human Rights: Reassessing the Role of Negative Emotions
in the Search for Justice"

Co-edited by Thomas Cushman, Editor, Journal of Human Rights and Thomas
Brudholm, Danish Center for International Studies and Human Rights.


The nature and value of the emotions or passions in responses to
wrongdoing has deep roots in the history of philosophical ethics. There
has been a renewed interest in the subject in the fields of ethics,
jurisprudence, and human rights. The Journal of Human Rights is seeking
contributions for a special issue which will focus on the place and value
of so-called "negative" emotional responses to human rights abuses and
crimes against humanity and their relation to calls for forgiveness,
closure, and reconciliation.

The deliberate degradation and cruelty of gross violations of human rights
breeds the strongest of human emotions in victims.  Hatred, anger, rage,
resentment, and the desire for bloody revenge are entirely normal human
responses to such cruelty. It is, however, difficult to assess to what
degree such emotions can be acknowledged as morally legitimate responses
and to what extent they play a role in the practice and conception of
models of transitional justice. In a time where the language of
forgiveness, healing, reparation and reconciliation permeates discussions
about responses to mass atrocity, we would like to reassess the nature,
value, and role of "negative" emotions in the process of justice,
reconciliation, and repair in post-conflict societies.

  Among the questions we wish to explore are: To what extent are our
conventional notions about excess and propriety, rationality and morality
reliable when it comes to judgments about the moral standing of the anger,
rage, resentment or vindictiveness in responses to such events as the
Holocaust, Srebrenica, Rwanda? When, if ever, is it appropriate to ask
victims of mass atrocity to overcome their resentment against
perpetrators? Can the idea that compassion and forgiveness are morally
"higher" or "deeper" than resentment and retribution be sustained in the
face if horrible crimes? What is the relevance of such emotions to the
law? Is the harboring of resentment and the desire for revenge necessarily
incompatible with the process of social reconciliation? Can a deliberate
preservation of "traumatic" memory be acknowledged as a morally
justifiable response to a devastation that might be irreparable?

In addition to these questions, the Editors are open to other topics.
Prospective authors should send queries and papers for consideration to
Thomas Cushman, Editor, Journal of Human Rights at <JHR@wellesley.edu>.
The issue will appear in Volume 4, Number 1 (September 2004). Final paper
submissions are due on May 1, 2004 and all submissions are subject to
review and revision.




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