Title: Embodied Dignity: Human Rights and the Wrongs of Oppression, Torture, & Rape Thursday, November 13th
7:00 p.m
Location: 2017 Dunton Tower, Carleton University
Speaker:
Debra Bergoffen
Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies George Mason University, Washington, DC
Debra Bergoffen is a professor of Philosophy and a member of the Women and Gender Studies and the Cultural Studies faculties at George Mason University. She has chaired the Mason Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies and was Director of the University’s Women’s Studies program. The university has honored her with its Distinguished Faculty Award and its Teaching Excellence Award. The College of Arts and Sciences named her its Scholar of the Year in 2004. She was a Visiting Scholar at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa in 2003.
Abstract:
Rape as a weapon of war has become such a widespread phenomenon that the United Nations has issued a convention condemning it. Torture, though universally condemned in principle, flourishes in practice. Slavery, theoretically abolished centuries ago, is epidemic – now we call it trafficking. The international community has turned to human rights laws, conventions, treaties and courts to combat these violations of human decency and dignity. In the contest between our capacity to destroy others and our determination to stop the violence two (at least) issues emerge. One is practical: how can we create effective human rights institutions? The other is theoretical: what is it about being a human being that leaves us vulnerable to the abuses of oppression, torture and rape? These questions are not unrelated. This talk takes up the second question in the hope of directing us to some of the answers to the first.
Sponsors
Centre on Values and Ethics (COVE), Carleton University
Department of Philosophy, Carleton University
Pauline Jewett Institute of Women's and Gender Studies, Carleton University
Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, Human Rights, Carleton University
