Slavery and the Forensic Theatricality of Human Rights in the Spanish Empire

Beschreibung

This book is a study of the forensic theatricality of human rights claims in literary texts about slavery in the sixteenth and the nineteenth century in the Spanish Empire. The book centers on the question: how do literary texts use theatrical, multisensorial strategies to denunciate the violence against enslaved people and make a claim for their rights? The Spanish context is particularly interesting because of its early tradition of human rights thinking in the Salamanca School (especially Bartolomé de Las Casas), developed in relation to slavery and colonialism.  Taking its point of departure in forensic aesthetics, the book analyzes five forms of non-narrative theatricality: allegorical, carnivalesque, tragicomic, melodramatic and tragic. 
Karen-Margrethe Simonsen is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Aarhus University, Denmark. 

This book is a study of the forensic theatricality of human rights claims in literary texts about slavery in the sixteenth and the nineteenth century in the Spanish Empire. The book centers on the question: how do literary texts use theatrical, multisensorial strategies to denunciate the violence against enslaved people and make a claim for their rights? The Spanish context is particularly interesting because of its early tradition of human rights thinking in the Salamanca School (especially Bartolomé de Las Casas), developed in relation to slavery and colonialism.  Taking its point of departure in forensic aesthetics, the book analyzes five forms of non-narrative theatricality: allegorical, carnivalesque, tragicomic, melodramatic and tragic. 

Explores different forms of forensic theatricality in literature about slavery Focuses on literary explorations of slavery and human rights in the Spanish Empire Contributes to the growing body of research on literature, human rights and the history of slavery

Autor*in

Karen-Margrethe Simonsen

Themen in »Slavery and the Forensic Theatricality of Human Rights in the Spanish Empire«

Human rights discourse History of slavery Sixteenth century Seventeenth century Nineteenth century Spain Cuba Transatlantic American Natives Slave trade

Stimmen zu »Slavery and the Forensic Theatricality of Human Rights in the Spanish Empire«

"Karen-Margrethe Simonsen’s work is a much-needed and significant contribution to understanding the long arc of writing from below within the Spanish American empire. It reveals an engagement with human rights from the 16th century writing of Bartolemé de las Casas through to the anti-slavery literature of Cuba in the 19th as a complex and vigorous dialogue with natural rights and natural law. The forensic quality of this literature, its ‘endeavour to speak with the dead’, as Simonsen so lucidly shows, is a means by which the crimes of slavery and empire may be exposed and the need for justice made visible."—  Fionnghuala Sweeney, University of Newcastle, UK
"Karen-Margrethe Simonsen deploys her new concept of forensic theatricality to devastating effect in this exciting development in the field of theatrical jurisprudence. A must-read for anyone wanting to understand just how legal and human rights injustices are never past but continue to wreak harm now. This is an important and wonderful book that should be on the shelves of lawyers, literary scholars, historians and theatre practitioners alike."—Marett Leiboff, Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of Wollongong
"Simonsen’s book functions to de-anglicize and decolonize the history of human rights discourse. A unique and much-needed contribution to human rights and literature."— Greta Olson, Professor of English and American Literary and Cultural Studies, University of Giesse
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