Uitnodiging:
De jaarlijkse Kenneth Gonçalves-mensenrechtenlezing op het HML
Vrijdag 1 december
Studiezaal
15.30 – 16.40
Voor leerlingen van 5vwo en genode gasten
Hieronder de informatie over de spreker Dr Steffen Rimner:
Different but Equal:
Human Rights, Asian History and Individualism
ABSTRACT
This lecture invites a discussion of why the human rights situation of strangers who are different still matters to us. By offering a tour of Asian quests for protection against human rights violations, the lecture asks how historical human rights initiatives have in the past related to individualism. Conceived less as a philosophical exploration of what human rights mean or how we should think about them as a concept, the lecture treats history as a resource for the pragmatist. Asian history, specifically, offers numerous forgotten human rights initiatives that reached beyond borders. Individuals in different times and places, with different backgrounds and aspirations, learned to respect equality in spite of the difference between them. By retracing how individuals joined forces in the interest of human dignity, we can become ever more keenly aware of the meaning of humanity.
BIO
Steffen Rimner is Assistant Professor (Universitair docent) of the History of International Relations at Utrecht University. He received his Ph.D. in International History from Harvard University. He has worked at Yale University and Columbia University where he was engaged in the Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability and the Institute for the Study of Human Rights and held research positions at the University of Oxford and the University of Tokyo. His book on the history of global narcotics control is under contract with Harvard University Press.