Report

The International AIDEL Conference on “Literature and Human Rights” was held at the Museo

Civico di Storia Naturale of Verona on November 15-17, 2012.

The conference opened with the welcoming addresses of Professor Donata Gottardi, Head of the

Doctoral School of Jurisprudence and Professor Anna Maria Babbi, Head of the Doctoral School for

the Humanities, who underlined the interdisciplinary character of the conference and wished the

participants an interesting and fruitful discussion.

The first session, chaired by Prof. Daniela Carpi, included papers by Jeanne Gaakeer (Erasmus

University Rotterdam), Piergiuseppe Monateri (University of Turin), Francesco Palermo (University

of Verona) and Patrizia Nerozzi (IULM University, Milan).

Jeanne Gaakeer’s paper “Dignity and Disgrace in Law and Literature” focused on the concept of

dignity as the possibility to control one’s actions. Gaakeer noted that the word “dignity” comes

before “human rights” in the UDHR and argued that the development of the Bildungsroman after

the Enlightenment took place alongside the development of human rights. Narrative, in fact, is a

means of self-determination: being able to narrate stories and possessing the ability to speak

means being recognized as a human being; by depriving people of speech, human rights are

eliminated. By analyzing Coetzee’s novel Disgrace, Gaakeer noted that when human rights are

violated, literature can represent an alternative to violence, offering the possibility of redemption

and reconciliation through the narration of one’s story.

In “Indigenous Peoples and Fundamental Rights: Evolution of a Difficult Relationship” Francesco

Palermo underlined that the relationship between indigenous peoples and human rights is based

on cultural factors that often lead to misconceptions. The denial of indigenous peoples’ rights are

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AIDEL International Conference 2012

– Literature and Human Rights –

Verona, 15-17 November 2012

Sala del Museo Civico di Storia NaturaleLungadige Porta Vittoria, 9

often related to theories of dominion and guardianship (i.e. indigenous people are seen as child-

like and thus in need of protection and guidance), to the concept of terra nullius (the discovered

land has no owner) and to the so-called “salt-water thesis”. Palermo argued that human rights are

hardly compatible with indigenous, non-Western claims, because they were developed within a

Western framework and from a Western point of view. He concluded noting that literature, by

reiterating stereotypes, might play a role in the creation and establishment of misconceptions

about indigenous peoples.

Piergiuseppe Monateri in his paper “ Apocalypse Now and Human Rights” underlined that the

violation of human rights is the event that starts the chain of events in the story, in which atrocity

leads to more atrocity and finally to Kurtz’s insanity. Monateri then explained the interconnections

among Apocalypse Now, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness, i.e. the

words “The horror, the horror,” which hint at a similar concept also present in Marlowe’s Doctor

Faustus; in fact, Faustus’ descent to a lawless state of exception (Hell), a state where things are

confused and where it is impossible to establish a new law, can be compared to Kurtz’s death.

Patrizia Nerozzi’s paper “‘Am I not a man and a brother?’ Notes on the Representation of Slavery

in Eighteenth Century English Art and Literature” analyzed the concept of slavery through the

perspectives of art and literature. In the Eighteenth century, slavery was both condemned by

religion and considered a profitable trade. The issue of slaves’ liberation was represented by many

paintings of the time, such as William Turner’s “The Slave Ship,” inspired by the Zong incident or

massacre, and William Hogarth’s and Joshua Reynold’s portraits of Negro slaves. The anti-slavery

campaign that led to the emancipation of slaves in the West Indies was a means for the British to

consider themselves more civilized than other European countries.

The second session was chaired by Prof. Romana Zacchi, and the speakers were Maria

Aristodemou (Birkbeck College, London), Walter Bush (University of Verona) and Daniela Carpi

(University of Verona).

Maria Aristodemou’s paper “A Squeamishness about Existing: Fernando Pessoa’s Quiet Rejection

of the Human in A Book of Disquiet” highlighted Pessoa’s rejection of the notion of human being.

Pessoa analyzed our attempts to substitute the idea of God with science, reason, law and human

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rights while stressing the fact that they are simply placebos. Nonetheless, humans appeal to God

when in need and in this way, in Lacanian terms, they sabotage themselves because they are

pursuing something they cannot obtain. Humanity is alienated from the animal world because of

its use of language, and this isolates us: although we are animals, we are not good animals,

because our coexistence is continuously questioned. We hardly tolerate our neighbours and when

they do not stay in their place, hostility arises. Therefore, Aristodemou argued, every human

system, including the legal one, is compromised.

In “From Human Rights to Crimes against Humanity: Hannah Arendt’s Comment on the Eichmann

Trial”, Walter Bush underlined the scarce popularity of Hannah Arendt’s work about the Eichmann

Trial, even though she proposes new perspectives for describing the Auschwitz experience. Arendt

saw this trial as a wasted (opportunity) for Israel to create a new legal form appropriate for the

Holocaust’s real dimension. On the contrary, the judges adopted the Allies’ strategy in the

Nuremberg trial, while, according to Arendt, the matter was one of crimes against humanity, since

Eichmann and the Nazis were not hostis judaeorum, but hostis generis humani. Arendt’s cold and

terribly precise new language demonstrated that criminals like Eichmann represented no

exception in the system and that the law itself created these kinds of culprits.

In “Dehumanizing the Enemy: How to Avoid Human Rights”, Daniela Carpi compared

Shakespeare’s, Marowitz’s and Wesker’s portrayals of Shylock, whom she sees as one of the most

outstanding examples of human rights’ violation. Carpi underlined how, in Wesker’s play, the real

enemy is the law while in Shakespeare the matter is revenge for Shylock’s humiliations. Both

Shakespeare and Wesker represent Shylock as a victim and highlight his loyalty to the Jewish

community, thus anticipating Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On the

contrary, Marowitz’s Variations on the Merchant of Venice is more controversial because it

criticizes both the calculating Jewish community and the hypocritical and coercive Christian one.

However, the quotation of Shakespeare’s famous speech “Hath not a Jew eyes?” at the end of

Marowitz’s play reveals a positive interpretation of Shylock’s character.

In the third session, on November 16, the chair Prof. Silvia Bigliazzi introduced papers by Melanie

Williams (Exeter University), Paola Carbone (IULM University, Milan), Paolo Heritier (university of

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Turin), Riccardo Baldissone (Birkbeck College, London), Alessandra Tomaselli and Lino Panzeri

(University of Verona and University of Insubria).

Melanie Williams’s “Feminism, Literature and Human Rights: Conrad’s Almayer’s Folly and the

Dark Heart of Culture” dealt with Conrad’s anticipation of the early critique of colonial rule and the

mythology of the survivor (or island motif). In fact she argued that postcolonial studies began with

Conrad’s works. According to Williams, in Almayer’s Folly the woman is used as currency and her

utter absence in the story relegates her to a “colonized” status. In Conrad’s works, the woman is

an incidental subject and a means for the transmission of patriarchal power. The idea of sacrifice

should be used to stop the economization of women, and tradition should be revised to reveal the

ambiguities that might have been overlooked.

Paola Carbone’s contribution, “Difficult Daughters by Manju Kapur and the Cause of the Nation’s

Female Literacy in India,” stressed the importance that education can have in the life of women. In

Indian culture, women have to be completely devoted to their family: from an early age, they are

taught that they need to marry and stay at home. The protagonist, Virmati, has a strong desire for

knowledge and this leads her to marry an English literature professor who is already married,

thereby opposing the patriarchal tradition. As Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights states, education is needed for the full development of the human personality, but the

exercise of this individual right will cause Virmati to be the victim of her own knowledge.

Paolo Heritier’s paper “The Problematic Universality of Aesthetics and the Human Rights: the Case

of Jullien’s China” focused on the relationship between Chinese painting and human rights. In

China, painting is a metaphorical concept since Chinese painters do not paint a mere landscape,

but the whole world. Human rights appear subjected to the same process that affects painting in

China: the human rights movement in China is moving in the same direction as painting, that is,

mocking Western tradition. Although the idea of human rights is communicable to different

cultures, they are not universal at all. In this context, legal aesthetics show that the law needs to

be studied as a picture, and that we need to be guided to look at what is in it: like the law, a

picture imposes a viewpoint and a dogmatic framework from which it can be interpreted.

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“Dostoyevsky as a Legal Theorist? On the Role of Literature in the Reconsideration of the Human

Subject of Rights” by Riccardo Baldissone focused on the figure of the Doppelgänger in

Dostoyevsky’s works. Baldissone argued that the idea of rights changed from “man” to “human” in

1948, when “human rights” replaced the expression “rights of man,” and that Dostoyevsky

proposed a revolution by shifting the idea of multiplicity from the outside to the inside of the self.

The human subjects of his narration remain human subjects and not only mere objects: they have

their own voices and are in a state of becoming. The polyphony of Dostoyevsky’s works

demonstrated the failure of human rights discourse to address human complexity and multiplicity.

Alessandra Tomaselli and Lino Panzeri presented a joint paper on “The definition of ‘Linguistic

Minority’: Linguistic vs. Legal Perspectives”. Tomaselli examined the concept of linguistic minority

from a linguistic point of view. Through the analysis of a series of linguistic minorities, such as the

German linguistic minorities in Alto Adige-Südtirol and German(ic) linguistic islands in the

Triveneto region (Mocheno, Cimbro, Sappadino/BL…), she sustained the right to preserve one’s

own language and one’s own culture. Panzeri then examined the concept of “linguistic minority”

from a legal perspective. Through the analysis of Italian laws and the classification of linguistic

minorities in Italy, Panzeri highlighted the limits of the legislator’s choices at/on a state level and

the consequences of such choices. Finally, Panzeri and Tomaselli proposed some possible

measures for the improvement of the protection of linguistic rights.

The fourth session, chaired by Prof. Patrizia Nerozzi, consisted in papers delivered by Chiara

Battisti (University of Verona), Valentina Adami (University of Verona), Mara Logaldo (IULM

University, Milan) and Roxanne Barbara Doerr (University of Verona).

Chiara Battisti in “Animal Rights/Human Wrongs in Julian Barnes’ ‘The Stowaway’” analysed the

contemporary re-reading of the Great Flood offered by Julian Barnes in the short story “The

Stowaway” (the first chapter of the novel A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters). In “The

Stowaway”, Barnes subverts the hierarchy of power and authority (introduced by the Genesis) in

which the human race is positioned above the rest of the natural world. According to animal

theory critics, Western cultures have perpetrated an ethically indefensible form of discrimination

against non-human beings for centuries on the basis of their belonging to a species other than our

own. Battisti highlighted how “The Stowaway”, a story of betrayals and oppression where animals

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are deprived of their intrinsic value, can help readers understand that the relationship between

human and non-human beings should be rethought from a perspective that sees animals as

subjects of rights and not objects of compassion.

Valentina Adami’s paper “Human Rights and the Environment: an Ecocritical Discourse Analysis”

focused on the role of language in the representation of the relationship between human rights

and the environment. In particular, Adami analyzed the vocabulary of the 1994 United Nations

Report on Human Rights and the Environment, revealing the terminological uncertainties in the

definition of a human right to environment. The use of different and vague adjectives such as

“healthy,” “satisfactory” or “secure” make such definition a matter of subjective interpretation.

Adami argued that if, on the one hand, this could constitute an impediment to the recognition of a

human right to environment, on the other hand, it favors a flexible approach and is thus best

suited to addressing the complexities of environmental issues.

Mara Logaldo’s paper “On Crimes, Punishments, … and Words: Language Issues in Cesare

Beccaria’s Works” highlighted the close relationship between Beccaria’s standpoint on legal

matters touching on human rights, such as imprisonment, torture and the death penalty, and his

ideas on language. She showed how language issues intermittently dealt with in An Essay on

Crimes and Punishments (1764) found a significant echo in Disquisitions on the Nature of Style

(1770). In particular, she detected parallelisms between language and the law in Beccaria’s

interpretation of Locke’s theory of the association of ideas, in his views on legality and historical

evolution, in his emphasis on the body and reaction towards tradition, in his mistrust towards

interpretation and obscurity, in his comments on the arbitrariness of the sign.

Roxanne Barbara Doerr in her paper “Rumpole and the Rights of Accused Terrorists” underlined

that in the aftermath of 9/11 and later attacks in Europe terrorism has massively entered everyday

social and legal discourse. This has led to a drastic increase in interest in human rights and recent

multidisciplinary studies on their exchange with literature, the visual and performing arts, film,

and popular culture. The short story Rumpole and the Rights of Man (1995) and the novel Rumpole

and the Reign of Terror (2006) contain critiques about the excesses of current legislation when it

comes to evaluating cases on terrorism and human rights and the overlapping of their specific

legislations with national criminal law and, although their conclusions are very different, both

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highlight the difficulties that may arise when dealing with human rights and terrorism in a modern

and highly multicultural society.

The fifth session on November 17 included papers by Ian Ward (Newcastle University), Sidia

Fiorato (University of Verona), Matteo Nicolini (University of Verona), Lisa Lanzoni (University of

Verona) and Francesca Vitali (University of Verona).

Ian Ward’s paper “The Rights and the Wrongs of Marriage: Article 16 UNCHR and the Case of Edith

Dombey” focused on the development of the law of marriage through time and its representation

in literature. In particular, he took Article 16 UNCHR into consideration and analysed the contract

of marriage and the intrinsic meaning of marriage itself, a concept that is susceptible to changes in

legislation, as represented in mid-nineteenth century novels such as Thackeray’s Newcomers and

Dickens’ Dombey and Son. Ward concluded his paper by asking what Dickens would have thought

of Article 16.2 and whether it would have helped Edith Dombey.

Sidia Fiorato’s paper “The Role of Forensics in Human Rights Discourse: Kathy Reichs’ Crime

Novels” underlined how contemporary forensic novels address the question of human dignity. The

postmortems carried out on the victims’ bodies aim at the restoration of their identity, which was

abruptly interrupted in its development by violent death. Although forensic medicine might

appear as a violation of the integrity and dignity of the person, by its apparent reification to its

anatomical components it is actually aimed at the restoration of the bio-juridical dimension of the

human persona.

“‘ne Droe Wit Seisoen in die Stormkaap: André Brink and the Fundamental Rights of the Afrikaners

in Apartheid South Africa” by Matteo Nicolini delved into the analysis of the fundamental rights

attributed to the Afrikaner by the South African constitutional legal system. Nicolini examined

some specific presuppositions on which the apartheid was grounded and some definite traits of

the South African oppressive regime, with the aim of ascertaining whether the “fundamental

rights of the Afrikaners” were influenced by the apartheid ideology.

Lisa Lanzoni focused her intervention “Oral Tradition and Fundamental Rights in the Trial: the

Jomo Kenyatta’s Case” on the relationship between the African tradition and codified laws in trials. 7

In this context, one of the most relevant leading cases is the 1952 trial Queen against Kenyatta

and others, which concerns the trial of Jomo Kenyatta, the first President of the Republic of Kenya,

following its independence in 1963. The intervention considered the so-called “indirect rule”

introduced by the British Government and the system of checks and balances enacted by the

Kenyan Court to guarantee an adequate protection of fundamental rights.

Francesca Vitali’s “Memory and Human Rights: George Orwell’s 1984” analysed the interrelation

of the concepts of memory and human rights and focused on memory as the source of collective

and personal identity. According to Vitali, since memory can be seen as the primary source for the

creation of a personal self, in Orwell’s 1984 the impossibility of possessing a definite identity by

means of different techniques, such as the total destruction of personal records and history, leads

to the creation of traumatic memories that substitute real memories, thus rendering the subject

incapable of recognizing himself as part of humanity and therefore of claiming his basic human

rights.

Francesca Vitali

University of Verona

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