Abstract(s) of the Week!

Free the teensie-weensie! Human Rights Quarterly:

Human Rights and Research on Inchoate Life: An Emerging Set of Limits for Rights Vocabularies?

Perhaps because we live in a time when rights are the most favored vocabularies in negotiating issues and constructing institutions, at least in the West, it is easy to miss limits on the powers of rights to do any of the things expected of them. The main argument in this article is that rights vocabularies do not refer successfully to inchoate life forms and that research into such life should be regulated by communal goods. The source of moral guidance is the set of needs in the larger human community, arguable [sic] the oldest moral map in history. On these considerations research that provides spectacular benefits to the human species may be justified even if it sacrifices infinitesimal life. . . .

Genocide!

High School Journal (it should be a musical!) But enough about
me . . . :

Opening Up Classroom Space: Student voice, Autobiography, & the Curriculum

Philip Bernhardt

Incorporating autobiography into the classroom has the potential to facilitate reflective and interpretative practices, through which self-understanding and transformative learning may emerge. Bridging theory, practice, and the personal, this paper explores how autobiographical narratives were incorporated into a 9th grade social studies class to create a curricular space which values and embraces student voice, encourages a ethic of care and understanding between students, and embodies both the lived and living experiences. Through this experience students were able to explore their personal relationship to history, assimilate and accommodate new ideas and experiences, and engage in meaningful dialogue about values, beliefs, and perspectives. . . .

Abstract kiddie porn from Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies:

Artist’s Statement

Naomi Shersty

As I remember it, he was sittin me in front of the wood-paneled wall and dingy white pantry door. The rattling attic fan offered little comfort as it struggled to circulate the heavy, moist air of the Florida summer evening. While my mother washed the dishes, I complained of boredom and protested that in my scant ten years worth of summers, I never had the chance to do anything or go anywhere like “everyone else” always did. In response, my stepfather leaned in and told me that it was my lucky night. “Because tonight,” he said, “we’re going to the springs.” I could not believe my good fortune, excited I asked “Really? Really?” A wave of happiness swelled through me as I imagined myself escaping beneath the river’s surface, swimming in the cool, murky water, and reveling in the muffled sounds of submersion. In an instant I was relieved from my present misery—but returned just as abruptly. As a smile crossed his face he added, “Yeah, the bed springs that is.”