write
NEW!
I wrote a personal essay about my Zayde’s experience surviving the Holocaust and my family’s journey to assemble the details of the story of which he never spoke.
⚡️⚡️The Mass Appeal of Human Rights ⚡️⚡️
My first book is out now!
This book narrates the integration of consumer culture into transnational human rights advocacy and explores its political impact. By examining tactics that include benefit concerts, graphic imagery of suffering, and branded outreach campaigns, the book details the evolution of human rights into a mainstream moral cause. Drawing inspiration from the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, I argue that these strategies are effective in attracting masses of supporters but weaken the viability of human rights by commodifying its practices. Consumer capitalism co-opts the public’s moral awakening and transforms its desire for global engagement into components of a lifestyle expressed through market transactions and commercial relationships, rather than political commitments. Reclaiming human rights as a subversive idea can reconnect the practice of human rights with its principles and generate a movement bound to the radical spirit of human rights.
IN PROGRESS
New project in various early stages: Shadow reporting at the United Nations by US social movements
PUBLISHED
"Experiential Learning by Accident: Human Rights Education and the Moral Courage Project," Journal of Political Science Education (forthcoming).
"The Elite Politics of Media Advocacy in Human Rights," co-authored with Alexandra C. Budabin. New Political Science 40(4)(2018).
"Beyond Naming and Shaming: New Modalities of Information Politics in Human Rights," co-authored with Alexandra C. Budabin. Journal of Human Rights 15(3) (2016).
"What Does Human Rights Look Like? The Visual Culture of Activism and Advocacy" in Information Politics, Protests, and Human Rights in the Digital Age, edited by Mahmood Monshipouri (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
My chapter considers how human rights organizations represent themselves visually and I posted a page to supplement the text. You can learn about the piece by clicking on this hyperlink.
The Social Practice of Human Rights (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
I edited the book and contribute a chapter as well: "The Practice Turn in Human Rights Research."
"Constituencies of Compassion: The Politics of Human Rights and Consumerism." In Uses and Misuses of Human Rights: A Critical Approach to Advocacy, edited by George Andreopoulos and Zehra Arat (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
"The Spectacle of Suffering and Humanitarian Intervention in Somalia." In Media, Mobilization, and Human Rights: Mediated Suffering, edited by Tristan Borer (Zed Books, 2012).