Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute

About This Event

Around the world children born to migrant parents with precarious status face difficulties obtaining birth certificates, and may become stateless as a result. This has important implications for migrant families’ economic and social rights. Conversely, points of access to social and economic rights are often the very sites where migrant families’ exclusion from birth registration becomes apparent. Nevertheless, global campaigns to achieve “legal identity for all” in pursuit of the SDG target 16.9 promote the linkage of birth registration with social welfare entitlements or health service delivery. How might such ‘good practices’ have negative outcomes for migrant families? And what would inclusive and non-discriminatory birth registration look like?

Dr. Allison Petrozziello will join us virtually from Toronto Metropolitan University to discuss selected findings from her dissertation (and forthcoming book) Birth Registration as Bordering Practice, which garnered the International Studies Association-Human Rights section’s 2024 Best Dissertation Award.

While our guest speaker will join us virtually, we welcome you to join us on UConn’s campus in Dodd 162, or online via Zoom. 

About Our Guest

Allison Petrozziello

Assistant Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University

Allison Petrozziello is Assistant Professor of Global Migration & Inequality at Toronto Metropolitan University. Dr. Petrozziello is a global governance scholar specialized in gender and human-rights based approaches to the governance of migration and citizenship. Her academic work builds on over 15 years of experience in international research, teaching, and policy advocacy work, mostly in Latin America and the Caribbean, with stakeholders ranging from grassroots organizations to policymakers to the United Nations. She has consulted for UN Women, the International Labour Organization (ILO), Inter-American Development Bank, and the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), among others. At TMU, she teaches courses in comparative and global politics for undergraduate programs in the Department of Politics and Public Administration as well as the PhD program in Policy Studies.

The Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute invites all undergraduate students interested in human rights to attend an information session about our 4+1 Accelerated Master of Arts Program! HRI’s Director of Graduate Studies, Dr. David Richards, and Educational Program Administrator, Dr. Alyssa Webb, will be present and ready to answer questions about the MA program, and how it may complement prospective students’ professional aspirations.

About the Talk

Following an interactive workshop for UConn Early College Experience Human Rights Instructors, children’s rights and advocacy expert Jo Becker joins for a public talk presenting three human rights issues she identifies as facing children globally – child marriage, child labor, and access to education. She then emphasizes how U.S. students can contribute to change by addressing relevant laws and policies.

Register now! Seats are limited. Lunch will follow at 12:30 pm. 

About the Speaker

Jo Becker is the Children’s Rights Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch. For more than 20 years, she has been on the forefront of international efforts to protect the rights of children. As the founding chairperson of the international Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, she helped campaign successfully for an international treaty banning the forced recruitment of children under age 18 or their use in armed conflict. Her advocacy also helped lead to a groundbreaking 2011 treaty ensuring labor rights for domestic workers, which number 50-100 million worldwide. Jo has conducted on-the-ground investigations on child labor, children and armed conflict, and other issues in more than a dozen countries. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Guardian, and other major publications.

Becker is also an Adjunct Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, where she teaches human rights advocacy, and the award-winning author of two books on successful campaigns for human rights.

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This presentation is made possible by Human Rights Education, a Dodd Human Rights Impact Program at the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute, with the support of UConn’s Office of Early College Programs / Early College Experience.

The Culture of Collage is an interactive two-part workshop exploring collage as a tool for subversion.

Learn more about the ways artists use collage as a tool for subversion through close looking and discussion of work by Melvin Edwards, Paul Scott, and Sukanya Rahman. Then make your own collage.

FREE.

Is there a topic that you believe demands discussion but that you fear will prove too polarizing for civil conversation? Do you avoid organizing such a discussion because you are unsure of how to ensure meaningful engagement across difference? Are you interested in honing your skills of engaging in conversation with people who think differently from you? If so, please join us for this workshop which will focus on the following subjects:

• basic theories of, and approaches to, conflict resolution-based dialogue;
• facilitating difficult conversations in a structured-dialogue setting;
• creating and hosting dialogues (focusing on the Encounters dialogue model)
• roll-playing practice your new dialogic skills

This event is hosted by the Democracy & Dialogues Initiative, a program of Dodd Human Rights Impact

The Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute invites all undergraduate students interested in human rights to attend an information session about our 4+1 Accelerated Master of Arts Program! HRI’s Director of Graduate Studies, Dr. David Richards, and Educational Program Administrator, Dr. Alyssa Webb, will be present and ready to answer questions about the MA program, and how it may complement prospective students’ professional aspirations.

About the Book

Theatre and Human Rights: The Politics of Dramatic Form develops theoretical intersections between theatre and human rights and provides methodologies to investigate human rights questions from within the perspective of theatre as a complex set of disciplines.

While human rights research and programming often employ the arts as representations of human rights-related violations and abuses, this study focuses on dramatic form and structure, in addition to content, as uniquely positioned to interrogate important questions in human rights theory and practice. This project positions theatre as a method of examination in addition to the important purposes the arts serve to raise consciousness that accompany other, often considered more primary modes of analysis. A main feature of this approach includes emphasis on dialectical structures in drama and human rights and integration of applied theatre and critical ethnography with more traditional theatre. This integration will demonstrate how theatre and human rights operates beyond the arts as representation model, offering a primary means of analysis, activism, and political discourse.

This book will be of great interest to theatre and human rights practitioners and activists, scholars, and students.

About the Author

Gary M. English is a Distinguished Professor of Drama at the University of Connecticut and Affiliate Faculty with the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute, with whom he has taught Theatre and Human Rights for ten years. From 2010 through 2018, he lived and worked in the West Bank for a total of four years, including two years in the Jenin Refugee Camp where he served as Artistic Director of The Freedom Theatre, (2012-13). He also served as Visiting Professor and Head of the Media Studies program at Al/Quds Bard College in Abu Dis, in the West Bank, (2017-18).

His research focuses on Palestinian theatre, theatre as a methodology to study human rights, and the use of theatre and cultural production to investigate the political conflict between Israel and Palestinians. Theatre and Human Rights: The Politics of Dramatic Form was published by Routledge in August, 2024. Previous publications include the volume Stories Under Occupation and other Plays from Palestine, co-edited with Samer Al-Saber, and published by Seagull Press in 2020, and “Artistic Practice and Production at the Jenin Freedom Theatre” within the anthology Theater in the Middle East: Between Performance and Politics. His most recent essay, “Palestinian Theatre: Alienation, Mediation and Assimilation in Cross Cultural Research” was recently released in the volume Arabs, Politics and Performance by Routledge in September 2024.

About this Event

This event is sponsored by the Research Program on Arts & Human Rights, a collaborative program hosted at the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute led by faculty from the School of Fine Arts. This talk will take place in-person only in the Heritage Room, 4th Floor of Homer Babbidge Library, with a reception.

AMERICA AND IMMIGRATION

The topic of Immigration dominated this year’s elections. According to a Pew Research study, 61% of voters identified the issue of immigration as a top concern than in years past. As the Brooking Institute explains, the United States is fundamentally built upon the contributions of immigrants. No other country in the world hosts as extensive an immigrant population as America. With the notable exception of individuals descended from Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans, the majority of the population can trace some aspect of their lineage to immigrants, whether from recent arrivals or those who came centuries ago. Despite being a nation predominantly composed of immigrants and their descendants, citizenship remains elusive for some, and one of the most contentious social and political challenges of contemporary society. The ongoing debates surrounding who is permitted to enter the country, who is eligible to work, who can establish a family, and who can attain American citizenship continue to profoundly influence our political landscape.

We invite you to participate in a structured conversation exploring the historical backdrop of U.S. immigration policies, the economic ramifications of immigration, and the personal narratives of individuals who are building their lives in a new country and making a home away from home. Encounters programs dive deep into subjects through facilitated, small-group dialogues followed by a question-and-answer style conversation with our UConn faculty and community partners.

This event is hosted by the Democracy & Dialogues Initiative and co-sponsored by the Connecticut Collaborative on Poverty, Criminal Justice, and Race

This event is FREE and open to the public with dinner provided. 

About this Event

Prussian Blue series by Yishai Jusidman" src="https://events.uconn.edu/live/image/gid/203/width/150/height/205/6620_AuschwitzDoor249.jpg" srcset="https://events.uconn.edu/live/image/scale/2x/gid/203/width/150/height/205/6620_AuschwitzDoor249.jpg 2x, https://events.uconn.edu/live/image/scale/3x/gid/203/width/150/height/205/6620_AuschwitzDoor249.jpg 3x" data-max-w="1659" data-max-h="2266" loading="lazy" data-optimized="true"/>"Auschwitz" (2011), from the Prussian Blue series by Yishai JusidmanIn the face of genocide, what can art do? How might artworks use aesthetic processes to ask profound ethical questions? How might images structure a process of memory that is also a process of imagining, in defiance of relentless efforts to obliterate both?

This panel discusses the exhibition Prussian Blue, Mexican artist Yishai Jusidman’s compelling meditation on these queries. Displayed across three venues—UConn’s Benton Museum, Contemporary Art Galleries, and The Dodd Center for Human Rights—Prussian Blue explores the extent to which visual imagery can effectively convey the horror of the Holocaust.

Our Panelists

• James Waller, Christopher J Dodd Chair in Human Rights Practice & Director, Dodd Human Rights Impact Programs
• José Falconi, Assistant Professor of Art History and Human Rights
• Robin Greeley, Professor of Art History

Our Partners

See the Exhibition

The exhibition is displayed across three venues through December 15—UConn’s William Benton Museum of Art, Contemporary Art Galleries, and The Dodd Center for Human Rights. 

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fund (SURF) Award program provides thousands of dollars in support of undergraduate students’ summer research and creative projects. The SURF program is open to undergraduate students in all majors at all campuses who plan to graduate no earlier than December 2025. Students can apply for funding of up to $5,500 per student. Join us to learn how to apply and what makes an application successful.

This information session is sponsored by the Office of Undergraduate Research. Additional information on the SURF Award program can be found at https://ugradresearch.uconn.edu/surf/. If you require an accommodation to participate in this session, please contact the Office of Undergraduate Research at our@uconn.edu at least one week prior to the session.