The Research Program on Humanitarianism (RPH) brings together UConn faculty from across the humanities and social sciences, as well from the Schools of Social Work, Education, and Law, for an ongoing discussion on the history and experience of humanitarian crisis and action, and the analytical and creative engagements that reflect on them.
RPH builds on the core belief that humanistic approaches are vital to understanding the major humanitarian crises facing global society and to human rights discourse more broadly. The program runs two faculty study groups – the RPH Forum and the History of Human Rights and Humanitarianism Colloquium – and sponsors public events open to faculty and students, including the Magnet Scholar Program.
This page displays past years of RPH programming. To view upcoming events, see the Research Program on Humanitarianism main page.
Past Events
2024-25
April 2, 2025
Humanitarianism & Inequality
In collaboration with the Department of Sociology, and with the support of the Research Program on Economics & Social Rights.
In celebration of their recently published Handbook on Humanitarianism & Inequality, Silke Roth and Bandana Purkayastha will discuss how different varieties of humanitarianism have emerged in response to crises in a variety of historical contexts. They consider how varieties of humanitarianism are shaped by and address different forms of inequalities.
March 11, 2025
Tacit Human Rights? Reflections on China’s Transformation from Global Victim to Global Champion, 1870s-1945
Hosted by the History of Human Rights Collective and co-sponsored by the Erasmus+ program.
Historian Steffen Rimner explores China’s evolving relationship with human rights through the 19th and 20th centuries, highlighting its changing role in international diplomacy and the foundations of its growth in global power and status.
March 10, 2025
Cities of Comrades, Comrades of Cities
Supported by the UConn Department of History.
Historian Jacob Remes draws from traditions of labor and critical disaster studies to investigate the role of post-disaster altruism as a form of solidarity in responding to mass suffering and engaging with people most at risk.
December 6, 2024
History of Human Rights and Humanitarianism Collective Reading Group
Faculty facilitator, Sara Silverstein led our collective reading group in a discussion of Disaster Citizenship: Survivors, Solidarity, and Power in the Progressive Era by Jacob C. Remes. We are fortunate to host an interdisciplinary groups of faculty from the Departments of Philosophy, History, Literature, Cultures, and Languages, English, and the School of Social Work.
2019-20
April 23, 2020 - Canceled
World Literature Is Burning! The Second Russell Tribunal and the Neoliberal Turn in Human Rights
Co-sponsored by the UConn English Department.
This lecture by human rights and literature scholar, Joseph R. Slaughter from Columbia University, was cancelled due to Covid-19.
March 31, 2020 - Canceled
A Lunchtime Workshop with Carolyn Dean
A lunch seminar with visiting scholar, Carolyn Dean, Professor of History at Yale University intended to lead a lunchtime seminar that was cancelled due to Covid-19.
March 20, 2020 - Canceled
The Moral Witness: Trials and Testimony after Genocide
Visiting Scholar and Professor of History at Yale University, Carolyn Dean, Professor of History, Yale University planned to discuss her book The Moral Witness: Trials and Testimony after Genocide (2019). Unfortunately, this event was cancelled due to Covid-19.
Fall 2019 - Spring 2020 | Various Times
History of Human Rights Reading Group
Faculty participants in attendance represented the Departments of Philosophy, History, Literature, Cultures, and Languages, English, and the School of Social Work. We discussed four texts:
1. Glenn Mitoma and Sarah Winter led our dialogue on Human Rights and the Care of the Self by Alexandre Lefebvre
2. A History of Humanitarianism, 1755-1989: In the Name of Others by Silvia Salvatici’s
3. Humanitarianism, War, and Politics: Solferino to Syria and Beyond by Peter Hoffman and Thomas Weiss’
4. A History of Global Health: Interventions into the Lives of Others by Randall Packard’s
2018-19
March 28, 2019
Homonationalism in Trump Times
Visit and lecture by Jasbir. K. Puar, Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, Rutgers University.
January 31, 2019
Magnet Scholar Visit
Political philosopher Margaret Moore from Queen’s University, Canada conducted two seminars. We discussed her highly-regarded book, A Political Theory of Territory (2017), and her recent essay, “The Taking of Territory and the Wrongs of Colonialism.” The seminar discussions with Professor Moore were lively and very productive. Twelve HRI-affiliated faculty participated from UConn departments and programs including: Political Science, History, English, German (LCL), Anthropology, Law, Social Work, Neag School of Education, WGSS/Geography, and Human Rights. After her visit, Professor Moore shared her positive impressions of our research group: “What a great, collegial group of scholars! And I came away with a real appreciation for this inter-disciplinary spirit, which I hope to emulate (and also try to do something like that here [at Queen’s University]).”
November 12, 2018
War, Memory and Museums: Insights from Mofidul Hoque
Speaker: Mofidul Hoque (Co-founder of the Liberation War Museum, Bangladesh)
2017-18
April 2018
Magnet Scholar Visit
Elizabeth S. Anker gave two seminars for the larger interdisciplinary group. A scholar of human rights and literature with a specialization in postcolonial studies, Liz Anker is Associate Professor of English and affiliate faculty in Law at Cornell University. These seminars were well attended and produced valuable discussions of critical controversies surrounding theories of human rights.
April 2018
Lunch Talk with Binalakshmi Nepram
Indian human rights activist and scholar Binalakshmi Nepram, who is the founder of the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network and Convener of the Global Alliance for Gender Justice, Peace & Equality and currently a visiting professor at Connecticut College. Her account of Manipur women’s collective resistance to kidnapping and conscription of their children by armed groups was very impressive.
Spring 2018 | Various Times
History of Human Rights Reading Group
We discussed two texts:
1. The Making of International Human Rights: The 1960s, Decolonization, and the Reconstruction of Global Values by Steven L. B. Jensen
2. Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence: The Wars of Independence in Kenya and Algeria by Fabian Klose
2016-17
March 21, 2017
Becoming British: Citizenship & Belonging Post-Brexit
Scholar Ismail Einashe joins us to discuss citizenship and belonging in post-Brexit Britain.
October 7, 2016
Research Program on Humanitarianism Workshop
Fall 2016 - Spring 2017 | Various Times
Research Program on Humanitarianism Reading Group
We discussed two texts:
1. Two discussions with Michael Barnett from George Washington University
2. Having a Voice: Autism, Humanitarianism, a documentary by Pooja Rangan
2015-16
March 31, 2016
What Can Human Rights Films Do?: Precarity and the Politics of Visuality in Joshua Oppenheimer's The Look of Silence
We welcome Dr. Alexandra Schultheis Moore to provide insight on the role of film in human rights work.
Fall 2015 - Spring 2016 | Various Times
Research Program on Humanitarianism Reading Group
We discussed four texts:
1. Bread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism by Keith Watenpaugh
2. From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America by Elizabeth Hinton
3. Writing Women, Writing War by Nadifa Mohamed
4. The Historiography of Human Rights in Africa by Charlotte Walter-Said
Fall 2015 - Spring 2016 | Various Times
Magnet Scholar Visit
Scholar Thomas Keenan to discussed Theories of Evidence at three events throughout the academic year.
2014-15
March 31, 2015
Clan Cleansing in Somalia: Coming into Speech and Writing History in the Aftermath
We welcome scholar Lidwien E. Kapteijns who talked about clan cleansing in Somalia.
March 12, 2015
What Kinds of Justice do Colombians Want from the Peace Process?
Dr. Ryan Carlin shares what he believes Columbians desire from the peace process.
October 16, 2014
The Empathy Imperative: Feeling with Others in the Humanities Classroom
Dr. Meghan Marie Hammond, author of Rethinking Empathy through Literature talks about feeling with others when in a humanities classroom.
September 29, 2014
Reading and Writing War in a Sentimental Age
Dr. Elizabeth Samet discusses her experiences on reading about writing about war.
September 30, 2014
Portraiture and Its Uncertainties
Photographer and academic Avelina Crespo discusses portraiture.
2013-14
April 22, 2013
Moral Progress – Again: Harm Reduction and the Repetition of the State in Human Rights Practices
Anthropologist of bioethics, Dr. Jarrett Zigon, talked about harm reduction in the context of State and Human Rights repetitive practices.
April 11, 2013
Incarcerated Women and Reproductive Health Care: Opportunities and Challenges for a Vulnerable Population
Medical anthropologist and obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Carolyn Sufrin talks about the reproductive health care for incarcerated women.
April 10, 2013
Women Behind Bars: Film Screening and Panel
We held a film screening of Women Behind Bars and a panel discussion afterward.
April 9, 2013
Discipline and Care: Health Rights in a U.S. Women’s Jail
Medical anthropologist and obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Carolyn Sufrin joined us to discuss women's health rights in U.S. jails.
2012 & Before
April 2011
Afghanistan in the Vortex: Humanitarianism in Question
We held a roundtable discussion with policy analysts, reporters, and practitioners.
March 15, 2010
Human Trafficking in the Post-Armenian Genocide Middle East and the Dilemmas of Modern Humanitarianism
Drawn from Professor Keith Watenpaugh’s forthcoming book, Bread from Stone: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism, this talk examines the League of Nations’ efforts on behalf of displaced Armenian women and children in the early post-World War I period.
March 2010
The Arts and Human Rights in Latin America: Perspectives from Marcelo Brodsky and Alfredo Jaar
A public presentation by two of the foremost Latin American artists, Marcelo Brodsky and Alfredo Jaar.
February 25, 2009
Of Veils and Mourning: Fazal Sheikh's Widowed Images.pdf
Dr. Eduardo Cadava joins us from the English and Comparative Literature Department at Princeton University. Fazal Sheikh is a human rights artist/activist, whose works have dealt with topics ranging from the experience of refugees from Somalia, Afghanistan and Sudan to the hazards facing Mexican immigrants in the USA and gender discrimination in India.
October 10-12, 2008
In the Balance: Humanitarianism and Responsibility
Co-sponsored by Foundations of Humanitarianism and UCHI’s Foundations of Humanitarianism Initiative.
The central aim of this conference is to think through the rapidly expanding body of scholarship on humanitarianism – both as a discourse and practice – beyond its longtime amalgamated human rights framework. We hope to better understand the concept of humanitarianism as it is currently deployed around the globe, and to assess its future as a guiding political principle for behavior on the individual, state, and transnational levels. Our complementary focus on responsibility leads us to interrogate how humanitarianism defines obligation towards the other, to consider the effects of such definitions – including the limitations they impose – and to raise problems and possibilities for alternative conceptions of the ties that bind humans together. Papers from this conference and more recent responses to the question of humanitarianism and responsibility were collated for a special edition of the Journal of Human Rights, co-edited by Kerry Bystrom and Glenn Mitoma.
December 6, 2007
Christopher Gunness Lecture and Pentecost Performance
Co-sponsorship by the Connecticut Repertory Theatre.
Christopher Gunness, spokesperson for the UN Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, will lecture on “Chaos, Refugees, and Gaza Today." This is followed by a performance of the play, Pentecost, written by Tony Award-winning playwright David Edgar.
October 13-15, 2006
Humanitarianism and Narratives of Inflicted Suffering
This international conference will analyze humanitarian responses to private and public narratives of politicized suffering that has been inflicted by states, private political groups and also by more structural causes such as apartheid, colonialism, and social conflict. The main themes of this conference are: first, to understand the character, form and voice of the narratives themselves; and second, to explain how and why some narratives of suffering become part of political movements of solidarity, whereas others do not. A collection of papers from this conference was published as an edited volume by Richard A. Wilson and Richard D. Brown, Humanitarianism and Suffering: The Mobilization of Empathy.