https://www.openglobalrights.org/new-human-rights-education-program-to-promote-civic-engagement/
https://portal.ct.gov/Office-of-the-Governor/News/Press-Releases/2023/10-2023/Governor-Lamont-Announces-Kiana-Foster-Mauro-Is-2024-Teacher-of-the-Year
https://theconversation.com/many-global-corporations-will-soon-have-to-police-up-and-down-their-supply-chains-as-eu-human-rights-due-diligence-law-nears-enactment-202706
Thursday, April 20, 2023
12:00pm - 1:15pm
Hybrid Event
Abstract: Electric vehicles (EVs) have evolved rapidly owing to technological advancements and a growing interest in renewable energy to eliminate transportation’s dependency on fossil fuels and mitigate the effects of climate change. While EVs could revolutionize the transportation industry, they could jeopardize social equity and environmental stewardship efforts. Current studies on transportation electrification often fail to evaluate the EV revolution implications in human rights terms. International human rights law provides universally accepted norms, standards, baseline indicators, and modes of inquiry and reporting that could significantly advance and sharpen impact analysis. In this study, we explored the potential human rights implications that EVs pose for individuals and societies throughout their life cycle. Using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights-based treaties as our baseline, we analyzed the existing and likely EVs’ impacts on human rights. We identified potential measures to address human rights violations. Stakeholders (governments, private sectors, civil society) need to work closely together to make the transition to low-carbon transportation more equitable and sustainable.
This event is co-sponsored by the Economic & Social Rights Group and the Engineering for Human Rights Initiative at the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute.
Dr. Jin Zhu
Assistant Professor
Civil and Environmental Engineering Department
University of Connecticut
Francesco Rouhana
Ph.D. Student
Civil and Environmental Engineering Department
University of Connecticut
Dr. Jin Zhu is an Assistant Professor with the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. Prior to joining UConn, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Zachry Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M University and before that she received her PhD in Civil Engineering and a Master in Public Administration at Florida International University. Her current research portfolio includes the complex systems engineering and management; system-of-systems integration; resilience quantification and simulation in infrastructure systems; and resilient communities. Her work on performance assessment of complex construction projects as system-of-systems has received the Best Paper Award from 2015 ASCE International Workshop on Computing in Civil Engineering, and 2nd Place Best Poster Award from 2016 ASCE Construction Research Congress. Dr. Zhu is the director of Resilient Interdependent Systems Engineering (RISE) Lab at UConn. The RISE Lab focuses on research that advances knowledge, methods, and data within and across diverse disciplines including civil engineering, complex systems science, network and graph theory, decision theory, organizational theory, and computer science.
Francesco Rouhana is a PhD student in the CEE Department at UConn. He holds a bachelor degree in Civil Engineering and a master degree in Civil Engineering with a concentration in Transportation and Urban Planning from Notre Dame University – Louaize, Beirut, Lebanon. His research interests include resilience of civil infrastructure systems, disaster risk reduction, response and recovery.
Wednesday, April 19, 2023
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Nafe Katter Theatre
UConn Fine Arts Complex
Nabil Al-Raee, a prominent director and playwright from the West Bank, will be visiting UConn Storrs April 17 - 19. On Wednesday, April 19, Al-Raee joins us in the Katter Theatre for a presentation entitled Human Rights and Cultural Resistance through Theatre. Al-Raee will present images and speak about several Palestinian productions including, The Siege, The Caretaker, by Harold Pinter, I Am My Own Enemy, a deconstruction of the Medusa Myth, and Suicide Note, based on Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis.
The presentation will also include a public interview with Distinguished Professor Gary M. English in which he will discuss the cultural and political situation in the West Bank, the function of theatre as resistance, and the theatre methods and techniques used in theatre training within a conflict zone. Additional topics will include the use of personal narrative as dramaturgy and the development of theatre based on devised theatre practices.
This event and Nabil's residency are co-sponsored by Theatre Studies, Middle East Studies, and the Research Program on Arts & Human Rights.
Nabil Al-Raee served on the artistic staff of The Freedom Theatre in Jenin, West Bank, Palestine for over a decade and as artistic director from 2013 - 2019. He led the creation of a three-year curriculum in acting that, still in place, focuses on the development of he and colleague Micaela Miranda refer to as an "actor of resistance." The approach focuses on the development and performance of personal narrative within a clear political, social and personal context. Al-Raee also developed and wrote several plays including The Siege, that toured extensively in the U.K. and played at the Skirball Center at NYU. Other productions include Suicide Note, (based on 4.48 Psychosis) I Am My Own Enemy, (a deconstruction of the Medusa Myth) and an adaption of Animal Farm by George Orwell. As an actor he appeared most recently in the film 200 Meters, starring Ali Suliman, and directed by Ameen Nayfeh.
Nabil studied theatre and music in Palestine and Tunisia, is an accomplished musician, actor, director and playwright. He is also an expert on Palestinian arts, culture and politics, cultural resistance, political drama and grew up as a refugee in the Aroub Refugee Camp near Bethlehem.
Thursday, April 13, 2023
2:00 pm - 3:15 pm
Hybrid Event
Dodd Center for Human Rights - Room 162
The Business and Human Rights Workshop is dedicated to the development and discussion of works-in-progress and other non-published academic research.
In developing countries, access to opportunities within the private sector are often unequally distributed. Disproportionate advantages may accrue to those with connections to the state or to those with higher social standing. In this paper, I causally estimate the impact of political and social determinants of access to private-sector development under unevenly enforced rule of law. I do so by implementing a field experiment in Senegal in which I operate a registered business and randomize political connections and gender during entrepreneurs’ applications for valuable business permits at municipal councils. I find that politically connected applicants deal with fewer steps in the application process and are more likely to successfully deposit an application. Women, by contrast, are more likely to have their applications rejected, despite following the same procedures as men. These results highlight the specific steps along the institutional pathway where political and social connections are most influential, and offer causal evidence to inform policy to reduce the barriers facing entrepreneurs in developing countries.
Presenter:
Abhit Bhandari
Department of Political Science
Temple University
This workshop will take place in-person and on Zoom and will not be recorded. Please register to attend.
This event is hosted by the Business & Human Rights Initiative, a partnership between Dodd Human Rights Impact, the UConn School of Business, and the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute. It is co-sponsored by the Research Program on Economic & Social Rights.
March 9, April 4, & April 19, 2023
In-person: The Dodd Center for Human Rights - Room 162
Online: Zoom
Join us for one or all discussions in this three-part series of faculty seminars sponsored by the Research Program on Arts and Human Rights. This series highlights the innovative work being done at the intersection of the arts and human rights among our faculty. All are encouraged to attend!
All sessions are hosted in-person with the option to join by Zoom. We kindly ask that you register to attend. Those attending in-person can join us in Conference Room 162 of The Dodd Center for Human Rights, while those joining by Zoom will receive a link to join upon registration.
Subverting Statues: Race, Space, Performance, and the Arab American National Museum
Thursday, March 9, 2023 | 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm
Asif Majid
In 2005, the Arab American National Museum (AANM) opened on the site of a former furniture store, opposite the former city hall building for the city of Dearborn, MI, a city outside Detroit that is often referred to as “the heart of Arab America.” At its founding, the museum also sat across the street from a statue of the former, long-serving, racist Dearborn mayor Orville Hubbard, an individual who explicitly referred to Arabs as “n******”; the Hubbard statue appeared to be gesturing to the museum. Drawing on my work at AANM this academic year – as an Arts Research with Communities of Color Fellow supported by the Social Science Research Council and The Wallace Foundation – in this talk, I ask: what performative, racial, and political power does the geography of the museum carry, particularly in reference to Dearborn’s racist history and spatial politics? And what might it mean to read politico-aesthetic institutions of color as a subversion of monuments to white supremacy?
Asif Majid is a scholar-artist-educator working at the intersection of racialized sociopolitical identities, multimedia, marginality, and new performance, particularly through devising community-based participatory theatre and making improvisational music. Currently, he serves as Assistant Professor of Theatre and Human Rights at the University of Connecticut. Prior to UConn, Asif was a Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow with the San Francisco Arts Commission and a Lab Fellow with The Laboratory for Global Performance and Performance.
Asif has published in multiple peer-reviewed academic journals, as well as numerous books and media outlets. His research interests include performance ethnography, the intersection of Islam and performance, community-based devising, social justice performance, the ethnography of race, and applied theatre. Asif’s US performance credits include work with the Kennedy Center, Convergence Theatre, and Theatre Prometheus, and his UK performance credits include the Royal Exchange Theatre, Action Transport Theatre, and Unity Theatre. Asifearned his PhD in Anthropology, Media, and Performance from The University of Manchester; his MA in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University; and his self-designed BA in Interdisciplinary Studies: Global Peace Building and Conflict Management from UMBC. He is online at www.asifmajid.com.
The Fate of Human Beings: A Documentary Film Reframing the Narrative of Institutionalization through Mental Institution Gravesites
Tuesday, April 4, 2023 | 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm
Heather Cassano
The Fate of Human Beings is a documentary film uncovering the stories of people with disabilities and mental illnesses who are buried in unnamed graves in mental institution cemeteries across the United States. Through a multiple narrative approach utilizing archival and present-day material, the film unpacks the ramifications of these cemeteries, seeking to understand our past and present relationships with the “otherness” of those interred. This talk will show work-in-progress scenes from The Fate of Human Beings and discuss the research behind the project, including the first database to comprehensively catalog institution cemeteries in the United States.
Heather Cassano is a documentary filmmaker and Assistant Professor of Film/Video at the University of Connecticut. She has presented work in the forms of still photography, multi-channel video, and short and feature films. Her films blend an observational style with deeply personal narratives, striving to tell authentic stories through her personal experiences. Heather’s first feature documentary THE LIMITS OF MY WORLD (2018), followed her severely autistic brother Brian as he transitioned from the school system into adulthood. The film screened at numerous festivals internationally, winning three Best Documentary awards and a Jury Prize. Heather is now working on her second feature documentary THE FATE OF HUMAN BEINGS, which uncovers the stories of people with disabilities and mental illnesses who are buried in unnamed graves in mental institution cemeteries across the United States. The film has been supported by Massachusetts Humanities, the LEF Foundation, the UConn Humanities Institute, and others.
Stubborn Negativity: On Willy Retto’s Uchuraccay Massacre Last Image
Wednesday, April 19, 2023 | 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
José Falconi
The last film shot by photographer Willy Retto captures the killings of himself and several journalists by villagers in Uchuraccay, Peru in 1983, during the country's internal conflict. Despite the photographic evidence, many remained unconvinced as to the events that transgressed and the images shrouded in mythology. This talk reflects on the power of images to provide testimony of the past, while also resisting the linear progress of time. It considers the internal logic and desynchronization between word and image that can contribute to the fog of mythology surrounding historical events. Through this unresolved tension, we uncover a thought-provoking reflection on the complex relationship between images, memory, and history.
José Luis Falconi is a professor of art and human rights at the University of Connecticut, as well as the president of Cultural Agents, Inc., an NGO which promotes civic engagement and creativity through artistic education. From 2001 to 2011, Falconi was the art forum curator at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, curating more than thirty shows of cutting-edge Latino and Latin American artists in an academic setting. From 2011 to July 2017, he was an associate of the Department of Art History and Architecture at Harvard University, where he received his doctorate in romance languages and literatures in 2010, and his post-doctorate the following year in the history of art and architecture under the supervision of Prof. Thomas Cummins.
His latest academic publications include Portraits of an Invisible Country: The Photographs of Jorge Mario Múnera(2010), A Singular Plurality: The Works of Darío Escobar (2013), The Great Swindle: A Project by Santiago Montoya (2014) and Ad Usum / To be used: The Works of Pedro Reyes (2017). His monograph on Mexican artist Pia Camil, There are no Friendly Fires, will be published in 2022.
In the United States, Falconi has been appointed lecturer in the Department of Art History and Architecture at Brandeis University (2014-2020), at Boston University in the spring of 2016, and in the School of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut in the spring of 2021. In Latin America, he was “bicentennial” Visiting Professor of Aesthetics at the University of Chile (Santiago de Chile, 2012 and 2019), “International Professor” at the National University of Colombia (Bogotá, 2013), visiting professor at the Center for Latin American Studies “Manuel Galich” at the Universidad San Carlos of Guatemala (2016), and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Costa Rica (2017).
Wednesday, March 22, 2023
5:00pm - 6:30pm
In-Person Event
Konover Auditorium, The Dodd Center for Human Rights
Directed by Emmy™ Award-winning filmmaker and UConn DMD Associate Professor Oscar Guerra, After Zero Tolerance brings a compelling and intimate perspective to the ongoing debate around US immigration policy and the treatment of families and children at the border. The film follows the story of Anavelis, who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with her then-six-year-old daughter, Genesis, in 2018. They were forcibly separated by law enforcement at a border camp, and Anavelis was deported back to Honduras without Genesis – kicking off a years-long quest to reunite with her daughter.
This event will feature a full screening of After Zero Tolerance (2022, 29 minutes), followed by a discussion with Oscar Guerra, Ann Garcia, Nan Schivone, and Anavelis.
Our Guests:
Moderator:
For a preview of the film, watch the above excerpt (3 minutes).
After Zero Tolerance is a FRONTLINE production with Five O’Clock Films in association with Guerra Productions, the Syracuse University S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the University of Connecticut. The writer, producer and director is Oscar Guerra. The senior producer is Frank Koughan.
This event is sponsored by the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute, Dodd Impact, and the Department of Digital Media & Design. We kindly ask you register to join us.
Tuesday, April 11, 2023
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Humanities Institute Conference Room
In-Person & Online
Join us for a panel celebrating Professor César Ernesto Abadía-Barrero’s new book, Health in Ruins, which chronicles the story of El Materno—Colombia’s oldest maternity and neonatal health center and teaching hospital—over several decades as it faced constant threats of government shutdown.
This team-based and collaborative ethnography analyzes the social life of neoliberal health policy. The book shows that health care privatization is not only about defunding public hospitals; it also ruins rich traditions of medical care by denying or destroying ways of practicing medicine that challenge Western medicine.
Our panel will include an overview of the book by Prof. Abadía-Barrero, followed by comments from three internationally renowned experts in medical anthropology and global health. The electronic version of the book is available from the UConn Library or Duke University Press.
We kindly ask that you register to attend regardless of the modality you will join.
In-person:
Humanities Institute Conference Room,
4th Floor of Homer Babbidge Library
Reception from 3:30 - 4:00 pm.
Online:
Register for Zoom details
Those joining us in-person are encouraged to join us for a reception ahead of the event at 3:30 pm in the same room. Refreshments will be served.
César E. Abadía-Barrero is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Human Rights at the University of Connecticut. A medical anthropologist, his research integrates different critical perspectives in the study of how for-profit interests transform access, continuity, and quality of health care. He has conducted activist-oriented research in Brazil and Colombia, focusing on healthcare policies and programs, human rights judicialization and advocacy, and social movements in health. He is the author of I Have AIDS but I am Happy: Children’s Subjectivities, AIDS, and Social Responses in Brazil (2011, English and Portuguese editions) and Health in Ruins: The Capitalist Destruction of Medical Care (2022, English and Spanish editions). His current collaborative research follows decolonial proposals in health and wellbeing after Colombia’s 2016 peace accord.
Alejandro Cerón
Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Denver
Omar Dewachi
Radcliffe Fellow, Harvard University
Associate Professor of Medical Anthropology and Global Health, Rutgers University
Carolyn Smith-Morris
Professor, School of Public Health, UT Southwestern Medical Center
Sarah Willen (Moderator)
Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Connecticut
Co-Director, Research Program on Global Health & Human Rights
The Research Program on Global Health and Human Rights serves as a forum for UConn’s scholarly community interested in global health, human rights, and health inequities. This program is an integral part of the Human Rights Institute, seeking to understand human rights based approaches to health challenges.