The virtual human rights library brings together resources from multiple libraries and information services, both internal and external, to create an online hub dedicated to the study of human rights. This curation is unique in its interdisciplinary concerns and focuses on writings and research from social sciences, humanities, and law.
The virtual library is continually updated with the latest academic research in issue areas, as well as with relevant films, recorded conversations, and other forms of media.
Searchable Database
Click into the dropdowns to select the disciplines, keywords, and media type for your search, and then hit "Apply."
Kathleen Belew Bring the War Home : The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America (Harvard University Press, 2018)
The white power movement in America wants a revolution. Its soldiers are not lone wolves but highly organized cadres motivated by a coherent and deeply troubling worldview made up of white supremacy, virulent anticommunism, and apocalyptic faith. In Bring the War...
Thomas Kern "Cultural Performance and Political Regime Change." Sociological Theory 27, no. 3 (2009): 291-316.
The question about how culture shapes the possibilities for successful democratization has been a controversial issue for decades. This article maintains that successful democratization depends not only on the distribution of political interests and resources, but to seriously challenge a...
Adi Kuntsman, Rebecca L. Stein Digital Militarism: Israel's Occupation in the Social Media Age (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016)
Israel's occupation has been transformed in the social media age. Over the last decade, military rule in the Palestinian territories grew more bloody and entrenched. In the same period, Israelis became some of the world's most active social media users...
Josh Pilzer Hearts of Pine: Songs in the Lives of Three Korean Survivors of the Japanese "Comfort Women" (Oxford University Press, 2012)
In the wake of the Asia-Pacific War, Korean survivors of the "comfort women" system -- those bound into sexual slavery for the Japanese military during the war -- lived under great pressure not to speak about what had happened to...
Eyal Weizman Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation (London: Verso, 2007)
From the tunnels of Gaza to the militarized airspace of the Occupied Territories, Eyal Weizman unravels Israel’s mechanisms of control and its transformation of Palestinian homes into a war zone under constant surveillance. This is essential reading for those seeking...
Chetan Bhatt "Human Rights and the Transformations of War." Sociology 46, no. 5 (2012): 813-828.
The article explores a range of themes in the sociology of human rights that arise from recent transformations of war and warfare. Despite declining armed conflict since the end of the Cold War, much military discourse in the post-9/11 context...
Eyal Weizman The Least of All Possible Evils: A Short History of Humanitarian Violence (London: Verso, 2011)
The notion of a humanitarian “lesser evil” has become instrumental in justifying the West’s military adventures. It informs obscene calculations determining how much collateral damage is permissible in conflict. It determines the minimum requirements of survival imposed upon an occupied...
Christy Pichichero The Military Enlightenment: War and Culture in the French Empire from Louis XIV to Napoleon (Cornell University Press, 2021)
The Military Enlightenment brings to light a radically new narrative both on the Enlightenment and the French armed forces from Louis XIV to Napoleon. Christy Pichichero makes a striking discovery: the Geneva Conventions, post-traumatic stress disorder, the military "band of brothers,"...
Kıvanç Atak, Ismail Emre Bayram "Protest policing alla turca: Threat, insurgency, and the repression of pro-kurdish protests in Turkey." Social Forces 95, no. 4 (2017): 1667-1694.
Why do certain protests prompt more intervention from the police? And why does the intensity of intervention vary over time? Drawing on analytical approaches in the protest policing literature, and on studies investigating the relationship between civil conflict, public opinion...
Please Note:
While the Virtual Library is now live for use, we are still working to update its contents and improve its functionality.
It is usable by all visitors, but the hyperlinks to materials listed are for UChicago community members with a CNet ID and password.
Please direct feedback and suggestions to Kathleen Cavanaugh.
For technical assistance, email pozenhumanrights @ uchicago.edu.