Human Rights and Social Justice Book Series Virtual Meet & Greet!

Human Rights and Social Justice Book Series

“Human rights” and “social justice” are two related but separate containers. Human rights are usually defined as rights that all individuals, and, less often, collectivities can or should be able to claim. In some respects, the history of human rights is ancient, but the idea of human rights—as a practice, and more often, a call to account—began to circulate in new ways in the middle of the twentieth-century.

Social justice brings different concerns and imperatives to bear. Activists and critics have long called attention to economic and social inequalities that stretch beyond formal rights, or the lack of them. In recent decades, the moniker of “social justice” has become familiar as a short-hand for a range of issues, causes, and analytics, many of them related to the tenacious social and economic inequities that determine so much of our lives. The phrase “social justice warrior” makes clear how it can also work as a caricature of those who seek equity and change.

University of Manitoba Press’ Human Rights and Social Justice series publishes books that engage human rights and social justice, both broadly defined. The broad scope here is intentional. This includes the enormous and ongoing histories of colonization of Indigenous peoples and territories; the pasts and presents of racism; the state, its power and excesses; how ideas of human rights and social justice are framed and celebrated; questions of gendered, sexual, and embodied rights and justice; lived experiences of social and economic poverty; questions of food and water security and sovereignty.

Established in 2015, the series has published three books that speak to this range of issues. Karen Busby, Adam Muller, and Andrew Woolford’s edited collection, The Idea of a Human Rights Museum addresses thicket of issues around the development of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. Elspeth Kaiser-Derrick’s 2019 book examines judicial practices of sentencing of Indigenous women. Most recently, Rhonda L. Hinther and Jim Mochoruk’s collection addresses Canada’s longstanding history with practices of interning civilians in wartime. Read more about these titles.

The UMP Human Rights and Social Justice series is interested in discussing manuscripts that engage further with these ranges of issues and take them in new directions. We are interested in featuring work that examines Canada and the places and territories beyond it as well. If that describes your work, we’d love to hear from you!

Join us on April 28, 2:00-3:00, for a virtual “meet & greet” with Series Editors Rhonda Hinther and Adele Perry, along with UMP Acquisitions Editor Jill McConkey.

Register here to join us on Zoom.

The event will also be livestreamed on UMP’s Facebook page.

Rhonda Hinther and Adele Perry can be reached by email at [email protected] and [email protected].

Dr. Rhonda Hinther is a history professor at Brandon University. She is author of Perogies and Politics: Canada’s Ukrainian Left, 1891-1991 (UTP, 2018) and co-editor of Civilian Internment in Canada: Histories and Legacies (UMP, 2020). View books by Rhonda Hinther.