Emancipating Human Rights: A Preview

Humboldtian Michael Goodhart discusses his upcoming book Emancipating Human Rights, which examines the complex and often contradictory role of human rights in political struggles, arguing that their emancipatory potential lies not in what human rights are, but in how people use them to pursue transformative social and political change.

Michael Goodhart is Professor of Political Science and of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies. He is also Professor (by courtesy) of Philosophy and of Public and International Affairs. Goodhart’s core research interests include democracy, human rights, (in)justice, and emancipatory political struggles. He has been an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation research fellow, a fellow in residence of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, and Guest Professor in the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin.

Goodhart is the author of Injustice: Political Theory for the Real World (Oxford 2018), Democracy as Human Rights: Freedom and Equality in the Age of Globalization (Routledge, 2005), contributing editor of Human Rights: Theory and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2009, 2012, 2016, 2022), and contributing co-editor of Social Movements and World-System Transformation (Routledge 2017) and Human Rights in the 21st Century: Continuity and Change since 9/11 (Palgrave, 2011). He is also author of numerous articles and book chapters and has lectured widely in North America and around the world. His current book project,  Emancipating Human Rights, is nearing completion.