José-Manuel Barreto (Bogotá/Bonn): Art, Emotions and the Human Rights Culture: Sentimental Education and the Work of Bill Viola, Sebastião Salgado and Fernando Botero

Abstract

For Rorty the question about the cultural struggle for human rights in times of globalisation finds one of its answers in the sensibilisation of the epoch. Thus, the actualisation or strengthening of the human rights culture can be pursued by a long-term process aimed at advancing the sentimental education of individuals and societies in the virtue of sympathy – a ‘global moral warming’ of the political culture of our times. Within this theoretical framework, this presentation aims at exploring the connection between art, emotions and the human rights culture by analysing the work of three contemporary artists: the video-artist Bill Viola, the photographer Sebastião Salgado, and the painter Fernando Botero.

Dr. José-Manuel Barreto

Curriculum Vitae

Legal philosopher José-Manuel Barreto received his PhD in Law for his thesis entitled “The Decolonial Turn and Sympathy: A Critique of the Eurocentric and Rationalist Theory of Human Rights” at Birkbeck College, University of London, in 2009. He has been a Fellow at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and at the program “Rechtskulturen”, Humboldt-University, Berlin. Dr. Barreto is the editor of “Human Rights from a Third-World Perspective: Critique, History and International Law” (Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2013). Since October 2014 he is Fellow at the Käte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study in the Humanities “Law as Culture”.