Literature and Human Rights

Human Rights have been partially taught in variety of genres of Humanities and Social Sciences. It has seen its different variety of forms for an example – in Media it is related with issues such as censorship or in various other genres of social sciences – Human Rights is studied in a different way. Human Rights has been a matter of discipline of law, political science or the cultural studies. But what about in Literature? The study of literature is nowadays more and more interdisciplinary. This is allowing the courses and other disciplines to make the study of literature more diverse and interesting.  As a part of Blog Action Day 2013 and the theme set for this year #HumanRights , I chose the topic of – Literature and Human Rights, which is one of the subjects I am studying now – to write about.

“Literature and Human Rights” is also one of the courses I am pursuing in my Masters of Philosophy ( MPHIL ) in English class. This is the unique course that has been introduced by Tribhuvan University, Nepal for the MPHIL students. However, the subject teacher told that the course is of Undergraduate studies in America (Ironical). Human behavior, condition and thinking are explored in literature additionally Human Rights is also the product of same human civilization. Human Rights are certain type of rights that are peculiar to human themselves. The first and foremost or the ancient form of Human Rights is Religion. Most of the religions talk about human rights which makes the subject matter naturally literature of human rights.

In the subject Literature and Human Rights we are studying a variety of texts that are related to the theoretical aspects of the Human Rights, its definition and explanation as well as analysis. Moreover we are also studying literary approaches to study Human Rights, the theories on Human Rights. As well as we are studying the Literature of violence including trauma. With the approaches of selected theorists we will be re looking the literature from the perspective of various theories including the trauma theory. With all these, we will also be studying what is the purpose of literary works?

सुनसान सुनसान !

केवल ईच्छाले छुन सक्ला कहिले
सुनसान धरहराले आकाशको चम्किने तारा
(फोटो: मेरो -एक साँझमा धरहरा )

प्राप्ती र अप्राप्तीको
दोसाधमा उभिएर
प्राप्ती भन्दा अलिकवर
लक्ष्मणरेखा ननाघेर
उभिएको छु म अप्राप्तीको काँधमा

आँखा तन्काइ तन्काइ हेरिरहने
शरीर मर्काइ मर्काइ
जोड सँग साहसले नाघ्न खोज्नुपर्ने
लक्ष्मणरेखा भन्दा प….रररको प्राप्ती
केवल हेर्नलाई मात्र रहेछ ।

मुखुन्डो लगाएर तर्सौन आउने
थरी थरी आकंश्याहरु
कहिले मुर्त, कहिले अमुर्त
भएर आउने भावनाको बाढीहरु
र यही बिच धुजा धुजा हुने सपनाहरु
केवल महसुस गर्नलाई मात्र रहेछ ।