Slavery and the Forensic Theatricality of Human Rights in the Spanish Empire

Reviews / Votes

"Karen-Margrethe Simonsen's work is a much-needed and significant contribution to understanding the long arc of writing from below within the Spanish American empire. It reveals an engagement with human rights from the 16th century writing of Bartolemé de las Casas through to the anti-slavery literature of Cuba in the 19th as a complex and vigorous dialogue with natural rights and natural law. The forensic quality of this literature, its 'endeavour to speak with the dead', as Simonsen so lucidly shows, is a means by which the crimes of slavery and empire may be exposed and the need for justice made visible."- Fionnghuala Sweeney, University of Newcastle, UK
"Karen-Margrethe Simonsen deploys her new concept of forensic theatricality to devastating effect in this exciting development in the field of theatrical jurisprudence. A must-read for anyone wanting to understand just how legal and human rights injustices are never past but continue to wreak harm now. This is an important and wonderful book that should be on the shelves of lawyers, literary scholars, historians and theatre practitioners alike."-Marett Leiboff, Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of Wollongong
"Simonsen's book functions to de-anglicize and decolonize the history of human rights discourse. A unique and much-needed contribution to human rights and literature."- Greta Olson, Professor of English and American Literary and Cultural Studies, University of Giesse