Culture of Rights

Benjamin, James

ISBN 10: 1442631872 / ISBN 13: 9781442631878

Published by University of Toronto Press, 2016

About this Item

In A Culture of Rights, Benjamin Authers reads novels by authors including Joy Kogawa, Margaret Atwood, Timothy Findley, and Jeanette Armstrong alongside Canadian legal texts and constitutional rights cases. Num Pages: 208 pages. BIC Classification: 1KBC; 2AB; DSB; JPVH; LAZ. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational; (U) Tertiary Education (US: College). Dimension: 229 x 152 x 12. Weight in Grams: 400. . 2016. Hardback. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9781442631878

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Culture of Rights
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1442631872
• ISBN 13: 9781442631878
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

With the passage into law of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, rights took on new legal, political, and social significance in Canada. In the decades following, Canadian jurisprudence has emphasised the importance of rights, determining their shape and asserting their centrality to legal ideas about what Canada represents. At the same time, an increasing number of Canadian novels have also engaged with the language of human rights and civil liberties, reflecting, like their counterparts in law, the possibilities of rights and the failure of their protection.

In A Culture of Rights, Benjamin Authers reads novels by authors including Joy Kogawa, Margaret Atwood, Timothy Findley, and Jeanette Armstrong alongside legal texts and key constitutional rights cases, arguing for the need for a more complex, interdisciplinary understanding of the sources of rights in Canada and elsewhere. He suggests that, at present, even when rights are violated, popular insistence on Canada's rights-driven society remains. Despite the limited scope of our rights, and the deferral of more substantive rights protections to some projected, ideal Canada, we remain keen to promote ourselves as members of an entirely just society.

About the Author

Benjamin Authers is a Lecturer in Law in the College of Business Government and Law, Flinders University, South Australia, Chief Editor, Flinders Law Journal, and President of the Association for Canadian Studies in Australia and New Zealand..