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

Download or read book Slavery and the Forensic Theatricality of Human Rights in the Spanish Empire written by Karen-Margrethe Simonsen and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-06-24 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a study of the forensic theatricality of human rights claims in literary texts about slavery in the sixteenth and the nineteenth century in the Spanish Empire. The book centers on the question: how do literary texts use theatrical, multisensorial strategies to denunciate the violence against enslaved people and make a claim for their rights? The Spanish context is particularly interesting because of its early tradition of human rights thinking in the Salamanca School (especially Bartolomé de Las Casas), developed in relation to slavery and colonialism. Taking its point of departure in forensic aesthetics, the book analyzes five forms of non-narrative theatricality: allegorical, carnivalesque, tragicomic, melodramatic and tragic.