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SUMMARY: Malcolm X\, Human Rights\, and A New World Picture - Emma Mackinn
 on (University of Cambridge)
DTSTART:20190305T130000Z
DTEND:20190305T140000Z
UID:TALK119056@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Maja Spanu
DESCRIPTION:In the year and a half before he was killed\, Malcolm X was ma
 king extensive use of the language of human rights – a language that\, h
 e insisted\, went beyond that of civil rights\, both to describe the wrong
 s of white supremacy in America and to offer grounds for international app
 eal. Reading Malcolm X on human rights\, many scholars read this as a “t
 urn” toward internationalism\, even a loose cosmopolitanism\, coming aft
 er his break with the Nation of Islam\; others describe his use of human r
 ights language as largely instrumental\, a way to gain standing for intern
 ational appeal. But his theorization of the concept both began earlier and
  was more intellectually robust than the current literature suggests. For 
 Malcolm X\, I argue\, the language of human rights served to tie together 
 his criticism of American hypocrisy with a robust anticolonial politics\, 
 which included a critique of the application of American power abroad. Whi
 le his use of human rights can be understood\, I’ll argue\, in the conte
 xt of a longer-running criticism of the hypocrisy of America’s founding 
 documents\, he also rejected the politics of fulfilment\, seeking instead 
 to enact the re-founding of a political community and re-making of its pro
 mises\, in order to change both the position of African Americans in the U
 S and the role of the US in the world. In this sense\, I argue\, Malcolm X
  saw human rights as part of what he described as a “new world picture
 ” that could merge humanitarian and egalitarian commitments with an affi
 rmation of national political institutions and postcolonial sovereignty.
LOCATION: Room 138\, Alison Richard Building\, Sidgwick Site\, 7 West Road
 \, Cambridge\, CB3 9DT
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