The selection process for choosing the human rights common reading is designed to include voices from throughout the Webster community. The process begins with an e-mail to Institute Fellows, First Year Seminar instructors, a library liaison, and overseas academic directors asking for suggestions for the common reading. From those suggestions, the Institute selects five books that best fit the YIHR theme and offer opportunities for co-curricular events and classroom discussion. A second e-mail is distributed – this time providing information about the book such as a synopsis, reviews, and costs – and people are encouraged to respond with their feedback and preferences. Once a selection is made, the book recommendation is forwarded to the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences for final approval.

2012-2013 Common Reading:

The Last of the Tribe: The Epic Quest to Save a Lone Man in the Amazon

The Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies is pleased to announce the common reading for the 2012/13 Year in International Human Rights (YIHR): The Rights of Indigenous and Stateless Peoples.  The Last of the Tribe: The Epic Quest to Save a Lone Man in the Amazon is about a man who searches for small, almost extinct indigenous tribes in the Amazon rainforest. Brazilian law stipulates that land must be preserved if a tribe lives on it which puts indigenous people in danger as logging and other interests would like to have access to the land.

Our goal with the common reading is to build an intellectual community and stimulate debates and discussions about indigenous rights protection and the connection between indigenous rights, development, environmental activism, and cultural survival.

About the book:

"Throughout the centuries, the Amazon has yielded many of its secrets, but it still holds a few great mysteries. In 1996 experts got their first glimpse of one: a lone Indian, a tribe of one, hidden in the forests of southwestern Brazil. Previously uncontacted tribes are extremely rare, but a one-man tribe was unprecedented. And like all of the isolated tribes in the Amazonian frontier, he was in danger. Resentment of Indians can run high among settlers, and the consequences can be fatal. The discovery of the Indian prevented local ranchers from seizing his land, and led a small group of men who believed that he was the last of a murdered tribe to dedicate themselves to protecting him. These men worked for the government, overseeing indigenous interests in an odd job that was part Indiana Jones, part social worker, and were among the most experienced adventurers in the Amazon. They were a motley crew that included a rebel who spent more than a decade living with a tribe, a young man who left home to work in the forest at age fourteen, and an old-school sertanista with a collection of tall tales amassed over five decades of jungle exploration. Their quest would prove far more difficult than any of them could imagine. Over the course of a decade, the struggle to save the Indian and his land would pit them against businessmen, politicians, and even the Indian himself, a man resolved to keep the outside world at bay at any cost. It would take them into the furthest reaches of the forest and to the halls of Brazil’s Congress, threatening their jobs and even their lives. Ensuring the future of the Indian and his land would lead straight to the heart of the conflict over the Amazon itself.

A heart-pounding modern-day adventure set in one of the world’s last truly wild places, The Last of the Tribe is a riveting, brilliantly told tale of encountering the unknown and the unfathomable, and the value of preserving it."

Taken from:http://books.simonandschuster.com/Last-of-the-Tribe/Monte-Reel/9781416594741

Click here to view the study guide.

2011-2012 Common Reading:

Persepolis

Note: Persepolis, an animated movie based on this year's common
reading, The Complete Persepolis, will be shown at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday,
at the South Grand Parking Lot, 3500 Hartford. Bus transportation
is available. More information...

The common reading for the 2011/2012 Year of Human Rights is Persepolis,by Marjane Satrapi. Her memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, her high school days in Vienna, her return to Iran in her early adulthood, and her subsequent migration to France, is an example of the human cost of war, and the effects of displacement on refugees. As the common reading, Persepolis ties in some of the major themes in human, refugee and migrant rights. The book documents the uncertainty and loss of dignity facing those who are targets of persecution, even after finding safe haven, showing how individuals can face isolation, prejudice, and problems integrating. We encourage students to think critically about the book, and how it relates to human rights. For more information about the book, please visit http://www.randomhouse.com/pantheon/graphicnovels/persepolis.html.

About the book:

"Originally published to wide critical acclaim in France, where it elicited comparisons to Art Spiegelman's Maus, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's wise, funny, and heartbreaking memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.

Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran: of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life and of the enormous toll repressive regimes exact on the individual spirit. Marjane's child's-eye-view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a stunning reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, through laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love."

(from http://www.randomhouse.com/pantheon/graphicnovels/persepolis.html.)

Click here to read about First Year Seminar student's reactions to Persepolis.

2010-2011 Common Reading:

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into
Opportunity for Women Worldwide

The common reading for the 2010/2011 Year of Women’s Rights is Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Webster University welcomed Ms. WuDunn to its Saint Louis campus for a public lecture on September 13, 2011. To learn more about Half the Sky – the book, the movement, and how to protect the rights of women and girls – please visit http://www.halftheskymovement.org/.

About the book:

They show how a little help can transform the lives of women and girls abroad. That Cambodian girl eventually escaped from her brothel and, with assistance from an aid group, built a thriving retail business that supports her family. The Ethiopian woman had her injuries repaired and in time became a surgeon. A Zimbabwean mother of five, counseled to return to school, earned her doctorate and became an expert on AIDS.

Through these stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential. They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that, and how we can each do our part. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. Countries such as China have prospered precisely because they emancipated women and brought them into the formal economy. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it’s also the best strategy for fighting poverty." (From the book jacket)