New Directions in Human Rights History

AHA Session 156
Central European History Society 7
Saturday, January 10, 2026: 8:30 AM-10:00 AM
Continental B (Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level)
Chair:
Lora Wildenthal, Rice University
Panel:
Jennifer Adair, Fairfield University
Brandon Bloch, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Felix Jiménez Botta, Miyazaki International College
Charlotte Kiechel, University of Pennsylvania
Melanie Tanielian, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Session Abstract

The history of human rights is experiencing a period of exciting growth. Over the past decade, the field has widened beyond the poles that characterized its emergence during the early 2000s. Earlier studies either characterized human right movements as paragons of liberal internationalism or criticized their imperial biases. More recent studies have widened the field’s transnational scope, examining a plethora of movements that mobilized human rights language in ways that transcended Great Power interests and Cold War logics. Newer scholarship has centered local context in human rights activism, a move that has been necessary to transcend the field’s early focus on national political elites and leaders of international organizations. There is now an opportunity to delve into the trans-regional linkages of human rights struggles and to more systematically chart the intersections of local and transnational networks.

This roundtable aims to take stock of these developments and hone the research questions and methodological tools that will drive forward the next generation of human rights histories. The session will bring into dialogue a group of twentieth-century historians who are specialists in Western and Central Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, but whose scholarship has radiated outward to follow the transnational linkages of human rights ideas and activists. Our five panelists and chair bring diverse regional and methodological perspectives, ensuring a rich and wide-ranging discussion. At the same time, we have designed the roundtable to maximize audience participation. The roundtable will adhere to the following format:

1. Opening Statements [45 mins.]

Following a brief statement by the chair laying out the motivations for the panel, each of the five panelists will speak for a maximum of eight minutes. (We plan to forego the reading of panelists’ biographies by the chair.) Panelists will be asked to connect their ongoing research to one or more of the following questions:

  • What are the central themes holding together the field of human rights history now that debates about the “origins” of human rights are no longer central?
  • How can we draw in voices that have been traditionally marginalized in human rights studies?
  • Which sources and archives have you found most fruitful for exploring the interface of local activism with international networks and institutions?
  • How does human rights history relate to cognate fields such as the history of international law or Genocide Studies, and what specific insights can it offer?
  • How do ongoing human rights struggles inform the research questions of the field?

2. Audience Discussion [45 mins.]

Following the opening statements, we will move directly to audience discussion. The chair will encourage questions that invite responses from multiple panelists. In addition, panelists and the chair will have the opportunity to pose questions and respond to one another. We expect that the panel will appeal to a broad audience of AHA members including scholars of international and global history, social movements, humanitarianism, and Genocide Studies, as well as specialists in the regional subfields represented by the panelists.

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