In this presentation, Iida Pyy explores the work of Martha Nussbaum, arguing that political compassion is a necessary disposition for engaging with human rights principles and combatting social injustices such as racial discrimination. Drawing from Nussbaum’s theory of political emotions, she explores the need to understand compassion as connected to cognition and practical reasoning. Iida Pyy offers suggestions of how to educate towards political compassion in human rights education (HRE) through Nussbaum’s notion of narrative imagination. In order to address ways in which human rights education may be partial and counteract this tendency with alternative perspectives, the presenter draws on the work of critical HRE scholars and emphasises the importance of counter-narratives and reflective interpretation of narratives. She suggests that Nussbaum’s work on compassion and narrative imagination, informed by such critical considerations, opens up opportunities to look afresh at HRE theory and practice and inform thinking about rights, emotions and social justice.

A recording will feature on our YouTube Channel after the event. Past webinars can also be found there.

ALL WELCOME

About the organizers

The WERA IRN on Human Rights Education was established in Spring 2019 and launched in London in June that year. The coordinators are Professor Audrey Osler (USN, Norway, University of Leeds, UK ) and Professor Hugh Starkey (IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society, London, UK). The two pillars of the IRN are Human Rights Education Review and UCL’s International Conference on Education and Democratic Citizenship (ICEDC) conference.

Contact: for any questions or comments please contact Professor Hugh Starkey h.starkey@ucl.ac.uk or Professor Audrey Osler a.h.osler@leeds.ac.uk