The Flood of Rights: Sharon Sliwinski

Sharon Sliwinski is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies and the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism at Western University in Canada.

Sliwinski’s research interests range across a number of topics, from the intersection of politics and aesthetics, to the genealogy of key concepts in human rights discourse, to more theoretical investigations in psychoanalysis and the terrain of the imaginary.

A common thread has been photography — with individual photographers, subjects, and images, but also with the medium itself as a means through which humanity can become a community of witnesses to world events.

Sliwinski’s book Human Rights In Camera (Chicago 2011) considers the history of human rights as a series of aesthetic scenes.

She has published articles in a variety of journals, including: the Journal of Visual Culture; Humanity; Culture, Theory, and Critique; and American Imago.

Her current book project is called Dream Matters, which is a study of the social and political significance of dream-life.