Carole Nagengast, UNM professor and chair of anthropology, will be a guest on In Focus on KNME TV, Friday, May 21 at 8:30 p.m. Nagengast will speak about the torture and human rights violations that have occurred in Iraq and the Middle East.
She is a long-time activist and former chair of the board of Amnesty International, USA. At UNM, Nagengast teaches a popular anthropology course on human rights.
Former President Jimmy Carter has endorsed a new book edited by Nagengast. “Human Rights, Power and Difference: The Scholar as an Activist” links human rights activism with academic cultural analysis.
“At the Carter Center, we have been committed to blending scholarship and action for more than 20 years. Texts like ‘Human Rights, Power and Difference’ offer indispensable analysis that will guide human rights scholars and activists for years to come,” said Carter.
Nagengast says the idea behind the book is to inspire other academic researchers to investigate and teach about human rights. “Moral indignation, important as it is, is not enough,” she said. “We believe that along with it and the legal, social and political points of view that accompany human rights discourse, we also need to apply meticulous methodologies and a cultural analysis. Our goal is to give a human face to the issues of human rights by providing case studies from around the world.”
Kate Nelson, managing editor of the Albuquerque Tribune, hosts In Focus on KNME TV. The program will be rerun Sunday, May 23 at 9 a.m.
Contact: Greg Johnston, UNM Public Affairs, 277-1816