Title: A culture of rights : law, literature, and Canada /
Authors: Authers, Benjamin James, 1975-
Year: 2016
Subjects: Canada.; Canada.; Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Canada); Legal literature Canada History; Canadian fiction History and criticism.; Law and literature Canada.; Law in literature.; Human rights in literature.; Civil rights in literature.; Politics in literature.; Canadian literature (English) History and criticism.; Droit Documentation Canada Histoire; Littérature canadienne-anglaise Histoire et critique.; Droit et littérature Canada.; Droit dans la littérature.; Droits de l'homme (Droit international) dans la littérature.; Politique dans la littérature.; Canada dans la littérature.; Civil rights in literature.; Human rights in literature.; Law and literature; Law in literature.; Legal literature; Literature; Politics in literature.; Canada In literature.; Canada
Abstract: "With the passage into law of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, rights took on new legal, political, and social significance in Canada. In the decades following, Canadian jurisprudence has emphasised the importance of rights, determining their shape and asserting their centrality to legal ideas about what Canada represents. At the same time, an increasing number of Canadian novels have also engaged with the language of human rights and civil liberties, reflecting, like their counterparts in law, the possibilities of rights and the failure of their protection. In A Culture of Rights, Benjamin Authers reads novels by authors including Joy Kogawa, Margaret Atwood, Timothy Findley, and Jeanette Armstrong alongside legal texts and key constitutional rights cases, arguing for the need for a more complex, interdisciplinary understanding of the sources of rights in Canada and elsewhere. He suggests that, at present, even when rights are violated, popular insistence on Canada's rights-driven society remains. Despite the limited scope of our rights, and the deferral of more substantive rights protections to some projected, ideal Canada, we remain keen to promote ourselves as members of an entirely just society."--