Deaf Walls Speak presents an insider’s view of artmaking in Guantánamo, the world’s most notorious prison, as self-expression and protest, and to stage a fundamental human rights claim that has been denied by law and politics: the right to be recognized as human. The book juxtaposes detainee artist Moath al-Alwi’s testimony and artwork with essays that situate his work within legal, political, aesthetic, and material contexts to demonstrate that artwork at Guantánamo constitutes important forms of material witnessing to human rights abuses perpetrated and denied by the U.S. government. 

This book investigates the imaginative capacities of literature, art and culture as sites for reimagining human rights, addressing deep historical and structural forms of belonging and unbelonging; the rise of xenophobia, neoliberal governance, and securitization that result in the purposeful precaritization of marginalized populations; ecological damage that threatens us all, yet the burdens of which are distributed unequally; and the possibility of decolonial and posthuman approaches to rights discourses. The book starts from the premise that there are deep-seated limits to the political possibilities of state and individual sovereignty in terms of protecting human rights around the world. The essays explore how different forms, materials, perspectives, and aesthetics can help reveal the limits of normative human rights and contribute to the cultural production of new human rights imaginaries beyond the borders of state and self.

This book investigates the imaginative capacities of literature, art and culture as sites for reimagining human rights, addressing deep historical and structural forms of belonging and unbelonging; the rise of xenophobia, neoliberal governance, and securitization that result in the purposeful precaritization of marginalized populations; ecological damage that threatens us all, yet the burdens of which are distributed unequally; and the possibility of decolonial and posthuman approaches to rights discourses. The book starts from the premise that there are deep-seated limits to the political possibilities of state and individual sovereignty in terms of protecting human rights around the world. The essays explore how different forms, materials, perspectives, and aesthetics can help reveal the limits of normative human rights and contribute to the cultural production of new human rights imaginaries beyond the borders of state and self.

This book demonstrates a new, interdisciplinary approach to life writing about torture that situates torture firmly within its socio-political context, as opposed to extending the long line of representations written in the idiom of the proverbial dark chamber. By dismantling the rhetorical divide that typically separates survivors' suffering from human rights workers' expertise, contributors engage with the personal, professional, and institutional dimensions of torture and redress. Essays in this volume consider torture from diverse locations - the Philippines, Argentina, Sudan, and Guantanamo, among others. From across the globe, contributors witness both individual pain and institutional complicity; the challenges of building communities of healing across linguistic and national divides; and the role of the law, art, writing, and teaching in representing and responding to torture.