Sociology and Human Rights: A Bill of Rights for the Twenty-First Century - Paperback

by Judith Blau (Editor), Mark Frezzo (Editor)

A unique volume designed to provoke an ongoing dialogue about fundamental human rights in our society

Edited by renowned scholars, Judith Blau and Mark Frezzo, this groundbreaking anthology examines the implications that human rights have for the social sciences. The book provides readers with a wide-ranging collection of articles, each written by experts in their fields who argue for an expansion of fundamental human rights in the United States. To provide an international context, the volume covers the human rights treaties that have been incorporated into the constitutions of many countries throughout the world, including wealthy nations such as Spain and Sweden and impoverished countries such as Bolivia and Croatia.

Author Biography

Judith Blau is Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she is the chair of the undergraduate Social and Economic Justice Minor. She also is past president of the Southern Sociological Society, President of the U.S. chapter of Sociologists without Borders, co-founder of its Think Tank, an international interactive site devoted to human rights.She is also Director of the Human Rights Center of Chapel Hill & Carrboro, both an advocacy organization and a vehicle for providing popular education about human rights. The She has lectured at various universities about the Center, including the National University of Seoul, Korea and the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Her most recent books with Spanish coauthor, Alberto Moncada, are: Human Rights: Beyond the Liberal Vision (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), Justice in the United States: Human Rights and the US Constitution (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), Freedoms and Solidarities: In Pursuit of Human Rights (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007); Human Rights: A Primer (Paradigm Publishers, 2009). Her earlier books include Race in the Schools (recipient of Oliver Cromwell Cox Award in race studies), Architects and Firms, The Shape of Culture, Public Sociologies Reader (co-editor), The Blackwell Companion to Sociology (editor), and The Leading Rogue State (co-editor). She has written nearly a hundred articles.

She co-edits the journal, Societies without Borders: Human Rights & the Social Sciences (Brill of the Netherlands). She helped to launch human rights sections in the International Sociological Association and the American Sociological Association. She serves as co-chair of the Educational Committee of the Science and Human Rights Coalition of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Mark Frezzo is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Florida Atlantic University. His teaching interests fall into the areas of economic sociology, political sociology, social movements, and social theory. His current research falls into two categories: (1) the exploration of the origins and repercussions of the social movement explosion in Latin America; and (2) the sociological analysis of the mandates and policies of the World Trade Organization, the International