seal  Purdue News
____

November 5, 2003

Human rights expert to speak at Purdue

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The Committee on Peace Studies and the Department of Political Science at Purdue University are sponsoring a lecture on Nov. 12 by human rights expert A. Belden Fields.

"Human Rights in the New Millennium," which is free and open to the public, begins at 7:30 p.m. in Krannert Auditorium. Fields is professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and author of "Rethinking Human Rights for the New Millennium."

Fields is an international authority on fundamental issues involving political theory, says Harry Targ, director of the Committee on Peace Studies and Purdue political science professor.

"In his book, he argues that human rights should be understood in a holistic way to combine philosophical, historical and empirical-practical dimensions," Targ says. "Fields claims that human rights should not be seen as a set of universal abstractions, but rather as a set of past and ongoing social practices rooted in the struggles of peoples against what they consider to be political, economic or social domination."

Writer: Amy Patterson-Neubert, (765) 494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu

Source: Harry Targ, (765) 494-4169, targ@polsci.purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu


* To the Purdue News and Photos Page