The UALR Evenings with History program returns tomorrow night (March 6) with Charles W. Romney’s “A Brief History of Human Rights.”

What are Human Rights? Some claim humans have always had rights that cannot be traded, infringed, or given away. Others argue international organizations and American officials invented the concept of human rights in the 1970s to further various political agendas. In this Evening with History we will discuss the two historical interpretations behind each vision of human rights, assess the relative strength of both ideas of international rights, and explore the political and intellectual stakes in the debate over the origins of Human Rights.

Charles Romney graduated from Pomona College and received his Ph.D. in history from UCLA. He worked in public history for seven years on documentary films and digital history projects, and in the five years before joining UALR taught Asian and African history at Whittier College in California. At UALR he is the Graduate Coordinator of the History Department’s MA program in Public History.  Dr. Romney teaches classes on public history, digital history, African history, and on the United States and the world.  His current research includes a study of law, labor, and the state in modern America and a comparative history of colonial Hawaii.

The Evenings with History take place in the Ottenheimer Auditorium in the Historic Arkansas Museum at 200 E. Third Street. Refreshments are served at 7:00 p.m., and the talk begins at 7:30 p.m.

Corporate sponsors for the 2011-2012 season are Delta Trust, Union Pacific Railroad, the Little Rock School District—Teaching American History Program; the law firms of Friday, Eldredge, & Clark and Wright, Lindsey & Jennings. Also thanks for support and gifts in kind from the Ottenheimer Library; Historic Arkansas Museum, a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage; UALR Public Radio–KLRE-KUAR; and Grapevine Spirits