Political Science is new home for journal

Richard Hiskes, professor of political science, is the new editor of The Journal of Human Rights , a major international scholarly publication.

The journal had been based at Wellesley College, where it was founded five years ago and edited by Thomas Cushman, a Wellesley professor of sociology.

It is published quarterly, with seven to ten peer-reviewed articles in each issue from scholars in what Hiskes called "a tremendously growing field" in academia.

Academic study of human rights used to be centered on the law, but the liberal arts disciplines of political science, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and history are increasingly involved, he noted.

The Human Rights Institute and the human rights endowed faculty chair, established this year with a gift from Judi and Gary Gladstein '66, along with the establishment of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center ten years ago, and now the transfer of the journal to UConn are making the University a major center of human rights research, he said.

"UConn is really riding the wave here," said Hiskes.

Richard A. Wilson, the Judi and Gary Gladstein Distinguished Chair in Human Rights and director of the Human Rights Institute, is associate editor of the journal. Richard J. Goldstone, former chief justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, who is a member of the Dodd Center's board, is on the journal's editorial board.

The journal has benefited from the commitment of the University to human rights and from support by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School, Hiskes said.

He characterized the journal's editorial style as "a little edgy," treating topics that challenge orthodoxy. The first issue under Hiskes's editorship examines the treatment of Israel by the human rights community.

A 2004 Times Literary Supplement review of the journal said that it takes "an impressively wide-ranging and imaginative approach to its subject."

The journal's new managing editor is Aaron Paterson, a Ph.D. student in political science, and the book editor is Serena Parekh, assistant professor of philosophy. The new Web site address is www.jhr.uconn.edu .