It is finally here!
After six years of all kinds of work, I am delighted to announce the publication of Rousseau and Dignity: Art Serving Humanity.
With 42 contributors, age 7 to 92, more than 50 color photographs, drawings by artists such as Käthe Kollwitz, and chapters by human rights photojournalists hired by Amnesty International alongside children’s reactions to the exhibit and scholarly reflections on Rousseau on his 300th birthday, this volume is unusual, to put it mildly, and a bit controversial.
I feel deeply honored to have brought this material into circulation for English-speaking audiences. The volume connects events that took place in South Bend, Indiana, and Compiègne, France, children’s writing and art, with the most sophisticated yet accessible reflections on Rousseau’s worth for our time. The goal is to incite readers, school children, teachers, students, curious people young and old, to react and judge for themselves what Rousseau means for them.
Although the material can be painful to look at, and make you sad for our world, I hope you will love how the book’s writers speak to the images as much as I do.
Happy holidays, everybody, and a huge thanks to the contributors!
Contributors: Andrew Billing, Philippe Brault, Esther Duflo, Fayçal Falaky, Gabrielle Gopinath, Guillaume Herbaut, Jean-François Joly, Christopher Kelly, Charles R. Loving, Lea Malewitz, Serge Margel, Christie McDonald, Delphine Moreau, Daniel Philpott, Yves Prigent, Alison Rice, Johann Rousselot, Philip Stewart, Monica Townsend, Lauren Wester, Eva Yampolsky, Michaël Zumstein, students and schoolchildren in the United States, and participants in the documentary Entre nous Jean-Jacques.
A Revolution in Fiction 