CCS BARD

Thomas Keenan teaches human rights, media, and theory at Bard College, where he directs the Human Rights Project. In 2002, he helped create the first free-standing B.A. program in human rights in the United States, and in 2021 helped launch the Center for Human Rights and the Arts and its M.A. program. He is the author of Fables of Responsibility, 1997, and, with Eyal Weizman, Mengele’s Skull, 2012. A collection of his essays on media, evidence, and violence, entitled Claiming the Obvious, will be published by Zone Books in 2027. The Human Snapshot, co-edited with Tirdad Zolghadr, 2013, and The Flood of Rights, co-edited with Suhail Malik and Tirdad Zolghadr, 2017, were based on conferences jointly organized by HRP and CCS Bard at Luma Arles. He has curated a number of exhibitions including “It is obvious from the map,” (REDCAT, with Sohrab Mohebbi, 2017; “Aid and abet” (Quebec, 2011), “Antiphotojournalism” (with Carles Guerra, La Virreina, 2010), and “The End(s) of the Museum” (with John Hanhardt, Tapies Foundation, 1995. He has served on the boards of a number of human rights organizations and journals, including WITNESS, Scholars at Risk, The Crimes of War Project, The Journal of Human Rights, and Humanity.