Historical Injustices and the Politics of Memory (HIST 2046). Instructor: Keila Grinberg
Is it possible to repair wrongs of the past? How have different societies dealt with traumatic pasts? How are those pasts being memorialized (or de-memorialized) and reenacted in the world of art, entertainment and tourism in ways that potentially reinforce discriminatory practices? How have claims based on the past led to the creation of structures of transitional justice? What are the moral, legal and historical bases for claims for reparations and restitutions? With no intention to exhaust those questions, this seminar aims to discuss the concepts of traumatic pasts and historical injustice through philosophical, legal, political and historical lenses, discussing the role and the moral responsibility of intellectuals in this process, and analyzing and comparing specific cases, such as the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the enslavement of Africans, military dictatorships in Latin America, European colonialism in Africa, and the Japanese-American incarceration in the United States.