Social Suffering and the Scholarship of Witness.

Catalog description

This course examines ethnographic, social, historical, biographical and fictional accounts of major forms of social suffering, or collective experiences of hurt and trauma driven by deep poverty, ethnic cleansing, dislocation and disease, and gendered forms of violence, to name a few. These narratives reveal the interplay of social, political and economic factors that shape acts of atrocity. In addition to powerlessness and loss, many of these accounts also underscore the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative capacity of suffering, including our own sensibilities as witnesses. This exploration also raises challenging ethical dilemmas for which there are no easy answers, including issues of personal, national and international accountability.