History, Memory, and Trauma: Confronting The Past in Historically Divided Societies

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It is an obvious point but one that bears repeating: our era is the most murderous in human history. Scholars today debate the meaning of "genocide" ? a term first coined in 1944 ? but even by the strictest definition the last century has witnessed at least half a dozen. It has also seen "ethnic cleansing" (another recent coinage), the systematic use of rape as a political weapon, a burgeoning international slave trade, a steady erosion of the distinction between combatants and non-combatants, and any number of other grievous crimes. We live in an age of atrocity. Yet our era has also seen the development of new modalities for identifying, combatting, and redressing the effects of such crimes. So accustomed have we become to war crimes tribunals, truth and reconciliation commissions, national and institutional apologies, reparations program, and the creation of atrocity museums and memorials that it is easy to forget how novel such things are. To be sure, this emerging international reparative regime has rarely, if ever, fulfilled the ambitions of its architects, but it has ensured a measure of justice for at least some perpetrators of great crimes and a modicum of redress for at least some of their victims. Equally important, it has created an array of precedents and institutional forms for societies seeking to come to terms with gross historical injustice and its legacies. This seminar will survey the emerging field of "retrospective justice" through a series of topical readings and case studies. Topics include: the invention of "genocide"; war crimes tribunals; truth commissions; the politics of official apologies; monetary reparations programs; and the art, architecture, and politics of public memorials. Specific cases range from the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission to the ongoing efforts of American universities to come to terms with their…