Reparations in Law and History

Catalog description

Calls for the U.S. and Europe to pay reparations for slavery and colonial crimes have proliferated in recent years. While discussions of reparations today often center around slavery and empire, reparations have historically been pursued, and successfully won, in a range of circumstances. The premise of this course is that we can better understand the nature of reparations claims by considering the historical record. Each week we will study a particular reparations case or theme and try and tease out the legal, political, moral, and economic logic that undergirds it. Our goal is to deepen our understanding of reparative ethics: what makes reparations distinct from other kinds of settlements? Do reparations require an exchange of money? What kinds of harms have historically generated demands for compensation from the state? Is this a settlement oriented towards the past or the future? What goals have been envisioned by those who have fought for reparations: Restitution? Reconciliation? Atonement? Cases we will study include the compensation demanded or paid for slavery, domestic labor, colonial violence, climate-related harms, war damages, and genocide. Readings of primary and secondary sources will be paired with works by political and social theorists including Friedrich Nietzsche, Marcel Mauss, W.E.B. Du Bois, Saidiya Hartman, Silvia Federici, C.L.R. James, Eric Williams, John Maynard Keynes, and Hannah Arendt.