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History, Redress, and Reconciliation

Historical redress continues to occupy public and political debates as well as scholarly research. The study of human rights abuses and the ways in which redress addresses past injustices has gained broad recognition across a wide range of academic fields. Despite, or perhaps because of this widespread attention, there has been no systematic attempt to integrate what remain largely disconnected efforts into a trans-disciplinary enterprise let alone paradigmatic approach. In short, the history and the contemporary culture of redress remain a scholarly subject matter that is still in search of its own field. The objective of this seminar is to forge a more structured exchange among scholars and practitioners who engage a set of issues that are yet to self identify as an academic field, and is addressed in different disciplinary spaces. The seminar provides a forum for interdisciplinary work on issues at the intersection of history, memory and contemporary politics with particular emphasis on redressing past wrongs and gross violations of human rights. It encompasses questions among others of transitional justice, cultural resolution, and reconciliation. Its main principle revolves round the question of how history and memory inform contemporary politics, in particular around conflict and post conflict societies.

Seminar: #729
Founded: 2009

Seminar Administration

Co Chairs:
Elazar Barkan
Professor and Co-Director of the Human Rights Concentration
Columbia University, School of International Affairs
eb2302@columbia.edu

Daniel Levy
Associate Professor
Stony Brook University, Sociology
dalevy@ms.cc.sunysb.edu

Rapporteur:
Daniel Mahla
mdm2133@columbia.edu

Meetings

Spring 2010 Meetings

Monday February 22nd, 5pm.
The Land of Pale Hands ~ Feminicide and Impunity in Guatemala.
Victoria Sanford (Associate Professor of Anthropology (on leave)
Lehman College & The Graduate Center City University of New York)
Visiting Scholar, Center for Intl Conflict Resolution
Columbia University 

March 12-13, 2010
Workshop: Historical Commissions Comparative Perspectives
Sponsored by The Columbia University Seminar on History, Redress, and Reconciliation
The Harriman Institute (Columbia University)
The Center for the Study of Human Rights, Columbia University

Friday April 16th, 3pm.
Memories of Conflict and the Politics of Redress: Across Time, Place
and Discipline
Atina Grossmann (History - Cooper Union )
Revenge, Restitution, and Rights: Jewish Survivors in Postwar Germany
Anna di Lellio (Sociology - New School University)
Engineering Reconciliation as New Historical Truth: the Case of Kosovo
Alex Hinton (Anthropology - Rutgers University)
Truth, Justice, and Transition after the Cambodian Genocide

 

Fall 2009 Past Meetings

Thursday, September 24
David Rieff, "Human Rights as Practice and as Ideology"

Thursday, October 22
Philip Gourevitch, "Recovering from Genocide, or Not?  Revisiting Rwanda"

Thursday, November 19
Liz Sevcenko, "Sites of Conscience: Resisting Redress"

 

 

 

POLITICS
The Problem of Peace
Law and Politics
Studies in Political and Social Thought
Political Economy and Contemporary Social Issues
Globalization, Labor, and Popular Struggles
History, Redress, and Reconciliation
LITERATURE, RELIGION AND THE ARTS
CULTURAL STUDIES
HISTORY
EDUCATION AND PUBLIC MEDIA
SCIENCE
REGIONAL STUDIES
SOCIETY
ALPHABETICAL LISTING