INAF U8189.001: History and Reconciliation
Fall 2007

Elazar Barkan

Since the end of the Cold War historical memory has come to play an increasing role in international and intra-national conflicts.  Numerous countries transitioning from dictatorship to democracy have focused on the gross historical violations of a previous regime.  But not all.   The question is how does a focus on the past facilitate present conflicts or reconciliation?   Societies are faced with the expectation that they will attend to the crimes of previous regimes.  How does retributive justice relate to reconciliation?  These issues become even more vexing in the case of crimes in historical perspective: What are the standards for historical responsibility?   How does historical conflict and reconciliation differ from approaches to immediate accountability for the past in newly democratic societies? The course examines these political and ethical dilemmas in a comparative historical perspective.  

This year the course, which is taught as a seminar, would be divided into two parts: (1) reading theoretical and historical works; and (2) A focus on religious places as sites of conflict and reconciliation.  Particular attention will be paid to Palestine/Israel; and India.  

There will be space for students to be involved in an exercise of creating a shared narrative for specific historical controversies.

Grading

  1. Contribution to discussion both in class and online.    25%
  2. One short book review of one of the required readings in the first part of the semester.  Review the book overall, and take into account the parts that were not required.   1200 words. Due October 12th.   25%
  3. Final paper on a case study of historical reconciliation.  Possible joint work.  Due Dec 13.    50%

Books to buy  

  1. Gunter Grass, Crabwalk
  2. Karl Jaspers, The Question of German Guilt

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Course Plan

  1. Week Sept 4th   Overview of course
    • Elazar Barkan, “Historical Reconciliation: Redress, Rights and Politics” Journal of International Affairs, 60 (2006) 1: 1-15 (see class files)
  2. Week Sept 11th Constructing German Victims
    Gunter Grass, Crabwalk
    Expelled Germans  (Czech; Poland)
    Possible contexts, in addition to news reports (you are welcomed to explore other sources)

    3. Begin to explore the topic for the written work in the second part of the semester

  3. Week Sept 18th Reconciliation and transitional societies
    • Andrew Rigby, Justice and Reconciliation: After the Violence, ch 1
    • Martha Minow, Between Vengeance and Forgiveness,  Ch 1-4; 6
    • Neil Kritz, (ed) Transitional Justice. Boulder: U.S. Institute of Peace, 1997. Introduction.
    • Robert I. Rotberg, “Truth Commissions and the Provisions of Truth, Justice and Reconciliation” in Robert I. Rotberg and Dennis Thompson (Editors) Truth v. Justice, pp 3-22.

  4. Week Sept 25th   History and Truth
    • Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob,  Telling the Truth About History, pp 241-309
    • Alan Crains, “Coming to Terms with the Past” and Charles S. Maier, “Overcoming the Past? Narrative and Negotiation, remembering and Reparation: Issues at the Interface of History and the Law” in John Torpey (ed.) Politics and the Past, pp. 63-90; 295-304.
    • Teresa Godwin Phelps, Shattered Voices: Language, Violence, and the Work of Truth Commissions (Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights), chs  4-5.
  5. Week Oct 2nd   National Guilt: German Guilt
    • Karl Jaspers, The Question of German Guilt
    • Hannah Arendt, Eichmann In Jerusalem, ch1;15; epilogue; postscript.
    • Ian Buruma, The Wages of Guilt (selection)
    • (alternative) Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela,  A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness.
  6. Week Oct 9th Redress
    • Elazar Barkan, The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices,  ch 1, 12  
    • Wole Soyinka, The Burden of Memory, The Muse of Forgiveness.  Ch 1.  
    • Pablo de Greiff,  “Justice and Reparations” in Jon Miller and Rahul Kumar (eds)  Reparations: Interdisciplinary Inquiries, pp 154 175
  7. Week Oct 16th Poland – Jewish
    • Jan Gross “A Tangled Web: Confronting Stereotypes Concerning Relations Between Poles, Germans, Jews and Communists,”  in Istvan Deak (Editor), Jan Tomasz Gross (Editor), Tony Judt (Editor), The Politics of Retribution in Europe,  pp. 74-130
    • Yad-Vashem: The International Conference on Confronting History   http://www1.yadvashem.org.il/search/index_search.html   (conference has several interesting papers on related commissions)
    • Krzysztof Persak, "Coming to Terms with the Wartime Past: The Institute of National Remembrance and its Research on the Jedwabne Case."  The International Conference on Confronting History: The Historical Commissions of Inquiry.  Jerusalem, Israel.  29 December, 2002 – 1 January, 2003.  
    • Michael G. Muller, “The Joint Polish - German Commission for the Revision of School Textbooks and Polish Views of German History,”     German History, Volume 22, Number 3 (August 01, 2004).    
  8. Week Oct 23th    Building a Shared Narrative
    • The IHJR  web site -  
      i. The Scholars Initiative
    • The WORKSHOP FOR ARMENIAN/TURKISH SCHOLARSHIP –ms.  
  9. Week Oct 30th   -   Indigenous People
    • indigenous sacred sites  - web search – explore various sites
    • Ken Gelder and Jane M. Jacobs, Promiscuous Sacred Sites: Reflections on Secrecy and Scepticism in the Hindmarsh Island Affair,  http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive/Issue-June-1997/gelder.html
    • Elazar Barkan, The Guilt of Nations : Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices,  ch 8; 10.
  10.   Week Nov 13th    Israel - Palestine  (1)
    • Ron E. Hassner, “’To Halve and To Hold”: Conflicts over Sacred Space and the Problem of Indivisibility’”, Security Studies 12:4 (Summer 2003):1-33 [Esp. 14-26]
    • Elizabeth Key Fowden, “Sharing Holy Places” Common Knowledge 8:1 (2002)
    • Yitzhak Reiter, M. Eordegian  and M. Abu Khallaf . “Between Divine and Human: The Complexity of Holy Places in Jerusalem” in Moshe Maoz and S. Nusseibeh (eds.) Jerusalem: Points of Friction – And Beyond. The Hague, London and Boston: Kluwer Law International, 2000. pp. 95-153. [Esp. 109-114]
  11.   Week Nov 20th  Israel - Palestine  (2)
    • David E. Guinn, Protecting Jerusalem's Holy Sites: A Strategy for Negotiating a Sacred Peace   21-84
    • Cecilia Albin, Explaining Conflict Transformation: How Jerusalem Became Negotiable http://www.pcr.uu.se/publications/albin_pub/LOW-RES-CCAM-18-3-123770-339-355.pdf
    • Jamie Scott and Paul Simpson-Housley (eds.), Sacred Places and Profane Space: Essays in the Geographics of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), pp. 21-61
  12.   Week Nov 27th  -  
    • Roger Friedland and Richard Hecht, “The Bodies of Nations: A Comparative Study of Religious Violence in Jerusalem and Ayodhya,” History of Religions 38, no.2 (November 1998): 101-149;
  13.   Week Dec 4th –    India
    • Richard M. Eaton, “Temple desecration in pre-modern India,”  (online)
    • Additional reading will be provided.
  14.   Week Dec 11th
    • Students Presentations

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