About the Seminars--War and Its Aftermath
War Crimes, Tribunals, and Truth Commissions
Jeremy Ball, History 10:30 TTh
In 1994 approximately 800,000 Rwandans were brutally murdered by their fellow citizens as part of a genocidal campaign to remove Tutsi “cockroaches” and their Hutu sympathizers. How does Rwandan society come to terms with these atrocities? Is it best to focus on prosecuting leaders? How about the tens of thousands of citizens who killed their neighbors? Does it make more sense to forget the past and focus on unifying the country? What should be done for the victims? In the Rwandan case, the international community established a War Crimes Tribunal, similar to one established in Bosnia, to prosecute leaders of the genocide. Another model for dealing with massive human rights violations is a Truth Commission, a mechanism focused on uncovering the truth about clandestine human rights violations rather than holding perpetrators accountable for their actions. A Truth Commission differs from a War Crimes Tribunal in that it is generally a national mechanism, whereas the international community oversees War Crimes Tribunals. Unlike Rwanda, South Africa and Chile established Truth Commissions to come to terms with systematic violations of human rights (including murder and torture) in their own countries. In this course we will examine the historical context and workings of the Bosnian and Rwandan War Crimes Tribunals and the South African and Chilean Truth Commissions. We will engage in debates about the best model to deal with past abuses and discuss means to create a human rights culture. Has justice been achieved in each case? Are there other considerations besides justice? Stability? Reconciliation? How important is the human dignity of victims?
Catastrophe! War, Disaster, and Lives
Kim Rogers, History 10:30 TTh
This seminar will examine the impact of catastrophic events on the lives of survivors, their children, and their communities. We will examine the experience and aftermath of extreme violence during World War II through the memoir, Survival in Auschwitz, the novel Slaughterhouse 5, and Robert J. Lifton's Death in Life. We will also examine the experiences of the children of survivors, and the process of regeneration in survivor communities. We will also examine man-made environmental disasters, using Kai Erikson's A New Species of Trouble as a discussion text, then focusing for small-group projects on such disasters as Bophal, Chernobyl, and the hurricane Katrina. Throughout, we will focus on what factors engender collective survival, and which inhibit it. We will also focus on community-wide processes of recovery, memorialization, and regeneration.
