Under Construction: Battles of Memory, Human Rights and Cultural Practices

Ana Forcinito, Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, U of M.
Reframing Mass Violence: Human Rights and Social Memory in Latin America and Southern Europe.
Thursday, April 24
3:00 p.m.
1-109 Hanson Hall

Cultural practices have played a crucial role in the construction of collective memory in Argentina, by addressing the invisibility and the silence about human rights violations, by exploring different layers of memory, and by reframing the interpretations that surround human rights struggles. This talk will offer an overview of the battles of memory after the last military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983), focusing on artistic and cultural practices in dialogue with crucial moments of the post dictatorship period.

Organized by the IAS Reframing Mass Violence Research Collaborative. Cosponsored by the Human Rights Program, and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

IAS Collaborative Reframing Mass Violence presents Alejandro Baer

The Collective Memory of Mass Atrocities
A talk by Alejandro Baer, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, U of M
Thursday, February 20
3:00p.m.
Room 1-109 Hanson Hall

"Postmemory", "multi-directional memory" and "cosmopolitan memory" are terms used by contemporary scholars to describe the changing nature of the practices of remembrance in post-conflict societies. We will look at the emerging modes of traumatic memory production, circulation and consumption in a globalized context, which are highly conditioned by the language of the Holocaust. The Jewish genocide serves as powerful symbol and also as a cognitive model--a script--for structuring and framing the events of a troubling past. What are its effects on social relations and individual subjects?

Session 3 in the public, one-credit course Reframing Mass Violence: Human Rights and Social Memory in Latin America and Southern Europe.

Organized by the IAS Reframing Mass Violence: Human Rights and Social Memory in Latin America and Southern Europe Collaborative. Cosponsored by the Human Rights Program, and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

This event has been designated by the Office of the Vice President for Research to satisfy the Awareness/Discussion component of the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) continuing education requirement.

Course: Politics of Reconciliation, Memory, and Justice

Monday/Wednesday 1:00-2:15pm
Spring Semester

Prof. Alejandro Baer (Sociology) and Prof. Catherine Guisan (Political Science)

What is political reconciliation? Are we witnessing efforts to bring final resolution to long-standing conflicts? Should we accept that reconciliation is at best a fragile, temporary equilibrium between opposite political forces that must be reenacted with each passing generation? Is reconciliation an action that rests on religious faith, or does religion threaten reconciliation? Is there a dark side to reconciliation that undermines justice and economic fairness?

For more information on this course go to One Stop.

Courtney Gildersleeve PhD candidate to present at the next CHGS workshop

"Poetry, Damaged Life, and One Poem by Agha Shahid Ali"
Courtney Gildersleeve
Holocaust Genocide & Mass Violence Studies Workshop (HGMV)
Thursday, October 3
Room 710 Social Sciences

Courtney Gildersleeve is a PhD Student and Teaching Assistant in the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature. Working broadly in the field of Post-Colonial Studies, and with a commitment to the tradition of historical materialism, she examines the ways that literature and especially poetry has played a role in anti-colonial struggle and continually seeks to reckon with the long history of colonialism and violence that has shaped the modern world. Although her work is decidedly comparative, her dissertation research foregrounds the history, literature, and anti-colonial thought of the Caribbean.

While focusing primarily on writers from Cuba, Martinique, and Haiti, she studies texts that emerged from or in response to the Transatlantic slave trade, those that address the labor of African peoples in the Americas, and those that grapple with the continuing cost of 'intervention' by many other nations in the Caribbean. In addition to the presentation she will give at the HGMV workshop, which parts ways with this historical context, this semester she is also working on a project that offers a critical perspective on recent efforts--particularly in the former slave-trading city of Bordeaux--to memorialize the leader of the Haitian Revolution, Toussaint Louverture, and the struggles of that revolution.

CHGS and the Program for Human Rights Announce Program on Syria

Countering Mass Atrocities in Syria: Between Human Rights Ideals and Geo-Political Concerns
Wednesday, September 11
4:00 p.m.
Note: Room Change:
125 Willey Hall



As the situation in Syria grows evermore difficult, maintaining its position in center stage as the world watches mass atrocities unfold, tensions over what action to take (or not to take) continue to escalate. Russia stands firm in its decision to block a UN backed intervention, and the United States looks to take matters into its own hands with military action. In the anticipation of a potential confrontation, experts and scholars hope to find a way to take action without vast and devastating consequences.

Panelists:
Sarah Parkinson, Assistant Professor. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Ragui Assaad, Professor, Planning and Public Affairs at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Ron Krebs, Associate Professor Department of Political Science, Dr. Wael Khouli and Mazen Halibi, members of the Syrian community.

Moderated by Barbara Frey, Director Human Rights Program and Alejandro Baer, Director Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Sponsored by the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the Human Rights Program and Institute for Global Studies.

For more information contact: 612-624-9007