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Robin Kirk, Instructor Tu/Th 10:05-11:20 amSmith Warehouse C107

(919) 668-6511rights@duke.edu

Office hours M,W 1-4 in Bivins or by appointment

ICS 200S.02Memory Bandits: human rights, the past and making memory matter

“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” Milan Kundera, TheBook of Laughter and Forgetting , 1979

This is an interdisciplinary seminar that revisits some of the key concepts and themes introduced in theICS gateway course, with an integration and depth appropriate to a senior experience for ICS majors.This is a writing and research-intensive course, with assignments of varying length that facilitateanalytical thinking; individual reflection on classroom-, study away-, and work experiences; libraryresearch; and analysis of original sources. This course is also meant to provide a forum for you toreflect on your four years at Duke.

Human rights brings together key questions and themes related to ICS and our increasinglyinterconnected world. In this seminar, we will be looking closely at a selected set of issues aroundglobalization, human rights and how societies confront the legacies of past human rights abuse or atrocity. Which societies choose to do this and how? Which do not, and at what cost? What is theinternational spectrum of approaches? What policy options are open to the administrations that follow

periods of pronounced or wide-spread atrocities, including by a majority of the citizens (as in the caseof Rwanda)? How do these policy options relate to broader questions, such as peace, stability, or democracy? How do communities and individuals account for what they've done and how they'vesuffered – or even what they didn't do? Is it possible to treat the trauma of abuse through human rightsor politics? Is it even advisable? What is the role of personal vs collective experience, the courts vs.truth commission, policy vs. the arts?

These questions are at the heart of this seminar, which seeks to explore the issue of trauma, memoryand human rights through a thematic and comparative approach that includes countries as diverse asChile, Germany, Peru, the United States (and Durham), Northern Ireland, South Africa and Rwanda.We will focus on the meaning of globalization, human rights, justice, reconciliation and memory inconflict and post-conflict societies and at the level of national, state and local governments andrelationships as well as individuals and societies. We will be d rawing on scholarly work as well asvisual materials, literature, accounts by victims and perpetrators, media and human rights reports,archival and primary documents and the work of activists and communities immersed in this work.

The course will examine the issue of trauma as a result of political conflict and look at the strategiesthat have emerged to treat trauma, find justice and establish the truth. Among these strategies are legalremedies (trials), truth commissions, reparations programs, the building of museums and memorialsand the reconfiguration of public spaces to teach about the past and link it to future policies and culturalshifts.

Because of the nature of this course, some material is potentially difficult or upsetting;

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please consult the instructor if you think you may have difficulties.

We have a class blog, Memory Bandits, that is public. Much of our class content will be on this blog.

THE PORTFOLIO

Your final grade will be based on a portfolio of work compiled during the class, culminating with afinal project. Elements in the portfolio can include visual or other creative pieces, but in all casesrequire intensive written components and original research. The portfolio includes:

assignment notes: these are your weekly notes on the material assigned for the week (readings, films, audio, video). Notes should be no more than 400 words and need to be postedas comments on the class blog each Tuesday before 10 am, beginning on January 24. I will bewriting the main post, so include your notes as comments to this post. Feel free to also postthings yourself – all students have been added as contributors to the blog, and you can sign inwith your netID and Duke password. Notes should include all readings for the week (alwaysinclude Thursday's readings). There are some exceptions – please consult the syllabus for these.The most effective notes will find the connections and/or contradictions in the week'sassignments and elicit in you some personal reflections on the material. You will post your notes as “comments” to my blog entries detailing the readings and some key themes. Feel freeto add other web based material to your notes as links, including news stories, photos or videos.But the gist of your notes should be your own writing and thoughts. Also, please refrain fromincluding details that you prefer to keep personal (depending on your comfort level, theseare fine to share in class) and make sure to make your notes respectful and kind to your classmates and any person who chooses to comment on the blog. As the semester progresses,the notes should reflect how these assignments are shaping your thinking about your final

project. Each student may miss one weekly assignment note, but no late notes will beaccepted. If you miss a class, please post your notes prior to the deadline to remain part of our discussion.

a personal statement: part an intellectual examination of the issue of memory and trauma and part a personal engagement with your own history, this assignment requires you to choose amemory of importance to you, your family, your community or your nation and discuss it andits effect on you. Ideally, I'd like you to relate this in some way to your experience at Duke or

plans and hopes for what comes after Duke. This assignment requires integration and analysisof a photograph. Examples might be a loss you experienced; a conflict you witnessed or were a

part of; or a part of history that you believe shapes your life and outlook. It is not necessary for the memory to be traumatic; but I am encouraging you to write about memories that aresignificant. Since we will be posting these on our public class blog, please choose your topiccarefully and make sure it is something you are comfortable sharing with The World. Thisshould be no more than 1,000 words, spell-checked and proof-read. Please post these on theclass blog site by January 19 at 5 pm.

Portfolio proposal: your portfolio proposal addresses a central question or theme or issuerelated to the content of this course that you plan to pursue for your final research project. Itincludes drafts of the reading list, a timeline for completing of the portfolio, the proposed final

project and any related materials that complement the portfolio (up to three). Examples includea paper on a topic, a web site incorporating elements of the paper with photographs, videos andinterviews; a visual project that can be viewed outside of class, with supporting written

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materials; or a video and web site, with supporting written materials equivalent to a 10-12 page paper.

an annotated reading list : this is separate from the class syllabus and specific to your project proposal There can be overlap up to 30 per cent of your reading list with the class syllabus); thecomplete reading list must have at least 15 entries, and can include primary sources, journals,newspaper and magazine articles, art exhibitions or substantial blog entries by someoneknowledgeable on the theme). The reading list will

a research and writing project : This will either be an examination of a memory issue, an actof memory-making or some other expression of the themes and places covered in class. Your topic should come out of your own engagement with this issue as well as discussions with your fellow students and the class instructor. This project is not necessarily a paper (though it can

be); the final project can be presented in a visual or other creative format. This project mustcontain the following required elements:

a) a compelling theme or question related to an issue raised by this class; b) library research;c) an analysis of a relevant “primary” source (or two), such as archival materials, a film,

poetry, fiction, a memoir, visual work, or oral histories;d) substantial writing;e) compelling secondary sources.

Students who do a significant part of their research using material in Duke's Human Rights Archiveswill improve their overall final grade by two steps up (from a B to an A-, or an a- to an A+, for example). Possible topics include individual truth commissions or memory sites and projects; memoryand the arts; the dangers of memory in the context of on-going prosecutions; how specific communitieshave approached the memory of atrocities or generalized violence; or elements in your own or familyhistory that relate to the themes of the class. Papers should be at least 10-12 pages, before footnotes.Other final projects should be equivalent in terms of the amount of writing.

The final portfolio includes elements 2-5 and any supporting materials, and will be presented at theseminar's end. Writing is a key part of this seminar and your portfolio should reflect this.

Please post your drafts in our Sakai drop box by midnight on February 12 so thatyour colleagues can read and prepare comments.

We will assign small breakout groups to read each other's proposals and comment during class onFebruary 14.

The final portfolio proposal is due to the instructor on March 1 by 5 pm. This can be revised inconsultation with the instructor, but should be as detailed and polished as possible.

FINAL PORTFOLIOS DUE ON MAY 5 AT 5 PM

Your grade will be determined in the following manner:

A. Participation and attendance 20 percentB. Portfolio draft 20 percent

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C. Assignment notes 20 percentD. Final portfolio (not including notes) 40 percent

CLASS RULES

Technology

Outside class, I strongly urge you to use technology to express yourself, to understand and interact withthe material and to shape and deepen your portfolio (including the posting of assignment notes). Butduring class, I want the computers, cell phones, pagers, MP3 players, Game Boys, electronic chess,iPads, Sudoku, Jeopardy, Uno and Tamagotchi games and all other electronics turned off and, better yet, left in your bags. We have a technology-equipped classroom and will be using that to engage withthe blog and other online sources. But by leaving the technology holstered during the brief time we aretogether, I want us to focus first and foremost on each other as learning colleagues and partners.

Participation and attendance

This class is designed as a seminar, so participation in the discussion of the week’s theme is essentialfor a good grade. I am not looking for canned opinions or views that match my own (whatever theymay be), but rather an open, respectful, lively and hopefully provocative exchange. Participation,including posting to the blog in a timely matter, is critical.

One student will be assigned a Tuesday or Thursday to present a ten-minute summary of the week’sassignments. You will also lead the class discussion. This counts toward the class participation part of your grade.

There are several required outside events. I've tried to schedule them at times when you are likely to beavailable. Please let me know if you are unable to attend.

By signing up for this class, you are making a commitment to attend all class meetings, be punctual,read thoroughly, and actively contribute to discussion. Acting in accordance with the Duke CommunityStandard, you should use the Short-Term Illness Notification Form (STINF) when you are ill and mustmiss graded work (class participation is graded so this means every class session). See here for a

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definition of illness. The STINF tells me that you have missed class and/or cannot complete anassignment on time due to an incapacitating illness or injury. When you submit a STINF, it is your responsibility to meet (or otherwise communicate) with me within 48 hour to discuss your missed work and how it will be made up. If you do not contact me within 48 hours following the date the STINF wassubmitted, your absence will drop your grade.

Food Policy

Drinks are fine if you clean up and dispose of/recycle containers afterward. But please do not bring ameal to eat during class unless you bring enough for everyone.

Readings

Most readings are available through Internet links or as .pdf files under Course Documents on Sakai.The books listed below are required and are available through Reserves at Perkins Library or throughThe Regulator Book Store on Ninth St.

Required books

Glendon, Mary Ann. A world made new: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ( New York: Random House, c2001).

Schlink, Bernhard. The Reader (New York: Vintage,1998)

Murray, Pauli. Proud shoes: the story of an American family (New York : Harper & Row, 1987,c1984).

WEEK ONE: Thursday, January 12

Course introduction and structure. There will be no class meeting , but please watch my recordedintroduction on our web site here.

WEEK TWO: Tuesday, January 17 and Thursday, January 19, The Universal Declarationof Human Rights

TUESDAY : Visit by writing tutor (first 10 minutes)

Glendon, Mary Ann. A world made new: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ( New York: Random House, c2001).

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in Web Content on Sakai).

PERSONAL STATEMENTS POSTED BY 5 PM ON 1/19

WEEK THREE: Tuesday, January 24, What is global about human rights?

Steger, Manfred. “Globalization: A contested concept,” in Globalization: A very short introduction(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 1-16.

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Mazower, Mark. " The strange triumph of human rights,1933–1950 *,” The Historical Journal, 47, 2(2004), pp. 379–398.

Moyn, Samuel. “ A Geneology of Morals ,” The Nation , March 29, 2007.

Thursday, January 26: Visit by Patrick Stawski, Human Rights Archivist, on Research andHuman Rights

Schmidt, Laura, “ Using Archives: A Guide to Effective Research ,” Society of American Archivists(2011).

Foote, Kenneth E. “ To Remember and Forget: Archives, Memory, and Culture ,” The American Archivist , Vol. 53, No. 3, (Summer, 1990), pp. 378-392.

“I have no right to be silent: the human rights legacy of Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer ,” an online exhibit of the Duke Human Rights Archives

WEEK FOUR: Tuesday, January 31:What is a testimony?

REQUIRED OUTSIDE EVENT – NO CLASS

Strejilevich, Nora. “Testimony: Beyond the Language of Truth,” Human Rights Quarterly , Volume 28, Number 3, August 2006, pp. 701-713.

McLagan, Meg. “Human Rights, Testimony, and Transnational Publicity” in The Scholar and FeministOnline, Issue 2.1, Summer 2003.

4 pm, The GarageSmith Warehouse

Anne Cubilié: Impossible Ethics: Justice, Responsibility to Protect and OperationalPractice: Human rights scholar Anne Cubilié will discuss her experiences in disaster zones andhumanitarian interventions, focusing on the issue of testimony and issues of ethics andwitnessing. What are our ethical obligations as witnesses to these events? How do differentgroups, among them women, experience abuses and then relate those stories to outsiders? In her work for the United Nations – ranging from the collection of survivor testimony in Afghanistanto policy guidance for emergency response to major reports and funding documents – she hasmaintained an insistence on remembering the individual within the broadest internationaldiscourses.

Thursday, February 2: The Holocaust as a memory event

Levi, Primo. “The Drowned and the Saved” from Survival in Auschwitz (New York: Collier Books,1960), pp. 87-100.

Sol Finkelstein, “ That's my father .” A video from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2011.

Explore the World Memory Project site

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WEEK FIVE: Tuesday, February 7, and Thursday, February 9: The “second generation”and the Holocaust

The Reader , by Bernhard Schlink – please read the book before you view the film, if you haven't seenthe film already

“The Reader,” a film directed by Stephen Daldry (2008): on reserve at Lilly (DVD 14596)

BBC “World Book Club” interview with Bernhard Schlink

Post your proposal drafts on Sakai by midnight on February 12 so that your colleagues can readand prepare comments.

WEEK SIX: Tuesday, February 14: PROPOSAL WORKSHOP – NO NOTES DUE THIS WEEK

We will break into small groups to discuss your draft proposals.

Thursday, February 16 : Activism as a global phenomenon

REQUIRED OUTSIDE EVENT – NO CLASS

Breedlove Room, Perkins Library12-1:30 pm

Mark Mazower , author, history professor and director of the Center for International History atColumbia University, will deliver a talk suggesting new historical frameworks within which tounderstand the emergence of NGOs and their role in international aid activism. He is the author of seven books, including the Duff Cooper Prize winning Salonica City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslimsand Jews, 1430-1950, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History winning Hitler’s Empire: Nazi

Rule in Occupied Europe . Mazower is currently working on a history of internationalism, and hisarticles on history and current affairs appear regularly in the Financial Times , the Guardian , London

Review of Books , The Nation and The New Republic .

WEEK SEVEN: Tuesday, February 21: Personal Statements

We will be using this day to discuss your personal statements and ways that theymight relate to the themes of this class.

Thursday, February 23: Memory as biology

Richard J. McNally, Remembering Trauma (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard UniversityPress, 2003), pp. in .pdf.

WEEK EIGHT Tuesday, February 28: Memory, justice and truth

Hayner, Priscilla B. Unspeakable Truths: Transitional Justice and the Challenge of TruthCommissions, second edition (New York: Routledge, 2011), pp. 1-26.

Richard Ebenshade, “Remembering to Forget: Memory, History, National Identity in Postwar East-

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Central Europe, Representations , No. 49, Special Issue: Identifying Histories: Eastern Europe Beforeand After 1989 (Winter, 1995), pp. 72-96.

Thursday, March 1: Visit by Catherine Admay, public policy and law: the case of South Africa

Readings TBA

Your final portfolio proposals are due by 5 pm on March 1

Spring Break

WEEK NINE: Tuesday, March 13: Naming names

Hayner, Unspeakable Truths , pp. 121-209.

Phelps, Teresa Godwin, Shattered Voices: Language, Violence, and the work of Truth Commissions(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), pp. 52-128.

“Death and the Maiden,” a film by Roman Polanski, based on a play by Ariel Dorfman (DVD 3617)

Thursday, March 15

We will break into small groups to discuss your updated proposals.

WEEK TEN: Tuesday, March 20: Memory and truth in Durham

Murray, Pauli. Proud shoes: the story of an American family (New York : Harper & Row, 1987, c1984).

Thursday, March 22: Pauli Murray's Durham: We will be taking a civil rights tour of Durham.Meet in front of the Carolina Theater downtown.

WEEK ELEVEN: Tuesday, March 27 and Thursday, March 29: the case of Northern Ireland

The Troubles, 1963-1985 , a summary by the BBC

Rolston, Bill. Dealing with the Past: Pro-State Paramilitaries, Truth and Transition in NorthernIreland,” Human Rights Quarterly; Aug 2006; 28, 3; Research Library pg. 652 – 675.

McDonald, Henry, “ Unspoken lessons in the Irish peace process ,” The Guardian, October 18, 2011.

“Five Minutes of Heaven,” directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel.

WEEK TWELVE: Tuesday, April 3, and Thursday, April 5: Memory Bandits

Memorialization and Democracy: State Policy and Civic Action , a report on a conference held inSantiago, Chile, from June 20-22, 2007.

A video chat with one of the authors, Sebastian Brett

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WEEK THIRTEEN: Tuesday, April 10, and Thursday, April 12: Does Duke have memory?

Tifft, Susan. “Out of the Shadows,” The Smithsonian Magazine , February 2005.

Bartlett, Katharine T. and Jean O'Barr, “The Chilly Climate on College Campuses: An expansion of the'hate speech' debate,” in Duke Law Journal, Vol. 1990, pp. 574-586.

Develle Dish , an online student-run blog on campus culture

WEEK FOURTEEN: Tuesday, April 17: class summary and discussions – NO NOTES DUE

Please bring into class a personal object – photograph, keepsake, clipping or pieceof art – that has special meaning for you and relates in some way to the themes of this seminar.

Thursday, April 19

Draft portfolio presentations

Tuesday, April 24:

Draft portfolio presentations and final survey

FINAL PORTFOLIOS DUE ON MAY 5 AT 5 PM