History

Paying for the Past

Module code: V1479
Level 5
15 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Workshop
Assessment modes: Coursework

Can historical wrongs be made right? How to address past injustices is one of the key questions of the day and it is one that resonates across the globe. Slavery, colonialism and genocide might be most immediately associated with recent claims for compensation, but the question of righting historical wrongs has a wider reach and is also central for Apartheid Victims in South Africa, the Disappeared in Argentina, Indigenous people in Canada and Australia and wartime victims of sexual violence in Japan. Increasingly, victims of historical harms and their descendants ask for material and symbolical compensation as well as for a say in how today’s societies narrate these past events. For some, to do justice to the past through reparations is a means of creating a future of common values, for others it fosters particularism often in relation to differing views of justice and morality. This elective will explore both the history of different cases of past wrongs and the present day political debates.

Module learning outcomes

• Use a range of established techniques to initiate and undertake critical analysis of information, and to propose solutions to problems arising from that analysis
• Effectively communicate information, arguments and analysis in writing
• To specialist and non-specialist audiences and deploy key techniques of the discipline effectively
• Undertake further training, develop existing skills and acquire new competences that will enable them to assume significant responsibility within organisations