Aufbauseminar Justice and Reconciliation in the New South Africa Do 12:30-14:00

Sept. 1, 2015: Please note that this seminar is already oversubscribed. Students subscribing from today will be included in a waiting list. -If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness.” Nelson Mandela -We believe, however, that there is another kind of justice – a restorative justice which is concerned not so much with punishment as with correcting imbalances, restoring broken relationships – with healing, harmony and reconciliation.” Desmond Tutu In recent years, researchers have become increasingly interested in manifestations and processes of transitional justice and reconciliation in post-conflict societies — societies which have just underwent war, civil war or revolution. The distinctive challenge for these societies is how to balance forms of retribution (retributive justice in form of trials, war crime tribunals, lustration etc.) for past crimes and abuses with other restorative means to arrive at a consolidated stability. Within this discourse the relationship between justice on the one side and reconciliation and forgiveness on the other has often been regarded as a troubled one. In post-apartheid South Africa, novels like Gillian Slovo’s Red Dust and Achmat Dangor’s Bitter Fruit reflect on the possibilities and challenges of this process of transition. In this seminar close analyses of these novels will focus on how concepts of justice, reconciliation and forgiveness are negotiated literarily. To arrive at an informed reading the seminar will provide detailed information on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (e.g. the Gugulethu Seven, Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull) and the African philosophy of Ubuntu. Primary Literature: Slovo, Gillian: Red Dust. New York: W.W. Norton 2002. Krog, Antjie: Country of My Skull. New York: Times Books 1999. (Excerpts available on Ilias) Dangor, Achmat: Bitter Fruit. London: Atlantic 2004. Movies and Documentary Reports: Field, Connie: Have You Heard from Johannesburg: The Complete Series. USA: Clarity Films 2010. Hoffmann, Deborah and Frances Reid: Long Night's Journey Into Day. USA: California Newsreel 2000. (e.g. the Gugulethu Seven) Secondary Literature: (available on Ilias soon) Derrida, Jacques: -On Forgiveness.” In Idem: On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness. London, New York: Routledge 2001, 27–60. Krog, Antjie: -'This Thing Called Reconciliation’, Forgiveness As Part of an Interconnectedness-Towards-Wholeness.- South African Journal of Philosophy 27.4 (2008), 353–366. Radzik, Linda and Colleen Murphy. 11.05.2015: -Reconciliation.- The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edward N. Zalta (ed.) (05.07.2015). Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa (Report) tbd. Voraussetzungen The seminar is open to Bachelor-Students in their second and third year (Advanced Module) who have succesfully completed the necessary seminars. Leistungsnachweis Beteiligungsnachweise may be gained in the following way: tbd. Abschlussprüfungen may be done either orally or as a written term paper. Anglistik u.Amerikanistik (BA, PO 2013) Kernfach The seminar is open to Bachelor-Students in their second and third year (Advanced Module) who have succesfully completed the necessary seminars. Beteiligungsnachweise may be gained in the following way: tbd. Abschlussprüfungen may be done either orally or as a written term paper. Universität Düsseldorf WiSe 2015/16 Kremendahl Katja