DSPO 27A74 - The Politics of Writing History of Mass Violence

Political epistemology centres an important idea: politics is an epistemic affair. It is difficult to make good sense of how our (democratic) civic lives are structured, and how our political beliefs are formed and revised, without interrogating how politics weighs on conditions of knowledge production – including, about our collective past. As historical narratives become mobilised to rally publics around national identity, to legitimise the waging of wars and furthering of geopolitical interests, it is palpably urgent to question the process of historical production – especially when it concerns the contentious and contested histories of extreme violence.

In this course, we follow Haitian social scientist Michel-Rolph Trouillot (1949-2012), who claimed that rather than determining – through the precise establishment of historical facts or isolation of the past as a ‘distinct entity’ – ‘what history is’ (the sociohistorical process), it is more fruitful to uncover how history works (our knowledge of that process). In Silencing the Past (1995), Trouillot put forward four crucial moments in which silences may enter the process of historical production: (1) the moment of fact creation (the making of sources); (2) the moment of fact assembly (the making of archives); (3) the moment of fact retrieval (the making of narratives); and (4) the moment of retrospective significance (the making of history in the final instance).

Drawing on select case-studies of mass violence and ethnic conflict in the 20th Century, such as the Armenian Genocide (1915-16), World War Two and the Shoah (1941-1945), Palestine War in Mandatory Palestine and the Nakba (1948), Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), Yugoslav Wars (1990-2001), and the Genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda (1994) – we will traverse Trouillot’s four moments in historical production, studying the overlap between process and the conditions of production of historical narratives, to identify what he called “the differential exercises of power that makes some narratives possible and silences others.” We will inquire: How is extreme violence documented? Which modalities of recording render certain forms of violence visible? How are historical facts produced between testimony and trials? How are master historical narratives of the past written, re-written, and why? How is the commemoration and mourning of past extreme violence subject to memorial regimes?

Students will learn how to deal with matters of presentism, positivism and protagonism in the writing of history across multiple spheres (academia, grassroots organisations, political domain, in pursuit of justice). Employing various analytical tools available to social scientists (microanalysis, connected and transnational history, comparison), the course will encourage students to fine-tune their politics of listening to a polyphonic retelling of the past, nurture collective discussion about inter-ethnic conflict, war and extreme violence, question ethical and methodological limits of such an inquiry, and nourish their own sense of epistemic responsibility.

Some prior notions of socio-historical analysis, comparative politics and work with historical sources is useful for this course. A strong interest in history of mass violence in the 20th century, and in reading widely in preparation for each session is key.

• Group Presentation on a given topic during one of the sessions 20%
• Production of a resumé of one session and its key readings - une note de lecture problematisée (2-3 pages) – 20%
• Research Paper – students will embark on a collective endeavour: the creation of a journal dedicated to a theme chosen together, which will evidence their in-depth understanding of the process of historical production, acquired ability to construct a research “puzzle” and conduct independent research - 50%
• Participation 10%