The Rupture of Silence: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa
AAS 124B
Spring 2000
Fridays: 9am – 12pm
Room: Rabb, Du Bois Lounge
Faculty Associate: Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
Office: Rabb 217
Telephone Numbers: (718) 736(617) 496-4969
email: pgobodom@ksg.harvard.edu
REQUIREMENTS:
♦ Critical reading of the theoretical text.
♦ Participation in class and critical discussion and questioning that engages with the readings.
♦ A mid-term paper of 6-10 pages based on the examination of public testimony as a medium
through which traumatic memory is addressed. Will provide 40% of the grade. Due March
10, by 12.30pm.
♦ A final paper (12-15 pages) on a topic to be chosen by students. Consultations with students
(individually or in small groups) concerning topics will be scheduled during April. The final
paper will provide 60% of the grade.
SYLLABUS
1. 21 January – Introduction to the course: Political Negotiations and how the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established.
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Alex Boraine: The Healing of a Nation? Introduction
Michelle Parlevliet: “Background to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission”
Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report: “The Mandate” (Excerpts)
Martin Meredith: “In the fullness of time.” In Martin Meredith, “Coming to terms: South
Africa’s search for truth. New York: Public Affairs, 1999.
2. 28 January – Transition to democracy: The TRC debate in South Africa.
♦ Antjie Krog: “The TRC and National Unity”
♦ Martha Minow: “Introduction” and “Facing History.” In Between vengeance and
forgiveness. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998.
♦ Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report: “Historical context.”
♦ Tina Rosenberg: Confronting the painful past.” In Martin Meredith, “Coming to terms:
South Africa’s search for truth.” New York: Public Affairs, 1999.
♦ Tina Rosenberg: “Haunted Land.” In Tina Roseberg, The haunted lands: Facing Europe’s
ghosts after communism. New York: Vintage Books, 1996.
♦ See also: Appendix 1: “The political calendar during the era of destabilisation.”
3. 4 February* – Amnesty: The dilemma between justice and reconciliation.
Guest: Beth Lyons
♦ Martha Minow: “Trials” and “Truth Commissions.” In Between vengeance and forgiveness.
♦ Beth Lyons: “Between Nuremberg and amnesia: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission
in South Africa.” Monthly Review, 49, 1997.
♦ Aryeh Neier: “The trouble with amnesty.” In War crimes: Brutality, genocide, terror, and the
struggle for justice. New York: Times Books, 1998.
♦ Medard R. Rwelamira: “Punishing past human rights violations: South African context.” In
Confronting past injustices: Approaches to amnesty … in South Africa and Germany.
Durban: Butterworths, 1996.
4. 11 February – Political memory and the politics of memory
Screening of video footage from TRC hearings
♦ Martin Meredith: “In the fullness of time.” In Coming to terms, Martin Meredith. New York:
Public Affairs.
♦ Barbie Zelizer: “Collective memories, images and the atrocity of war.” In Remembering to
forget. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
♦ Herbert Hirsch: Section on “Politics, memory, and mass death,” Chapters 1-4 In Genocide
and the politics of memory. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina press, 1995.
♦ Judith Herman: “Terror.” In, Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence. Basic Books.
5. 18 February – “Framing the witness:” Public hearings and reporting on TRC testimonies.
♦ Barbie Zelizer: “Covering atrocity in word.” In Remembering to forget. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1998.
♦ Shoshana Felman & Dori Laub: Testimony: Crises of witnessing in literature, psychoanalysis,
and history (Chapters 1–3). New York: Routledge.
♦ Annette Wieviorka: On Testinony. In Geoffrey Hartman (ed.) Holocaust remembrance: The
shapes of memory. Oxford: Blackwell.
6. 25 February – Trauma and memory
♦ Dori Laub & Nanette Auerhahn: “Knowing and not knowing massive psychic trauma: Forms
of traumatic memory.”
♦ Dori Laub: “Truth and Testimony: The process and the struggle.” American Imago, 48,
pp.75-91.
♦ Lawrence Langer: “Deep Memory: The buried self.” In Holocaust testimonies: The ruins of
memory. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.
♦ James Young: “Video & Cinemagraphic Testimony.” In, Changing the shape of memory, The
American Jewish Committee, 1993
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7. 10 March – The language of trauma: Narrative and art
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♦ Susan Brison: Trauma narratives and the remaking of the self.” In, Mieke Bal, Jonathan
Crewe & Leo Spitzer (Eds.) Acts of memory: Cultural recall in the present. Dartmouth:
University Press of New England, 1999.
♦ Lea Hamaoui: Historical Horror and the Shape of Night. In, Carrol Rietner (ed.), Elie Wiesel:
Between memory and hope. New York: New York University Press.
♦ John Beverly and Marc Zimmerman: “Testimonial narrative.” In, Literature and politics in
the Central American Revolutions. Austin: University of Texas Publishers.
♦ Stevan Weine: “Artists witnessing ethnic cleansing.” In Charles B. Strozier & Michael Flynn
(eds.), Genocide, war and human survival. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996.
Recommended: Elie Wiesel: Night. Translated by Stella Rodway. New York: Hill & Wang, 1982.
This lecture will be followed on Saturday 11 March by a class trip to the Pucker Gallery in
Boston, where Bernie Pucker will give a lecture on and illustration of Samuel Bak’s work.
Transport from Brandeis will be arranged. Time TBA.
8. 17 March* – The language of trauma: Re-enactment of traumatic memory
Screening of video footage from TRC public hearings and excepts from “Death & the Maiden”
♦ Antjie Krog: “The wet bag and other phantoms.” In, Country of my skull. New York:
Random House, 1999.
♦ Cathy Caruth: “The wound and the voice.” In, Unclaimed experience: Trauma, narrative,
and history. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1996
♦ Judith Herman: “Remembrance and mourning.” In, Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of
violence. New York: Basic Books.
9. 24 March* – The gendered nature of trauma
Guests: Victoria Sanford, Peace Fellow at the Bunting Institute; Sindiwe Magona, writer and
author of Mother to Mother, Beacon Press, 1999.
Screening of segments from “Long Night’s Damage,” TRC documentary by Iris Films
♦ Doris Sommer: “Not just a personal story: Women’s testimonios and the plural self.” In Bella
Brodzki and Celeste Schenck (eds.) Life lines: Theorising Women’s autobiography. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press.
♦ Laura Brown: “Not outside the range: One feminist perspective on psychic trauma.” In
Cathy Caruth (ed) Trauma: Explorations in memory. Baltimore: John Hopkins Varsity
Press.
♦ Begoná Aretxaga: Engendering a nation and the gendered politics of suffering. In, Shattering
silence: Women, nationalism and political subjectivity in Northern Ireland, 1997.
Recommended: Sindiwe Magona: “Mother to Mother.” Boston: Beacon Press, 1999.
10. 31 March – Perpetrators’ narrative and the appropriation of the language of victims.
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♦ Ron Rosenbaum: “The war over the question why?” In, Explaining Hitler. New York:
HarperCollins, 1998.
♦ Primo Levi: “The memory of offense.”
♦ Judith Herman: “Captivity” and “The dialectic of trauma continues.” In, Trauma and
recovery: The aftermath of violence.
11. 7 April – The act of apology: Forgiveness and healing traumatic wounds
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Martha Minow: “Vengeance and forgiveness.” In, Between vengeance and forgiveness.
Mary Baures: Letting go of bitterness and hate. Journal of Humanistic Psychology.
Robert Bies & Thomas Tripp: “Getting even and the need for revenge”
Simon Wiesenthal: The Sunflower, Chapter 1. New York: Schocher Books, 1976.
Schedule discussion of topics for term papers
12. 14 April – Individual memory, collective memory, national healing and the challenge of
reconciliation
Students expected to watch outside of the class period Bill Moyers’ documentary “Facing Truth,”
for class discussion
Presentation by students
♦ Archbishop Desmond Tutu: “Foreword by Chairperson.” In, The Truth and Reconciliation
Commission Report, Vol. 1.
♦ Nico Fridja: “Commemorating.” In James Pennebaker, Dario Parez & Bernard Rimé (eds.)
Collective memory of political events. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers, 1997.
♦ Tina Rosenberg: “Official Exorcism.” In Tina Rosenberg, The Haunted Land: Facing
Europe’s ghosts after communism. New York: Vintage Books, 1996.
♦ Henry Steiner: “Introduction” and “The relevance of Truth Commissions to different types
of conflict.” In “Truth Commissions: A comparative assessment.” Cambrideg: Harvard Law
School Human Rights Program, 1997.
13. 19 April, WEDNESDAY – Working with trauma: Reflections
Guest: Victoria Sanford
Screening of footage from TRC public hearing
♦ Dori Laub: “Bearing witness or the vicissitudes of listening.”
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* All these classes will be open to the University Community.
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