Subject Area: Sociology and Anthropology

Wars, occupations, cultural conflict and survival are features of the 21st century, affecting collective existence as well as the most intimate dimensions of personal life. This course provides you with an understanding of the complex social and cultural dimensions of violence, conflict, social trauma, and reconstruction and reconciliation efforts. Individualized representations of violent events dominate medical and juridical rationalities, human rights practices and truth commissions, but this course will insist too on the collective and cultural nature of trauma. You will engage with a range of sources - ethnographic, literary, narrative, cinematic, musical and artistic – and you will be introduced to the ways scholars have theorized the experience and aftermath of mass violence, state terror, genocide and torture. We will also consider the relationship between trauma, memory and recovery.