Politics 391RE - Pivotal Political Ideas: 'Reparations and the Politics of Repair'

This course will examine arguments for reparations for slavery with an eye towards understanding what withholding and extending reparations have meant for American democracy and citizenship. We will contextualize arguments for reparations within a larger conversation about repairing democratic norms, institutions, and social conditions within recent democratic theory. Together we will investigate what historical and ongoing injustices and inequalities reparations are meant to repair, how reparations would address those harms, and how arguments for reparations have mobilized social activists on both sides of the question. Our readings will span history, legal studies, politics, literature and the arts and arguments for reparations to be paid by the American state down to institutions such as corporations, universities, and other jurisdictions.

This course is open to juniors and seniors; Prereq: 8 credits in Politics.