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Reparations and the Human

Time: March 24, 2023, 2 p.m. - 4 p.m.

Location: 114 Bird Library

David Eng (University of Pennsylvania)

David Eng

Hosted by the English department, Eng explores how political and psychic genealogies of reparation can supplement one another as we reconfigure our notions of the human being and human rights after catastrophe.

Eng draws examples from his forthcoming book, Reparations and the Human, which investigates the problem of reparations and human rights in Cold War Asia. Following the devastating violence of World War II, an emerging discourse of reparations and human rights sought to articulate new precepts against state harm of individuals. Traditionally, reparations could be claimed by one state from another as compensation for the “costs of war.” For the first time, however, the idea of reparations was extended to encompass individual and group claims for redress for state-sponsored violence in the name of human rights and in the interests of protecting the sanctity of human life.

In this talk, Eng focuses specifically on the afterword to his book, “Absolute Apology, Absolute Forgiveness,” which explores the history of uranium mining and “Little Boy,” the atomic bomb detonated by the U.S. military over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Much of the world¹s uranium supply is mined from indigenous lands, and the uranium for Little Boy, too, came in part from the lands of the Sahtu Dene, an indigenous people in Great Bear Lake, Canada. Ignorant at the time of how their mining efforts would be applied and the destination of the ore, the Sahtu Dene nonetheless felt implicated once they learned of Hiroshima¹s fate. In response to the disaster, they sent a delegation to Hiroshima to apologize. Eng will discuss the Sahtu Dene’s response to the atomic bombing in order to propose an alternate concept for reparations and the human.

NOTE: Eng presents an additional topic, Racial Melancholia, on March 23.

Additional supporters:

  • Art and Music History
  • Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics
  • LGBTQ Studies
  • Women's and Gender Studies
  • Syracuse University Humanities Center