The essays in this volume take seriously both the academic study of literature dealing with the aftermath of gross human-rights violations and the teaching of this literature. The current generation of college-aged students is deeply affected by the proximity of violence in our global world. This collection recognizes educators’ responsibility to enable future generations to analyze conflict – whether local or global – and participate in constructive discourses of resolution.
Ultimately, Thinking and Practicing Reconciliation charts a course from theory to practice and offers new perspectives on the very human endeavor of storytelling as a way to address human-rights injustices. In their focus on pedagogical strategies and frameworks, the essays in this volume also demonstrate that, as educators, our engagement with students can indeed produce practices of reconciliation that start in the classroom and move beyond it.
Jill Scott is Vice-Provost Teaching and Learning and Professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Queen's University, Kingston, Canada. She is the author of Electra after Freud: Myth and Culture (Cornell University Press, 2005) and A Poetics of Forgiveness (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
Jack Shuler is Associate Professor of English at Denison University. He is author of Calling Out Liberty: The Stono Slave Rebellion and the Universal Struggle for Human Rights (Mississippi University Press, 2009) and Blood and Bone: Truth and Reconciliation in a Southern Town (University of South Carolina University Press, 2012).