Enriching your reading list

This module introduces students to the English Legal System and to some key legal theories. It centres critical perspectives, debunking the idea that the law is always just and moral. It raises awareness that the law is often reinforcing existing models of power and oppression, this is important because students who look like people who have suffered oppression because of unjust laws need to know that we do not view this (or the law) as correct and unchallengeable. We directly broach the colonisation of legal education and bring in readings on decolonising the law school. We also decentre whiteness and voices from the Global North in the readings around the core topics, which is more challenging. We use cases where issues of discrimination are broached to bring in those lived experiences.  For example when dealing with Statutory Interpretation – often a dry topic – we bring in a case that addresses whether a same-sex couple should be interpreted as ‘spouse’ for the purposes of the Rent Act.

Case Study

Module: LISS1050: Reparations for Historical Injustices

Context: This is a two-week intensive module run as part of the Leeds International Summer School. The module has around 20 undergraduate students coming from all over the world and from a variety of degree subjects.

Aims: Given the subject matter and the make-up of the student body I began by asking myself what I ultimately wanted this module to achieve. Teaching the standard (often white, male and western-centric) theoretical canon with a view to then assessing students on their proficiency in analytically dissecting abstract philosophical arguments seemed to be misguided. Instead, I decided that the aim of this module was more helpfully conceived as helping students to develop the tools to identify what is morally and politically at stake in contemporary public debates on historical injustice and then applying this to real-life case studies.

Process: Each session is dedicated to a core question in the philosophical literature on reparations for historical injustices illustrated by a real-life case study. And instead of using as the required reading the ‘standard/core/seminal’ paper on each of these core questions by default, I searched for papers that combined a theoretical discussion of the question together with a discussion of a particular historical justice. Any canonical papers are still discussed and referred to in class in as much as this is necessary to contextualise the broader debate, but at times they would be put ‘merely’ on the further reading list if they were not the paper that best served the aim identified above.

1. Question:  On what basis can the descendants of victims claim a right to reparation?
   1. Case Study: The British Museum, the Parthenon Marbles and Benin Bronzes
   1. Reading: Karin Edvardsson Björnberg (2015). “Historic Injustices and the Moral Case for Cultural Repatriation”. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 18(3), 461–74. 
2. Question: Do those who benefit from injustice have a duty to make reparation? 
   1. Case Study: Climate Change Refugees from the Pacific Islands
   1. Reading: Rebecca Buxton (2019). “Reparative Justice for Climate Refugees“. Philosophy, 94(2), 193-219
3. Question: To what extent are unrepaired historic injustices really in the past?
   1. Case Study: American Slavery, Jim Crow, and Black Lives Matter
   1. Reading: Ta-Nehisi Coates (2014). “The Case for Reparations”. The Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
4. Question: What is restitution and can claims to restitution be superseded?
   1. Case Study: Native American Land Claims
   1. Reading: Esme G. Murdock (2022). “Indigenous governance now: settler colonial injustice is not historically past“. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 25(3), 411-426
5. Question: What is compensation and to what extent can we appropriately compensate for historic injustices?
   1. Case Study: Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery
   1. Reading: Seunghyun Song (2021). “Denial of Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery and Responsibility for Epistemic Amends.” Social Epistemology 35(2), 160-172
6. Question: How should we commemorate the past?
   1. Case Study: South African Apartheid and Rhodes Must Fall
   1. Reading Chong-Ming Lim (2020). “Vandalizing Tainted Commemorations“. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 48(2), 185-216

Challenges: Firstly, finding readings that met all of the criteria above and are written in a way accessible to those without a background in moral and political philosophy was difficult and I’m not sure that I succeeded. I have tried to mitigate this by integrating class discussions around short newspaper articles that capture the arguments in contemporary public debate in a more accessible manner in the hope that this can provide students with an entry point into the debate even if they were not able to follow every theoretical move made in the required readings. Secondly, there is definitely more I could have done to push back against the canon and broaden the voices, viewpoints and methodologies included. As it stands, the reading list is still biased towards peer-reviewed articles published in journals based in the Global North by academics based in Global North institutions.

You can add content to your module reading list directly from Library Search, as long as you are signed in.

When you have found a title you would like to add to your reading list, open the full details in Library Search, scroll down to the ‘Send to’ options and select ‘Reading List’.

Select ‘List’, then use the drop down menus to choose which module reading list and section you would like to add the title to

The resource will now appear as a citation in your selected reading list. Open the reading list to add any tags or notes.

You can add content to your module reading list from another existing reading list.

Once you have identified an item in the existing reading list, select the ellipses on the citation to open the menu and select ‘Copy item’.

Select ‘To list’ and use the drop down menus to choose which module reading list and section you would like to add the title to.

Select Copy. The resource will now appear as a citation in your selected reading list. Open the reading list to add any tags or notes.

Cite It! is a tool that can be used to add web-based resources such as videos, books, articles and more to your reading list. To install the tool, click the “Settings” cog and then “Cite it!”, view the pop up and then drag and drop into your bookmark bar. 

When you are on the web page for the resource that you would like to add to your reading list, click ‘Cite it!’ on your bookmark bar.

This will open the Cite it! pop up window, where you can select which list and section you would like to add the content to, and add item details including tags and notes.

Select ‘Add’. The resource will now appear as a citation in your selected reading list.