Reparations and the Human [Kietas viršelis]

"Reparations and the Human examines political and psychoanalytical genealogies of reparation across the history of colonial modernity. Looking at relations between Europe, the Americas, and Asia, David L. Eng asks who and what is considered deserving of attention, care, and repair. Eng argues that the gap between "reparations" and "making reparation" not only establishes the conditions for the emergence of the human being, but also subordinates subjects and populations deemed less than human. Through thebook's three parts, Eng analyzes these distinctions of reparation through a theoretical lens, and then, more practically, as an aftermath of genocide and nuclear holocaust, as well as in the present moment of impending environmental collapse. These histories serve to interrogate the effects of colonialism and tools of decolonization and human rights, while also revealing how politics of repair, apology, and redemption are embroiled with continued state violence"--

The Holocaust and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki invoked in graphic terms the specter of total human destruction. In response, a new international order of reparations and human rights arose from the ashes of World War II. This legal regime sought to subrogate the sovereignty of the nation-state in order to defend the sovereignty of the human being. While the Holocaust’s history is settled—Nazis were perpetrators and Jews were victims—there remains little historical consensus as to the victims and perpetrators of the atomic bombings. In Reparations and the Human, David L. Eng investigates a history of reparations across the Transpacific. He analyzes how concepts of reparation established during colonial settlement and the European Enlightenment shape contemporary configurations of the human and human rights, determining who can be recognized as victims, who must be seen as perpetrators, and who deserves repair. As demands for reparations now occupy center stage in debates concerning unresolved legacies of dispossession and Transatlantic slavery, Eng considers how the Cold War Transpacific provides a limit case for the politics of repair and definitions of the human.

David L. Eng investigates a history of reparations in the Transpacific, showing how the concepts of reparation established during the Enlightenment shape contemporary configurations of the human and human rights, establishing who can be recognized as victims, who must be seen as perpetrators, and who deserves repair.