Juliette Schaafsma delivered her inaugural address on 15 June, 2018 in the Auditorium of Tilburg University, the Netherlands. In her address, titled Political Apologies between a Burdened Past and a Loaded Future, she argued that political apologies are much more complicated than personal apologies, and can even be counterproductive. She also made the case, however, that we may not have many alternative pathways available to transform conflict and human rights abuses into a more peaceful future. In her project, she aspires to gain more insight into the pitfalls and the potential transformative power of political apologies across cultures.
Job Opening: Post-Doc Position
We invite applications for the postdoctoral position in the context of our ERC (European Research Council) Consolidator Grant project (682077) led by dr. Juliette Schaafsma on “Political Apologies across Cultures”. The postdoctoral candidate will work on both subprojects, together with 2Ph.D. candidates and several research assistants. Research will be conducted across at least 15 countries.
Applications should be sent before 5 May 2018. Interviews are expected to be held in the third week of May. Starting date is preferably August 2018. Please see the following link for more information:
Expert Meeting – October 2017
In October last year, we invited ten experts from multiple disciplines to Tilburg University for a one-day discussion on our research project. With their expertise ranging from intergroup relations, (group-based) emotions, reconciliation, and transitional justice to e-humanities and cross-cultural research, the experts travelled from the Netherlands, the U.K., Germany, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to reflect with us on some key conceptual and methodological challenges within the project.
Throughout the day, the different sessions led to fruitful debates regarding definitional issues (e.g., when is an apology considered to be ‘political’?), methodological issues (e.g., what is the best way to measure collective responsibility?), and theoretical insights (e.g., are honor, face, and dignity useful concepts within our research?). During these discussions, we explored different approaches to deal with these challenges.
Reactions during and after the day were very positive. We thank all experts for their valued and useful insights and we look forward to continuing to build a network of experts in this field.