The Popular CEU Course by Blinken OSA Colleagues Starts This Week

Blinken OSA  Stock Photo by Dániel Végel

Blinken OSA offers the three-credit course Archives, Evidence, and Human Rights to CEU students.

Teaching has always been an essential part of the activities at Blinken OSA, and for many years, a variety of courses were launched to CEU students. We are happy to announce that despite the challenges and the CEU’s move to Vienna, the Archives continues its popular course Archives, Evidence, and Human Rights, offered to the Human Rights Program of the Legal Studies Department, cross-listed to the History Department.

About the course:
This course aims at looking at the roles and uses of human rights documentation in the context of preserving recorded memory and the history of human rights. Establishing facts by forensic methods, producing impeccable evidence to convict perpetrators, or understanding the roots of conflicts and working toward dialog and reconciliation are just a few areas where the availability of reliable records and archival activism can make a huge difference.

Course description and Syllabus

Lecturers are a team of Blinken OSA experts:

Iván Székely (social informatist, course leader)
András Mink (historian)
Csaba Szilágyi (human rights archivist)

What do organizers seek as learning outcomes of the course:

The students finishing the course will have a broader understanding of common archival goals and processes. They will be enabled to use and research primary sources in their research and thesis work. At the same time, they will learn to navigate in the area of online search possibilities ( e.g. databases, trusted search engines, online repositories). Students will be encouraged to rethink the use of recorded memory in assessing the moral and legal aspects of justice-making.
The course will offer an opportunity for the participants to challenge the use of archival documents relating to violations of human rights, they will be urged to evaluate, critically approach, and innovatively use them. A deeper understanding of primary archival sources will also lead the students to enhance their ability to prove their understanding of documentary evidence in the context of human rights.