The International Summer School “Learning from the past” provides an opportunity to undergraduate students, graduate students as well as young professionals to meet and study with people from different countries, cultures and academic disciplines, on a cosmopolitan campus in Sarajevo. This summer school commemorates the events by remembering and discussing the past atrocities but also by learning
from and moving beyond the tragic events in the past in order to achieve lasting peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region. A range of teaching and learning approaches and strategies will be utilized - delivered in a form of lectures, class discussions, workshops, field visits and conferences - and focused on comparative studies enabling the participants to learn in an experiential and cross-cultural context . This summer school will provide an opportunity to filter previously generated knowledge in regard to conflict resolution and further advance methodological tools and techniques applicable to research in the field of genocide, transitional justice, post-conflict resolution, peace-building, security studies, preventing diplomacy, international law, sociology, anthropology and other associated fields. Furthermore, it will promote active involvement of participants in order to better understand each other's ethnic background and challenge existing stereotypes and myths about the ‘Other’. The summer school will apply an integrative interdisciplinary perspective drawing on a variety of disciplinary approaches inherent to existent methodological frameworks of social sciences. Its overall aim is to capitalize from the previous academic and professional work and research relating to dealing with the past, transitional justice and reconciliation in post-conflict societies. The summer school aspires to give an overview of some of the most commonly used tools and techniques covered by disciplines related to dealing with the past and reconciliation in post-conflict societies. With the expertise of the lecturers from the region and beyond, the course will also discuss new methods in social sciences research relevant to this important field. The summer school is organized as a combination of lectures, workshops, excursions, fieldtrips, visiting official institutions, introduction to governmental and non-governmental organizations and participation in socio-cultural activities and events. The summer school is of particular significance to both participants interested in the region and those coming from the region itself, considering the recent history of violence perpetuated in this part of South Eastern Europe. As such, the program promotes both interdisciplinary and discipline-specific contents and methodological and ethical approaches to researching and facilitating a positive social change in post-conflict recovery and transitional justice context. Supplementary relevance of the course is to build regional capacity in the fields targeting professionals and scholars who are in a position to further transfer their knowledge and experience to their societies and local communities. The summer school will consist of three roughly two-hour classroom sessions on most of the days, followed by visits to BiH government ministries, international organizations, NGOs and a field visit to the Srebrenica Memorial Centre (Potocari) and a post-genocide community (the village of Klotjevac) in Eastern Bosnia. Each classroom session will be a mixture of lecture presentations and interactive discussions. The field trips will provide the participants with the opportunity to experience learning beyond the classroom, in a community setting, and obtain more intensive hands-on practice with methods discussed during the sessions. Attendance and active participation in all activities is compulsory during the whole summer school. In addition, all participants will be required to work on their own research proposals throughout the summer school and submit them at the end of the program. To ensure a common ground for the in-class discussions, participants are required to complete the required readings before the sessions (to be provided electronically by the lecturers). The certificate of successful completion of the Summer School will be issued upon accomplishing the assessment task comprising of:
- Attending the sessions and field trips
- Active participation during class sessions and field trips
- Research proposal for submission or a reflexive piece dealing with one or more aspects of the Summer School. Further details on these assessments will be provided by the lecturers on the first day of the summer school.
