In this article we address the problem of sentimentality in teaching and learning difficult histories in higher education. While sentimentality has been widely theorised, empirical research is scarce. Here we contribute an empirical investigation describing how university students in an Argentinian setting engaged with histories of loss, death, and suffering through specific pedagogical activities in ways that minimised the risks of 'empty sentimentality'. These tasks fostered students' use of linguistic and non-linguistic (artistic, semiotic) means of meaning-making in connection with difficult histories and enabled deeper emotional engagement. The study shows that the creation of critical affective spaces in the classroom cultivated students' responsibility for engaging in transformative action. We suggest that educators need to explicitly challenge the often moralising and self-indulgent character of teaching and learning difficult histories, as this character is constitutive of the very sentimentality with which pedagogical practice is so frequently charged.