HUM 395-01 - Advanced Special Topic: Comparing Genocides

4 credits (Spring)

Cross-listed as: RES 395-01, SST 395-01. The objective of this course is to contribute to an understanding of the different forms and manifestations of twentieth-century genocide. The course will explore what I consider key aspects of genocide, drawing on the wealth of 20th century experience with it. It will also enable students to gain perspectives on two related earlier phenomena: slavery and the extermination of Native Americans, both of crucial importance for understanding the usefulness of mass murder. It will examine in some detail four instances of genocide: that of the Armenians in Ottoman Turkey, of the Jews by Nazi Germany, of Bosnians in the Bosnian war, and of Tutsi by Hutu in Rwanda. Basic knowledge of the historical facts involved will be expected. It will deal extensively with the involvement and responsibility of not only the immediate perpetrators, but of their societies at large. It will analyze the mechanism of genocide on the level of discrete events, as well as the way that information about it spreads and/or is suppressed, and the way the outside world reacts - or does not.

Prerequisite: Third or fourth year standing.
Instructor: Staff