Third Year Module
Module Leader: Dr Edward Packard
Rationale and Content:
This course examines the history of difference, persecution and genocide. How have humans defined their own identities against others, and how has this enabled perpetrators to justify acts of great inhumanity, and even genocide, against those characterised as 'other'? Taking a thematic and comparative approach this module will focus on genocide in the twentieth century. Topics will include: the the origins of genocide; the Armenian genocide; the Holocaust; the Cambodian genocide; and the Rwandan genocide. Can we explain genocide, or is it beyond rationality? How have differences of race, ethnicity, religion, class, education and nationality been invented and allowed to become such powerful vehicles for hatred at certain points in history? Should we see the genocides of the twentieth century as a legacy of a barbaric past or the creation of the modern state? Why are some tragedies more remembered than others? How should genocide be prosecuted? Can it be prevented? Are there any lessons we should learn for the twenty-first century? The course will introduce students to a range of historiographical debates and primary sources on the topic.
Learning and Teaching Strategies:
This module will be delivered through a combined weekly lecture and seminar plus tutorial support. Where appropriate supporting resources will also be made available online. Seminar sessions will be designed to encourage student participation and will support students in strengthening their skills of presentation, discussion,argument and debate,and in evaluating, interpreting and using secondary and primary sources.
Assessment:
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Module
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Mode
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Weighting %
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Length
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Submission date
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Genocide
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Document Commentary
Essay
Oral Presentation
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50
40
10
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2,500 words
3,000 words
20 minutes plus handout
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Week 7
Week 11
As scheduled
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Indicative reading:
N.B. Advice on recommended book purchases for this module will be given to students at the start of term.
Donald Bloxham and A. Dirk Moses, The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies, (2010).
Ben Kiernan, Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Rwanda, (2009).
Taner Akcam, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility, (2007).
Donald Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide, (2007).
Donald Bloxham, Genocide on Trial: War Crime Trials and the Formation of Holocaust History and Memory, (2003).
Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, (2001).
Daniel Chirot and Clark McCaulay, Why Not Kill Them All? The Logic and Prevention of Mass Political Murder, (2006).
John Docker, The Origins of Violence: Religion, History and Genocide, (2008).
Saul Friedlander, The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-45, (1998).
Robert Gellatley et al, (ed.), The Spectre of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective, (2003).
Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust, (1989).
A.L. Hinton, Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide, (2002).
Karl D. Jackson, Rendezvous with Death: Cambodia 1975-8, (1992).
Olaf Jensen, (ed.), Ordinary People as Mass Murderers: Perpetrators in Comparative Perspectives, (2008).
Adam Jones, Genocide: A Comprehensive History,(2006).
Ian Kershaw, Hitler, the Germans and the Final Solution, (2009).
Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power and Genocide under the Khmer Rouge 1975-79, (2008).
Mark Levene, Genocide in the Age of the Nation State, Vols. I-II, (2008).
Mahmood Mamdani, Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics and the War on Terror, (2009).
Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing, (2004).
D.E. Miller, Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide, (1999).
A. Dirk Moses, Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation and Subaltern Resistance in World History, (2010).
A. Dirk Moses, Genocide, 4 vols. (2010) .
Gerard Prunier, The Rwandan Crisis: History of a Genocide, (1998).
Gerard Prunier, Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide, (2005).
Martin Shaw, War and Genocide: Organised Killing in Modern Society, (2003).
James E. Waller, Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People commit Genocide and Mass Murder, (2007)