Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Special topics. Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

In 1948, the United Nations adopted a convention that defined genocide, a crime committed many times before then but not developing conceptually, legally, or even linguistically until the twentieth century. The ratifying nations promised to prevent genocides, to intervene in those that broke out, and to bring perpetrators to justice. However, genocides have continued to occur into the twenty-first century, and the signers of the convention have spent more time arguing over the definition and its limitations than acting against perpetrators.

This course will explore modern genocide in its historical context in order to analyze and critique various definitions of genocide, underscoring both the usefulness and limitations of the genocide convention and introducing students to the complexities of politics, international law, and historical perspective when it comes to applying the term and enforcing legislation. An interdisciplinary approach is inherent in our exploration of this topic: we will be reading material produced by historians but also by psychologists, journalists, criminologists, legal scholars, political scientists, and survivors. Over the semester, we will attempt to answer the following questions: what are the various definitions of genocide, and why is there a plurality? How did genocide manifest itself before the twentieth century, especially during the nineteenth century? In what context was the UN genocide convention drafted and signed? What are its limitations for understanding historical events? Topics include imperialism and colonial conquest; settler colonialism and genocide; revolution and war; Raphael Lemkin and the 1948 genocide convention; evolving legal and scholarly definitions of crimes against humanity from the end of the First World War; sexual violence during war and genocide; issues of memory, justice, and the prevention the genocide; and various case studies, including the Holocaust; the indigenous peoples in the Americas and Australia; Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire; the Herero and Nama in Southwest Africa; the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides; and ethnic cleansing and genocide in the Balkans. Other controversial cases, including contemporary events in Darfur and the Congo, the genocidal behaviour of Boko Haram and ISIS, and the targeting of groups such as the Yazidi and the Rohingya, will also be discussed.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: