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This seminar gives an overview over different aspects of the history of the Holocaust and its aftermath and will examine key issues in recent Holocaust historiography and questions of memory and representation. Special emphasis is put on the nature of the historian's task, as viewed through the lens of historians of the Holocaust, as well as to the significance of the Holocaust in history and how it has changed over time. The course will confront students with historiographical texts and historical documents, with photography and film, works of scholarship and art.

The emergence of modern racism and radical anti-Semitism. The Nazi rise to power and the Jews. Anti-Semitic legislation in the 30s. WW II and the beginning of mass killings in the East. Deportations and ghettos. The mass extermination of European Jewry.

This course offers an in-depth approach to the study of the Holocaust as a historical point of reference for European memory, or for the memory cultures of European nations, where the international context in particular the USA and Israel will also be taken into consideration. The starting point is the transformations in Holocaust memory: after 1945, in the era of European postwar myths, the Holocaust was on the periphery of historical thinking, of scholarly and public interest. Today the Holocaust is acknowledged as a 'break in civilization', a watershed event in human history. This approach has only evolved since the 1980s.

Open to medical students, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Traces the history of genocide in the 20th century and the question of humanitarian intervention to stop it, a topic that has been especially controversial since the end of the Cold War. The pre-1990s discussion begins with the Armenian genocide during the First World War and includes the Holocaust and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. Coverage of genocide and humanitarian intervention since the 1990s includes the wars in Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, the Congo and Sudan.

Instructor consent required.

This course examines some salient issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the late 19th century to the present. At the end of the course you should be able to articulate the positions of the major parties to the conflict, with the understanding that there is no single, unified Zionist (or Jewish) or Palestinian (or Arab) position. One quarter does not allow sufficient time to cover even all of the important topics comprehensively (for example, the role of the Arab states, the USA and the USSR, and the internal history of Israel receive less attention than is desirable). Some prior knowledge of Middle East history is desirable, but not required. Vigorous debate and criticism are strongly encouraged. Criticism and response expressed in a civil tone is an important way to get a fuller and more truthful picture of something. This is not only a fundamental democratic right and a basic citizenship skill, but it is essential to interpreting information and making good policy. Rights not used are easily lost.

This course will take an interdisciplinary approach to the question of how American Jews negotiate the desire to retain a unique ethnic sensibility without excluding themselves from American culture more broadly. Students will examine the various ways in which people debate, deliberate, and determine what it means to be an "American Jew". This includes an investigation of how American Jewish relationships to formal and informal educational encounters through school, popular culture, religious ritual, and politics.

Student-selected research topics. May be repeat for credit