| This is a multi-disciplinary course administered through the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. The Holocaust and its aftermath make enormous demands on us not just emotionally, but intellectually, requiring that we consider it from historical, military, psychological, philosophical, political, scientific, representational and legal perspectives. HX405 is a multi-disciplinary response to these challenges. The course will explore the causes, course, and consequences of the Holocaust, examining the processes that led to the Nazi genocide against the Jews, with a particular focus on the role of the military. It will examine the Holocaust from a variety of perspectives (perpetrators, victims, bystanders, resisters and rescuers), and consider the moral and ethical choices made by members of each group. The course will require an in-depth understanding of German and European history, and it will impart an appreciation for the cultures and mentalities of the interwar and wartime era. The course will utilize primary sources, films, documentaries, testimonies, and propaganda. It will conclude with consideration of the political and legal responses to the Holocaust in the later 1940s, and the later incorporation of the Holocaust into the global public consciousness. |