HGS 268 - Special Topics in Genocide

May be repeated for credit

FALL 2022- Teaching Holocaust History: Critical Pedagogies of Violence

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Democratic governments hold that teaching about the Holocaust will foster liberal democracy. More so, teaching about violence is practiced as a preventive effort to reduce extremism. Exhibiting and engaging with mass violence is usually based on the experience of the Holocaust. In this course, we will explore how teaching about violence, war, and genocide is considered the antidote to violence. And how does the Holocaust appear in education, specifically as civic-, anti-racism- and tolerance-education. What does learning from the Holocaust -as a universal paradigm of genocide- enable, especially after new genocides? But also, what does the memory of the Holocaust provide as a lesson for the present? This seminar focuses specifically on educational efforts to rebuild citizenship, civic values, democratic attitudes, and liberal personhood. Further, the seminar will focus on education projects that promise social peace and integration. We will ask, what are the lessons for the participants in educational programs?  How does the Holocaust figure in current anti-racism, anti-extremism, and tolerance efforts? How do participants in these educational formats relate to the past and change in the present? We will ask, can learning about genocide bring radical change. How does education about violence combat hatred, racism and build empathy?

This seminar is divided into three main parts. The first part will deal with the experience of violence, such as the Holocaust and colonialism. In the second part we will focus on specific social cases and contexts. Here, we will explore how violent pasts are deployed in educational practice. Citizenship will be a major focus of this course as it is both a fundamental human right and a social practice. As a social practice, we will ask how certain values, such as tolerance, are considered positive, ethical, and morally necessary to maintain and safeguard a social peace and integration. In this part we will focus on the educational strategies and methods that are used in these settings such as: survivor meetings, self-reflections, but also extremism prevention. In the third part, we will explore sites of learning, such as schools, museums, memorials as well as digital and online platforms, and the possibilities and tensions they produce when exhibiting past violence and speaking to the present.

 

Anticipated Terms Offered: Varies