Genocide, Human Rights & Literature

Catalog description

This course is designed to introduce students to one of the most troublesome and unnerving aspects of the modern world: the systematic cleansing and killing of populations defined by ethnicity, nationality, or race. Genocide is a contested term, and we will explore its various meanings. The course will concentrate on genocides and crimes against humanity in the 20th century. We will discuss the meaning of key terms like human rights, humanitarianism, and genocide, and investigate particular cases of mass atrocities, starting with the Holocaust and a number of historic cases of genocide, e.g., the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and focus on contemporary atrocities in Rwanda, ex-Yugoslavia, and Darfur. We will also explore the historical process of establishing human rights standards, and examine critically some of the recent efforts at redress, justice, and memory through criminal tribunals, truth and reconciliation commissions, and restitution. A central question runs through the course: how are these two polar opposites, human rights and genocide, related? Do modern forms of thinking about politics and the diversity of human society enable and encourage both phenomena? We will also examine literary and cinematic representations of genocides and mass atrocities. Readings include a variety of literary and cinematic works: novels, poems, graphic novels, memoirs, and film. How have literary and cinematic writers responded to and represented these “unspeakable” events?.