RESCUERS AND BYSTANDERS

Catalog description

Open to Graduate Students and Qualified undergraduates. Undergraduates must have completed a minimum of 96 undergraduate credits and have at least an overall GPA of 3.5 to enroll in this course; this course may not be taken by an undergraduate for graduate credit.What is the role of good people in difficult times? Do dictatorships like that of the Nazi Third Reich induce a kind of mass psychosis that transforms some people into brutes and others into passive bystanders? Do people have choices, or are we all victims, be it of oppression, war, genocide, or "fate"? This seminar examines the factors that shape the behavior of ordinary people and institutions - specifically, the Christian churches - during a time of extreme violence like the Holocaust and other genocides of the 20th and 21st centuries. It encourages students to ask what it takes to move "ordinary people" from indifference to action on behalf of others.