Anth 414/Hist 499                                                                              Dr. Ben Lapp

Spring 2005                                                                                        Dr. Kate McCaffrey

Thursday 5:30-8:00

Genocide

At the beginning of the 21^st century, the mass murder of civilian populations stands as one of the most pressing international problems. This class will critically examine the global problem of genocide. Drawing on the disciplines of history and anthropology, the framework of the course will be historical, cross-cultural and comparative. It will address the most fundamental contemporary intellectual debate surrounding genocide: under what conditions do societies aim to destroy “problem populations?” What can we learn from examining genocide and mass violence?

                                                            Professors                                                                              Dr. Ben Lapp                                                   Dr. Kate McCaffrey

Dickson 424                                                     Dickson 412

            655-4121                                                         655-7560

            bnlapp@aol.com                                              mccaffreyk@mail.montclair.edu

            Office Hours:                                                    Office Hours:

            Tues 3-5 PM                                                    Tues 9-10 AM

            Thurs 4-5 PM                                                  Thurs 2:30-4:30  PM               

Readings

The following books are required and are available in the campus bookstore:

• Eric Weitz.  A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race and Nation.

• Samuel Totten, William Parsons, and Israel Charny. Second Edition. Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts,

• Philip Gourevitch. We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: Stories from Rwanda.

• Victoria Sanford. Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala.

All other required readings are available on e-reserve, and at the reserve desk of the library.

Course Outline

The following are the readings to be completed by the indicated class period. As the course relies on classroom participation (which will constitute a significant part of your course grade) rather than course lectures, it is essential to do the reading on time.

January 20  Introduction

 

January 27 The Armenian Genocide

Powers, A Problem From Hell, Chp 1-4, pp. 1-60; 

Weitz, Introduction, Chp 1, pp 1-52.

Totten, Parsons, Charny, Introduction, pp.l -14, “The Armenian Genocide,” pp 53-90.

Optional Reading: Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan, “The Study of Mass Murder and Genocide”

February 3 Colonialism and Genocide

Bridgman and Worley in Charny, Totten and Parsons, “Genocide of the Hereros,” pp. 15-52; 

Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, “A Reckoning” pp. 225-234; 

Elazar Barkan, “Genocides of Indigenous Peoples: Rhetoric of Human Rights,” in Kiernan/Gellately, pp. 117-140;

Isabel Hull, “Military Culture and the Production of “Final Solutions” in the Colonies: The Example of Wilhelminian Germany,” in Kiernan/Gelatelly, pp. 141-162.

February 10 The Soviet Union

Weitz, Chapter 2;

Mace, “Soviet Man-Made Famine in Ukraine,” in Totten, Parsons, and Charny pp. 93-124.

Werth, The Mechanism of a Mass Crime,” in Kiernan/Gelatelly, pp. 215-240.

PAPER ONE DUE

February 17 The Holocaust, Part One.

Weitz Chapter 3;

Niewyck, Milton and Gallagher, in Totten, Parsons and Charny Chp 4-6 pp. 127-323.

February 24 The Holocaust, Part Two

Yehuda Bauer, “Comparisons with other Genocides,” in Rethinking the Holocaust, pp. 39-67; 

Primo Levi, “On the Bottom” excerpted from Survival in Auschwitz in Michael Morgan, editor, A Holocaust Reader: Responses to the Nazi Extermination, pp. 19-26.

Hannah Arendt, “The Concentration Camps” in Ibid, pp. 47-62;

Primo Levi, “The Gray Zone,” in  Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois, pp 83-90.

Robert Gellately, “The Third Reich, the Holocaust, and Visions of Serial Genocide,” in Kiernan/Gellately, pp.241-264.

March 3 Cambodia:

Weitz Chapter 4;

Kiernan, “The Cambodian Genocide, 1975-1979,” in Totten, Parsons, and Charny pp.339-374;

Hinton, “Why Did You Kill?” in Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois, pp 157-168.

PAPER TWO DUE

March 10 The Former Yugoslavia.

Weitz Chapter 5; 

Mennecke and Markusen, “Genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” and Mennecke, “Genocide in Kosovo?” in Totten, Parsons and Charny pp. 415-454; 

Semelin, “Analysis of a Mass Crime,” in Gellately/Kiernan, pp. 353-372.

March 17 No Class

March 24 Rwanda

Gourevitch, Part One 1-171.

March 31  Rwanda

Gourevitch, Part Two 177-353.

Film: In Rwanda We Say

April 5 Confronting the Threat of Genocide: Conference

April 7 Confronting the Threat of Genocide: Analysis and Discussion of Conference

April 14: Guatamela

Sanford, Chapters 1-5

April 21: Guatamela

Sanford, Chapters 6-10

Mamdani, “From When Victims Become Killers,” in Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois, pp 468-474.

April 28  Conclusion

‘Weitz, Conclusion.

 Fowler, “Out of that Darkness: Responding to Genocide in the 21^st Century,” in Totten  et al.,  pp. 455-468;

Totten, “The Intervention and Prevention of Genocide,”  in Ibid., 469-490; 

Kiernan and Gellately, “Investigating Genocide,” in Kiernan/Gellately, pp. 373-380.

PAPER THREE DUE