Postgraduate Course: Genocide in Contemporary History (PGHC11407)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course considers genocide in the contemporary world. Though taught by an historian, and with an historical approach predominating, it also draws on concepts and themes from political science, anthropology and law, in examining the causes and character of a range of genocides, as well responses to genocide. |
| Course description |
This course seeks to establish an historical understanding of genocide, informed by the theoretical and multi-disciplinary approaches that have so shaped the field of genocide studies. The cases are chosen from the record of contemporary history - all come from the post-1914 period and all bar one from after the beginning of the Second World War. Students will emerge from the course being able to think comparatively and conceptually about genocide as well as about individual cases of it and connections between different cases. They will interrogate the utility and problems of the very concept itself. They will also study responses to genocide in the form of 'humanitarian intervention' and war crimes trials. The cases will be drawn from across the world: Asia, Africa, Europe, the Americas and Australasia, with perpetrators ranging from imperialist powers to fascists, communists, nation-state builders, 'developmentalists' and counter-insurgency fighters, and 'enablers' ranging from structural features of the international political economy to regional and world powers and the contours of the Cold War.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate in the essay and seminar discussions a detailed and critical command of the body of knowledge concerning the causes and character of genocide in the contemporary world, and responses to those genocides, as well as questions of definition, thematisation, and interconnections between cases
- Demonstrate in the essay and seminar discussions an ability to analyse and reflect critically upon relevant scholarship concerning the aforementioned matters
- Demonstrate the ability to develop and sustain original scholarly arguments in oral and written form in seminar discussions and essays by independently formulating appropriate questions and utilising relevant evidence considered in the course
- Demonstrate in seminar discussions and essays originality and independence of mind and initiative; intellectual integrity and maturity; an ability to evaluate the work of others, including peers; and a considerable degree of autonomy
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Reading List
Donald Bloxham and A Dirk Moses (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies (Oxford University Press, 2010)
Dan Stone (ed.) The Historiography of Genocide (Palgrave, 2008)
Adam Jones, Genocide, A Comprehensive Introduction, (2nd edition, London, Routledge, 2010)
Mark Levene, The Meaning of Genocide (Tauris, 2005)
Leo Kuper, Genocide, Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century (London, 1981)
Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn, The History and Sociology of Genocide,(Yale, 1990)
Eric D. Weitz, A Century of Genocide, Utopias of Race and Nation (Princeton and Oxford, 2003)
RC Ben Kiernan and Robert Gellately, eds., The Spectre of Genocide : Mass Murder in Historical Perspective (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003)
Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy, Explaining Ethnic Cleansing (CUP, 2005)
A.L. Hinton, Annihilating Difference, The Anthropology of Genocide (University of California Press, 2002)
Benjamin Valentino, Final Solutions, Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th century (Cornell UP, 2004)
Ben Kiernan, Blood and Soil, A World History of Genocide (Yale, 2007) |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
- enhanced abilities in research, critical thinking, weighing up of arguments and evidence
- production of innovative research pieces that adhere to bibliographical convention
- skills in presenting information and arguments to fellow students / lecturer in class
- enhanced writing skills |
| Keywords | Genocide Contemporary History |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Donald Bloxham
Tel: (0131 6)50 3757
Email: |
Course secretary | Mrs Lindsay Scott
Tel: (0131 6)50 9948
Email: |
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