- UCAS course code
- V136
- UCAS institution code
- M20
Course unit details:
The Holocaust: History, Historiography, Memory
Unit code | HIST31491 |
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Credit rating | 20 |
Unit level | Level 3 |
Teaching period(s) | Semester 1 |
Available as a free choice unit? | No |
Overview
More and more, the Holocaust is perceived and assessed as one of the seminal event of the 20. Century in Europe. If its consequences were not clearly embraced in the immediate after war, the long shadow of genocide shapes today’s culture and politics.
This course aims at presenting some main themes in the growing field of Holocaust studies. Themes will be on the Holocaust itself, its general interpretations, the question of victims, of perpetrators, the technologies of mass killings, but also on the consequences of genocide (justice, memorials, testimonies). It is a history class, with some interdisciplinarity: politics, literature, psychology will also be used in class.
A specific attention will be dedicated to the digital aspects of Holocaust learning, documentation and memory.
Aims
- Training in critical thinking
- Reading and writing skills
- Debates on sensitive and political issues
- To promote the mastery of a discipline (history) with the help of auxiliary disciplines (such as visual studies, anthropology, law, …): attention will be given to knowledge, epistemology and methodology
- Raising awareness of social, political and environmental issues. Enhancing the sense of social responsibility
- Consciousness of the values of cultural diversity, commitment to human rights, equality and equal opportunity regardless of gender, race, disability, religious or other beliefs, sexual orientation or age
Learning outcomes
- A general knowledge of the Holocaust and the position of Holocaust studies within the field of genocide scholarship
- How to analyse diverse documents and to comprehend the way they are produced and the moral issues at stake
- Work in group
- Work in an interdisciplinary setting
- Navigate the Internet and database of historical documents
- Critical analysis of documents and testimonies found on the Internet
- Introduction to digital humanities
- Knowledge in history in order to inform current political and social debates.
Knowledge and understanding
- the moral issues at stake with the studies of mass violence and genocide
- understanding of state persecution
- minority rights.
Intellectual skills
- Analyse and connect information from various types
- Critical analysis
Practical skills
- Work in groups
- Navigate databases
- Uses of digital resources
- Knowledge on the production of electronic files and documents.
Transferable skills and personal qualities
Details should be listed of the specific expected learning outcomes, for a student studying this course unit, in relation to the students' transferable skills and personal qualities. Transferable skills:
- Communication skills: presenting, advising others, writing and editing
- Organisation skills: follow through, meeting deadline, planning, time management
- Interpersonal skills: relating with other members of the team, motivating people, resolving conflicts, being a team player
- Some computer skills, searching the web in an organised web
- Teamwork skills
- Creativity skills
For guidance on Transferable skills, please see: https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/advice/planning/Pages/transferableskills.aspx
Employability skills
- Other
- Knowledge on how the past inform political debates can sustain career paths in diverse professions: - Ethics and religious education - Community organisers - Interfaith organisers - Learning centres in museums and memorials - Policy planning in various centres, think tanks, etc. - Journalism - Museum curation - Events managers
Assessment methods
Group presentation with Powerpoint slides | 30% |
Draft Powerpoints | 0% |
Essay | 70% |
Feedback methods
Feedback method | Formative or Summative |
Week 5: on the work in class | Formative |
Week 7: on the oral presentations | Summative |
Recommended reading
Bauer, Yehuda, Rethinking the Holocaust (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2000).
Adler, Nanci, Understanding the Age of Transitional Justice. Crimes, Courts, Commissions, and Chronicling (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2018).
Dreyfus, Jean-Marc, Langton, Daniel, Writing the Holocaust (London: Bloomsbury, 2011).
Friedländer, Saul, Nazi Germany and the Jews. Volume 1, The Years of Persecution ; Volume 2, The Years of Extermination, 1933-1945, (New York : HarperCollins, c1997; 2007).
Kwiet, Konrad, Matthäus, Jürgen (eds.), Contemporary Responses to the Holocaust (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 2004).
Lagrou, Pieter, The Legacy of Nazi Occupation: Patriotic Memory and National Recovery in Western Europe, 1945-1965 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Steinbacher, Sybille, Auschwitz. A History (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006).
Study hours
Scheduled activity hours | |
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Lectures | 11 |
Seminars | 22 |
Independent study hours | |
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Independent study | 167 |
Teaching staff
Staff member | Role |
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Jean-Marc Dreyfus | Unit coordinator |