Dr Claire Moon

This course is available on the BSc in Language, Culture and Society and BSc in Sociology. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.

• This course is not available as a first-year option.
• This course has a limited number of places (it is capped). Places are allocated on a first come first served basis with priority given to students on the the BSc in Language, Culture and Society and BSc in Sociology.
• This course cannot be taken in conjunction with IR312 Genocide.

This course introduces undergraduate students to a range of issues relevant to the study of mass atrocity and justice for atrocity. It introduces students to a range of perspectives, from sociological to historical, to social psychological and philosophical.

More concretely, it investigates topics covering definitions of state crime and atrocity, the social construction of atrocities, genocide and the Genocide Convention, structural approaches to understanding genocide (modernity, democracy, and colonial rule), the perpetrators, victims and witnesses of atrocity, denial of state crimes, reporting and documenting atrocity, forensic investigations of mass graves, retributive and restorative approaches to justice (including truth commissions and war crimes tribunals), historic atrocities in settler states (Australia, Canada and the US), and the use of political apologies for atrocity.

This course is delivered through a combination of lectures, seminars and online materials totalling a minimum of 20 hours in the WT, and 2 hours of revision classes in the ST.

Reading Week: Students on this course will have a reading week in WT Week 6, in line with departmental policy.

1 x formative essay of 1500 words.

• Arendt, Hannah (1994) Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Penguin Books)
• Bauman, Zygmunt (1989) Modernity and the Holocaust (Cambridge: Polity)
• Browning, Christopher (1992) Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 (New York: HarperCollins):
• Cohen, Stan (2001) States of Denial (Cambridge: Polity Press)
• Coulthard, Glen Sean (2014) Red Skin White Masks (University of Minnesota Press).
• Hacking, Ian (1999) The Social Construction of What? (Cambridge: Harvard University Press)
• Jones, Adam (2011) Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, 2nd edition (London: Routledge)
• Keenan, Thomas and Eyal Weizman (2012) Mengele’s Skull: The Advent of Forensic Aesthetics (Frankfurt: Sternberg Press).
• Wilson, Richard (2001) The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Legitimizing the Post-Apartheid State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Class participation (10%) in the WT.
Take-home assessment (90%) in the ST.

Assessment is by two components:

1. Class participation (10%) in the WT. Class participation is assessed on the basis of contributions to class discussions that evidence reading and understanding, ability to present arguments derived from the readings and lecture material, and a demonstration of the ability to develop a position in relation to issues presented in the lecture and readings.

2. Take-home assesment (90%) in the ST. The take-home assessment takes the form of an exam (from which two questions must be answered) in the spring exam period, to be completed within a specified five-day time period. A copy will be uploaded to Moodle.

Attendance at all classes and submission of all set coursework is required.