Course Catalogue

View Specification Document | Reading List

This course teaches students about key examples of genocide and related mass atrocities in the 20th and 21st centuries. In Semester 1, students will focus on cases of mass atrocities and the associated evolution of the war crimes and crimes against humanity legal prohibitions prior to the end of World War II. In Semester 2, students will explore case studies and theoretical approaches that followed the introduction of the United Nations 'Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide' in 1951. Students will then apply what they have learned to a current example of potential genocide to explore how historians might inform emergent media coverage, policymaking, and academic debates.

10x3hr seminars for 10 weeks in each semester. This is one of the Honours options in History and may not run every year. The options that are running this session are available on MyCampus.

Successful completion of Junior Honours in History.

None

None

Ten reading responses (200 words each): 20%

Two Book Reviews (1000 words each): 30%

Two Essays (2500 words each): 50%

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those which contribute to the Honours classification. For non-Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

This course aims to:

■ Engage with a number of examples of genocide across the 20th and 21st centuries, and around the world; 

■ Act as professional historians by conducting independent and small-group group analysis of primary sources, informed by secondary readings, and writing carefully considered essays and related written assignment;

■ Gain familiarity with some of the key challenges that historians face in analysing primary sources related to genocide and other mass atrocities; 

■ Practice applying past and present legal prohibitions to different cases of mass human rights violations;

■ Engage in informed student-led discussion on key themes related to the study of genocide in different settings;

■ Begin thinking about the intersections between historical approaches to the study of genocide, and other disciplinary approaches.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Discuss in a critical manner international legal prohibitions and key theoretical and historiographic debates concerning the study of genocide and related mass atrocities in the 20th and 21st centuries;

■ Critically evaluate and interpret primary sources related to genocide, and bring them into conversation with relevant secondary literature to produce informed conclusions on a given case study;

■ Evaluate the various controversies that surround policy, academic, and public discourses related to genocide and related mass atrocities;

■ Work independently and in small groups to evaluate primary sources on genocide and related mass atrocities and identify the possible insights they can offer for the field of genocide studies;

■ Draw informed conclusions about how genocide and related mass atrocities take shape within a community, and the long-term legacies of such violence for surviving communities.

■ Communicate effectively in class discussion and written work;

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.