Module PHL2046A for 2020/1
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
PHL2046A: The Holocaust, Genocide and Society
This module descriptor refers to the 2020/1 academic year.
Module Content
Syllabus Plan
Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:
1.Introduction & orientation: What was the Holocaust and what can be learned from studying it?
2. The concept and practice of genocide
3. Is the Holocaust a unique? Theoretical and conceptual questions
4. Is the Holocaust a unique? Epistemic and political questions
5. The Dialectic of Enlightenment, civilisation and progress
6. The Modernity thesis: is the Holocaust an essentially modern phenomenon?
7. The nature of evil: Radical or Banal?
8. Social psychology: situationist explanation and the fundamental attributional error
9. The ‘evil of banality’: critical reflection on the modernity and banality theses
10. Explaining direct perpetrators' actions: Browning's situationist explanation
11. Explaining direct perpetrators' actions: Goldhagen's cognitive explanation
12. Assessment of Browning's and Goldhagen's theories: a radical alternative?
13. Structure and agency in the Holocaust: ‘Intentionalist’ versus ‘functionalist’ conceptions
14. Rescue and resistance: supererogation, ordinary goodness and the social conditions of altruism
15. The Bystander effect and its significance in modern society
16. Normalisation of the Holocaust? Comparison & analogy with other genocides and examples of institutionalised wrong- and evil-doing
17. Holocaust denial
18. Knowledge, ignorance and moral responsibility
19. Collective responsibility/guilt, and problems of redress
20. Judgement and understanding: compatible or incompatible?
21. Overview: what have we learned?
Learning and Teaching
This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
---|---|---|
44.5 | 255.5 | 0 |
...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:
Category | Hours of study time | Description |
---|---|---|
Scheduled Learning and Teaching activity | 33 | 22 x 1.5 hour weekly lecture |
Scheduled Learning and Teaching activity | 10 | 10 x fortnightly 1 hour smaller group seminars for further exploration of lecture and module themes and issues |
Scheduled Learning and Teaching activity | 1.5 | Revision session |
Guided Independent study | 130 | Assigned readings associated with each lecture |
Guided independent study | 40 | Preparation for essay 1 |
Guided Independent Study | 45.5 | Preparation for essay 2 |
Guided Independent study | 40 | Preparation for exam A variety of activities directed by module leader. |
Online Resources
This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).