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 Aims
This is an interdisciplinary course, and not as such a history of the Holocaust or detailed comparative study of genocide. The overarching questions to be pursued are: What kind of events are the Holocaust and genocide, how do they fit into and relate to the modern societies in which they occur, and what are their ramifications and significance for the normal civilised lives that we currently enjoy? The module combines historical and social scientific inquiry with philosophical reflection on the nature and significance of the Holocaust and possibly kindred events, processes and institutions. Reflecting its interdisciplinary ethos, the module is delivered simultaneously to social science students under SOC3046a and philosophy students under PHL3046a.This is because historical and social scientific explanation and understanding of the Holocaust and kindred phenomena inherently raises questions of a philosophical nature. The module therefore draws on theories, methodologies and concepts from sociology, social psychology, historical explanation and moral philosophy. Issues to be explored include: questions on the distinctiveness and newness of genocide, whether the Holocaust is a unique event, what kind of knowledge and understanding it affords, and its relationship to other events and practices of a putatively similar kind; different approaches to explaining the causes, conditions and essential features of the Holocaust; the nature of evil and the moral character of perpetrators and other participants; the relationship between the Holocaust, genocide and modernity; reflection on human nature, civilisation, social organisation and social progress; questions on perpetrator motivation and action, moral responsibility and blame.
| On successfully completing the programme you will be able to: | |
|---|---|
| Module-Specific Skills | 1. Think philosophically on the nature, origins and causes of the Holocaust in particular and genocide more generally. 2. Reflect critically on the significance and import of the Holocaust and genocide for wider conceptions of the social organisation and ethical life of modern societies. 3. Examine critically and assess some of the leading philosophical, social scientific and interpretative attempts to account for socially organised evil- and wrong-doing in modern societies. |
| Discipline-Specific Skills | 4. Bring philosophical analysis to the evaluation of a range of social scientific and historical explanations and theories of the Holocaust and genocide and to identify and reflect on the puzzling and disturbing issues that they generate. 5. Reflect critically on the core social scientific and historical disciplines as explanatory and interpretive endeavours and assess their success and limitations in making sense of the Holocaust, genocide and other kindred events, processes and institutions. |
| Personal and Key Skills | 6. Critically reflect on, and examine, taken-for-granted moral and cultural beliefs and values 7. Analyse and communicate, clearly and directly, a range of philosophical, theoretical, explanatory, epistemological, ontological, and normative issues arising from study of the Holocaust, genocide and other kindred events, processes and institutions. 8. Work independently, within a limited time frame, and without access to external sources, to complete a specified task. |
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).
Indicative Reading List
This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.
H. Arendt (1965) Eichmann in Jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil
Z. Bauman (1989) Modernity and the Holocaust
C. Browning (1992) Ordinary men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the final solution in Poland
E. Garrard & G. Scarre (eds) (2003) Moral philosophy and the Holocaust
D. Goldhagen (1997) Hitler's willing executioners: ordinary Germans and the Holocaust
R. Hilberg (1961; 1985) The destruction of the European Jews
D. Jones (1999) Moral responsibility in the Holocaust: A study in the ethics of character
L. May (2010) Genocide : a normative account
B. Schlink (1998) The Reader
A. Vetlesen (2005) Evil and Human Agency: Understanding Collective Evildoing
ELE – http://vle.exeter.ac.uk/
