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• College of Social Sciences and International Studies

Undergraduate Module Descriptor

PHL2046A: The Holocaust, Genocide and Society

This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 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:

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

How this Module is Assessed

In the tables below, you will see reference to 'ILO's. An ILO is an Intended Learning Outcome - see Aims and Learning Outcomes for details of the ILOs for this module.

Formative Assessment

A formative assessment is designed to give you feedback on your understanding of the module content but it will not count towards your mark for the module.

Summative Assessment

A summative assessment counts towards your mark for the module. The table below tells you what percentage of your mark will come from which type of assessment.

...and this table provides further details on the summative assessments for this module.

Re-assessment

Re-assessment takes place when the summative assessment has not been completed by the original deadline, and the student has been allowed to refer or defer it to a later date (this only happens following certain criteria and is always subject to exam board approval). For obvious reasons, re-assessments cannot be the same as the original assessment and so these alternatives are set. In cases where the form of assessment is the same, the content will nevertheless be different.

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