Kevin Madigan
Gen Ed 1118 | Last offered Spring 2022
How could the Holocaust have happened/how did it happen?
Who is responsible for genocide? Through the lens of the Holocaust – perhaps the most-studied genocide of the modern era – we will grapple with the issues of good and evil, blame and responsibility, duty and dissent as they pertain to violence enacted at the personal and state levels. What is the responsibility of “citizens and citizen leaders” in the face of local and global crises brought on by genocide, refugee catastrophes, terror, neo-fascism, etc.? And how do we make meaning out of what seems senseless? 
The course will address the historical background and context of the Holocaust, competing theories about who was responsible and why, and representations of the Holocaust in film and literature.