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History of Deportation and Genocide


Course Description

Drawing on a series of case studies, students will explore the relationship between deportation and genocide and investigate the perpetrators, the victims, the causes, and the consequences.


Athena Title

Deportation and Genocide


Pre or Corequisite

One course in HIST or POLS or SOCI or AFST or FYOS or INTL


Grading System

A - F (Traditional)


Student Learning Outcomes

  • By the end of this course, students will be able to arrive at conclusions about the history of deportation and genocide through gathering and weighing evidence, logical argument, and listening to counter argument.
  • By the end of this course, students will be able to write stylistically appropriate papers and essays. Students will be able to analyze ideas and evidence, organize their thoughts, and revise and edit their finished essays.
  • By the end of this course, students will be able to identify how the history of deportation and genocide shaped diverse social and cultural attitudes toward ethnicity and identity, trauma and evil, and history and memory, encouraging them to understand diverse worldviews and experiences.
  • By the end of this course, students will be able to apply appropriate methodological approaches to their analysis of primary sources and to organize their evidence to show historical continuities and discontinuities.

Topical Outline

  • 1. What is genocide?
  • 2. What is the historical relationship between genocide and deportation?
  • 3. Are modern and premodern deportations distinct?
  • 4. Was Indian Removal the first modern deportation? Part I
  • 5. Was Indian Removal the first modern deportation? Part II
  • 6. The genocide in California
  • 7. Genocide in European colonies
  • 8. Nazis and the Shoah: The causes
  • 9. Nazis and the Shoah: The perpetrators
  • 10. Nazis and the Shoah: The victims
  • 11. Stalin and Ukraine
  • 12. Oral history archives, Part I
  • 13. Oral history archives, Part II
  • 14. S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine
  • 15. The fight over memory