Religion, Holocaust, and Genocide Unit
We seek proposals that address the genocidal aspects of European colonialism by historically linking or comparing the genocide of Indigenous Peoples, US Slavery, and the Holocaust. This approach may include an explicit assessment of or engagement with Raoul Peck’s Exterminate All the Brutes—which he describes as tracing the origins of white supremacy through historically linking the genocide of Native Americans, US Slavery, and the Holocaust—or any comparative historical or conceptual analysis between any of these two atrocities. A comparison that includes a case of a genocide of Indigenous Peoples is of particular interest.
The term “genocide” was coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944, and in 1948 the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In this context, our Unit treats prominent atrocities of the twentieth century, but topics of interest extend before and after this period as well beyond the legal definition of genocide. This Unit addresses religious aspects of genocidal conflicts, other mass atrocities, and human rights abuses that have made a deep and lasting impact on society, politics, and international affairs. Unit interests also include instructive lessons and reflections that Holocaust and Genocide Studies can lend to illuminating other human rights violations and instances of mass violence and the construal of genocide within a human rights violation spectrum that allows for the study of neglected or ignored conflicts that include a salient religious element. Our work is interdisciplinary and includes scholars from fields including History, Ethics, Theology, Philosophy, Jewish Studies, Church History, Anthropology, Political Science, Gender Studies, and regional area studies of Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East.
| Chair | Dates | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Benjamin Sax | bsax@icjs.org | - | View |
| David Tollerton | d.c.tollerton@exeter.ac… | - | View |