First-Year Seminars 110VM - Memory and Violence

We explore the memorialization of victims and survivors of mass atrocity and systemic violence, including dictatorships, displacements, genocide, poverty, and war. What are the distinctions between the cultural, historical, political, and experiences of those affected by mass and systemic violence? How do victims and survivors become agents in the process of reconciliation, reconstitution, and reconstruction of social relationships? We focus on case studies drawn from the Holocaust, genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia, and Bosnia, disappearances under dictatorships in Chile and Spain, and the current situation of refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea and the US-Mexican border.

Mount Holyoke first-year students only, by placement.