3 credits
Fall 2025 Distance Learning Upper Division
This course explores the representation of the Holocaust through a wide range of literary and historical texts and films. The course provides sociohistorical context for these works, while also grappling with philosophical questions of representation such as how - or even should - the atrocities of genocide be represented aesthetically and fictionally? Drawing on both primary and secondary sources, the course gives students a nuanced understanding of the difficulties of representations that are based in part on fallible human memory, but also of the crucial importance of giving voice to those who experienced the trauma of the Holocaust. Students will further develop their critical thinking skills by analyzing literature and film that documents a variety of ways in which this watershed event of the 20th century has been represented and interpreted.
Learning Outcomes1Analyze filmic and literary representations of the Holocaust in respect to themes, historical context, and narrative and filmic strategies of representation.
2Demonstrate knowledge of the historical events surrounding the Holocaust.
3Discuss the Holocaust from nuanced ethical and moral perspectives, with consideration of the vantage points of its victims, traumatized survivors, perpetrators, passive bystanders, and resistance fighters.
4Evaluate the roles of memory, first-person and eyewitness testimony, and other types of documentation of the Holocaust, reflecting on the challenges of representing these tragic events and the implications for historiography.
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