Postgraduate courses

Ethnic Conflict and Reconciliation in Modern Europe (HT71122B)

Convenor:	Dr Dejan Djokic
Duration:	Autumn Term
Assessment:	One essay of 4,000 words
CAT Value:	30 CATS

Content

The course explores the violent relationship between the nation and the state, focusing on attempts and failures during the 20th century to protect ethnic minorities against the majority populations. Efforts to achieve post-conflict justice and reconciliation will also be analysed. The course looks at Europe as a whole, but concentrates on its peripheries: the Balkans and the Near East, and East-Central Europe -- areas often ignored by scholars of modern European history. Key events studied will include: population movements during and in the aftermath of the two World Wars, including the Armenian genocide, the Greek-Turkish population exchange of the early 1920s, and the expulsion of ethnic Germans from East-Central Europe in the second half of the 1940s, and the Balkan and Yugoslav wars. Changing meaning(s) and political (mis)use of concepts such as ‘genocide’, 'holocaust', ‘population transfers’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ will be discussed throughout the course, as will questions concerning overcoming the past in post-conflict societies. There is no foreign language requirement for this course.

Learning Outcomes

The students will:

• Explore history of the events studied and gain an understanding of key developments in the 20th century European history, some of which still shape the way we think about our recent past and present.
• Gain knowledge and comprehension of theoretical issues and debates in modern European history.
• Enhance the ability to frame an argument in a sustained manner. Arguments should be structured, coherent, relevant, concise, and should take into account all aspects of a given problem.
• The course should also enable students to increase their understanding of historical argument and develop an ability to maintain critical distance from sources.
• Enable students to develop a number of skills such as: self-direction and self-discipline; b) independence of mind and initiative; c) the ability to work with others and to have respect for the reasoned views of others; d) the ability to identify, gather, deploy and organize evidence, data and information, as well as familiarity with appropriate means of achieving this; e) analytical ability and the capacity to consider and solve problems, including complex ones; f) structure, clarity and fluency of expression, both written and oral; g) intellectual maturity, integrity, empathy and imaginative insight; h) ability to organize time, work and personal resources to optimal effect.

Introductory Reading

• Norman Naimark, Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe (Harvard UP, 2002) [recommended text book for the course]
• Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century (London, 1998)
• Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing (Cambridge UP, 2005)
• Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991 (London, 1995)
• Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York, 1963)
• Slavenka Drakulic, They Would Never Hurt a Fly: War Criminals on Trial in The Hague, (London, 2004)