| Religious
Studies 127:01 The Holocaust: Confronting Evil |
“Auschwitz is a no-man’s land of the mind, a black box of explanation;
it sucks in all historiographic attempts at interpretation, is a vacuum
taking meaning from outside history. Only ex negativo, only through
the constant attempt to understand why it cannot be understood, can we
measure what sort of occurrence this breach of civilization really was.
As the most extreme of extreme cases, and thus as the absolute measure
of history, this event is hardly historicizable.”
— Dan Diner
This course is about the struggle to interpret an event that, because it
has no historical parallels, defies representation and lacks discernible
logic or meaning. By evaluating how others have depicted, attempted
to create meaningful narratives about, and drawn conclusions from the Holocaust,
we hope ourselves to reach some understanding of this event, of its significance
for modern society, and of its potential for helping us to recognize our
own responsibilities in a world in which ultimate evil is possible.
The course unfolds in three sections: I. What Happened?, II. How Could
It Happen?, and III. What Does It Mean? Beyond the first, historical,
section, each unit offers a number of different perspectives, each represented
by a seminal book. Completion of the course-work will provide a solid
introduction to the larger field of Holocaust studies and, it is hoped,
will comprise a firm foundation for the development of a personal response
to the lessons of the Holocaust.