Genocide after the Holocaust

From 8 Nov 2016 to Tue 17 Jan 2017 the Wiener Library will offer a ten-week evening course led by Professor in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Kingston University, Philip Spencer.

The main aim of the course is to look at the phenomenon of genocide in the modern world. It has been argued that the Holocaust was a critical turning point, a catastrophe which required a fundamental rethinking of how the rights of human beings could be protected when states try to murder large numbers of people, including many of their own citizens, what we now call genocide. The course will begin with reflections on the Nazi attempt to annihilate the Jews and some of the immediate responses to the Holocaust, particularly the Genocide Convention which was passed by the newly formed United Nations in December 1948. The Convention was designed to commit the international community to halt and prevent the recurrence of this crime but there have nevertheless been several cases since 1948, across decades and continents.  

The course will look first at some of the key crucial issues about what is involved in genocide and why it is (as the Tribunal on the Rwanda genocide put it) “the crime of crimes” and will then examine a number of cases of genocide that have taken place since the Holocaust, and consider why almost nothing has been done to halt or prevent the crime, despite the promise of the Convention. Among the cases which will be examined are the genocides in Cambodia, Guatemala, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Darfur. The course will conclude with some reflections on how justice might be provided in the aftermath of genocide.

The course will run every Tuesday from 8 November 2016 to 17 January 2017, with a break for holidays on 27 December. It will be hosted at the Library from 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm. The full price of the course is £175, just £17.50 per session.

For further information and to enrol, please contact nlavee[at] wienerlibrary [dott] co [dott] uk.

Philip Spencer is Emeritus Professor in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Kingston University and Visiting Professor in Politics at Birkbeck College, London University. He was the founder and director of the Helen Bamber Centre for the Study of Rights, Conflict and Mass Violence at Kingston University.