about the class

Scope and sequence of the course at Boston Latin School (2004-2005)

• We begin the year looking at the "ourselves" part of facing history and ourselves." How do we define and see our own identities? How do we categorize ourselves and others? How do stereotypes and traditional beliefs affect our views of others? What are race, ethnicity, and gender and what do these have to do with identity? How does prejudice and discrimination develop?
• We then address questions of why do people marginalize, separating themselves from one another? We look at extreme forms of this--from slavery, the treatment of native peoples, the treatment of Asians and Latinos in this nation, and antisemitism to racism and homophobia. People played different roles in this: perpetrators, victims, bystanders, rescuers, resisters. Why?
• Why is it that we ask these questions anyway? Why do basic human rights and essential notions of justice seem so obvious and yet so elusive? What are our basic human rights? How are they guaranteed? How have they been violated in this nation as well as in other parts of the world? What is the role of our nation, of the United Nations, of other international organizations, of NGOs, of the International Court of Justice and international war crimes tribunals, etc.? What is our role as individual citizens of a nation and of the world? How have individuals sought to secure and guarantee human rights in places around the world? What good are international forms of justice? We use Roy Gutman and David Rieff, eds., Crimes of War book to explore some of these issues.
  Identity and nationalism are intertwined. We define various "isms" and relate them to nationalism. We look at colonialism and how that altered identities and nationalisms in various parts of the world. We also ask key questions about nationalism--particularly our own. In the wake of September 11th, 2001, we have been challenged to think about our own national identity--not only how we see ourselves but also how others see us. The recent war in Iraq makes these questions all the more urgent. Are we peacemakers or aggressors? Are we colonizers or the bearer of democratic values? Do we agree with the way others see us? How about our own sense of patriotism? As we face "patriotism and ourselves," do we consider how various members of our society feel they are embraced or marginalized within that society?
• We also examine notions of eugenics, so-called "race science" (in fact, a pseudo-science)--and efforts to measure intelligence, ability, and potential through questionable standard tests (including the SATs) beginning in the early twentieth century.
• We then begin looking at how genocide peculiarly defines the twentieth century. The twentieth century has been labeled by many historians as "the century of genocide." Not that genocide was invented in the past 100 years--indeed, there are many historical genocides that we will not study--but it was practiced in the modern era with an intensity that is important to identify and understand. Throughout the year, we will read Samantha Power's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide.
• The Armenian genocide was eclipsed during World War I by other pressing events on the world stage. In the meantime, millions of Armenians were slaughtered by the government of what is today Turkey. How? Why? And how does this genocide set the stage for the behavior of peoples in this century?
• World War I and its conclusion set the stage for much of the violence that has engulfed the world since. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles, in particular, building on the 1878 Treaty of Berlin, helped divide up the world among its most powerful nations and, in the case of Versailles, punished the losers of World War I. Those critical decisions merit our study because they are the background to most of the major conflicts that we will then explore.
• The central case study of the course--the Holocaust--is a worthy focus for us because it is the most well-documented and researched of the past century. Patterns of behavior that emerge during the period from 1933 to 1945 reappear in other genocides. To understand why the Holocaust in Europe happened, we retrace European history of the past two centuries. We look at the planting of the seeds for Nazism and why they took root in Germany, the Nazi party's emergence, the sequence of actions the Nazis took, and the transformation of daily life in the country from 1933 on.
  Propaganda played a key role in this era. We examine propaganda techniques generally in societies, in language, film, art, the press, and education. We consider how the Nazis targeted specific populations: Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah's witnesses, Roma and Sinti (gypsies), the disabled, Afro-Germans, Communists and other political dissenters.
• Using the Pulitzer Prize-winning volumes Maus I and Maus II, by cartoonist Art Spiegelman, we look indepth at the treatment of the Jews in Poland through the eyes of the son of concentration camp survivors.
• As the violence in Europe escalated, we consider the responses of citizens of different countries to Nazi policies and actions. The efforts of targeted peoples to escape and the varying responses of others, including the United States, are explored, as are the intensified efforts to degrade and dehumanize peoples through ghettoization and killing squads. We look as well as how the Nazis methodically built killing centers--from euthanasia programs to gas chambers--and succeeded in murdering vast numbers of people on an unprecedented scale.
• What did bystanders do? Were they silent or did they become rescuers or resisters on some level? Our investigation includes well-known examples of citizens like Oskar Schindler and the Danes as well as the people of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon and Chiune Sugihara. We look at German students who risked creating leaflets for their organization The White Rose, hoping to persuade fellow citizens of the immorality of Nazi policies. At the same time, we grapple with the many, many individuals who, alas, did not act.
• We turn as well to the Second World War in Asia. We look back at what transpired in China and Korea--focusing specifically on the rape of Nanjing and the so-called "comfort women" in China, Korea, and elsewhere in Asia. We focus as well on the Japanese-American internment camps in this country and American attitudes toward Asia and Japanese views of the United States. Finally, we will examine the U.S. decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan. This, along with the bombings in Dresden, Hamburg, and throughout Germany, raised the technological stakes. How did the advent of the bomb change the nature of war? And what implications did the dropping of the bomb have and continue to have for human rights, justice, and reconciliation?
• Ultimately, we look at the issue of judgment and reconciliation. What meaning do law and punishment have, given the magnitude of the crime of genocide? What role does reconciliation play in trying to create a society in the aftermath of such events? How do you commemorate the loss of individual lives? Memory is key here, and we discuss what to remember and, as Elie Wiesel reminds us, to "never forget."
• Today, there are individuals and groups out there alleging that the Holocaust never happened. We examine attempts to "revise" - in fact, to deny--the Holocaust and question methods and motives behind these views.
• While the course examines the Holocaust in Europe as its central case study, it is not the only episode in recent world history that we address. Ethnic cleansings, episodes of rampant discrimination, and genocides in Stalinist Russia, Guatemala, Chile, South Africa, Rwanda, Cambodia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Israel and Palestine are explored in parallel fashion and we make an effort to understand why these actions continue to happen, despite the lessons of history.
• Genocide is the most extreme, but certainly not the sole expression of discrimination and marginalization. Toward the end of the course, we will return to the themes of the course's beginning and look at our own history and efforts to rid the world of genocide, discrimination, and "othering." We will look at the human rights movement, peace movements, and the effort at ensuring that that all peoples and all societies are held to a standard of justice based on a respect for human rights and human dignity. We will look at the United States' position with respect to these efforts in particular.
• As the final project in this course, each student, working alone or in a pair, create a monument or memorial to an issue, event, or person related to this course. These are presented and put on exhibition during the final month of the course.
• Finally, we conclude the course by asking what role we, as citizens, might play if we are to be active participants in social action in our communities. We come up with specific, concrete ideas and proposals and we study in depth the actions of individuals who have indeed made a difference and taken steps to be active world citizens.
• Throughout the year, as in year's past, current events will be an integral part of this course and may well alter the nature of what we study during any particular year. Current events are woven into every aspect of this course as so much of what we study in the past is alive and well in the present. Among the big issues this year will be the ongoing genocide in the Sudan, as well as the events swirling around this crucial election