“PART I: TWO SHORT-ESSAY QUESTIONS (50% of the exam grade).
Each answer should be between 3-4 paragraphs in length (densely structured and fully developed paragraphs, please).
1)
In chapter 3, “Modernity, Racism, Extermination II,” and especially on pp. 61-82, of his book on modernity and the Holocaust, Zygmunt Bauman discusses the relationship between modernity, racism, and extermination. What is Bauman’s argument and how does it apply to the Nazi state?
2)
According to Ronald G. Suny, the Armenian Genocide occurred in a complex environment of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the outbreak of World War I. You are asked to outline this complex environment by addressing ALL of the following factors:
1) the role of the state
2) the role of territory
3) the role of mass violence
4) the context of war
5) international dimension of the conflict
6) identity (ex. religion, ethnicity, nationalism)
7) the process of modernization
PART II: ONE LONG-ESSAY QUESTION (50% of the exam grade).
The long-essay answer should be between 1.5-2 single-spaced pages in length (densely structured and fully developed paragraphs, please).
In the introductory chapter of the edited volume, Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene, Christian Pross states the following:
“In the nineteenth century, the theory that there were different human races, which could be differentiated as “superior” and “inferior,” served as the basis for the attack by the declining European gentry on the demand for “liberty, equality, and fraternity” and the declaration of the rights of man posited by the French Revolution. This theory provided ideological tools for a biological solution to a social problem. […] The Nazi seizure of power in 1933 provided the long-desired opportunity for the theory of racial hygiene to be applied in practice.”
You are asked to elaborate on this claim as it relates to the Nazi state through the relevant readings that we covered in class during the following weeks: Genocide and Modernity (optional); The Machinery of the Holocaust; Perpetrators, Ends, and Means. Please, support your argument with specific references to the readings / viewing material: ex. Proctor, 191 or Nyiszli, 4, etc. No need for any sort of formal footnoting. A simple parenthetical reference will suffice.”
Above is the instructions provided by the professor for the respective midterm questions. I will attach the referenced readings so they can be used in the paper. Please reference the readings as frequently as possible (specifically, the Proctor reading)
