Topics for formative essay #1 (2015-2016)
Due week 7, in class, paginated, tacked, hard copy (not accepted by email)
1. Hayden White contends that the Holocaust is not ‘any more unrepresentable than any
other event in human history’ (White, 1992:52). Discuss
2. “[T]he modern praxis-oriented social sciences and the reception of their findings in
the seats of political power played a significant part in the decisions that led to
systematic mass murder” (Aly and Heim, 2003:294). Discuss, citing relevant
historiography.
3. How did Jews respond to persecution in 1930s Germany?
4. How do studies of the Nazi persecution of non-Jewish victims up until 1941
contribute to our understanding of the ‘Final Solution’?
5. Explain the development of antisemitism in Germany prior to 1933.