ANTHR 3552 - Genocide Today: The Erasure of Cultures

(crosslisted) ASIAN 3365
(GHB) (CA-AS, HST-AS, SCD-AS)

Fall. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Co-meets with ANTHR 6552/ASIAN 6665.

M. Fiskesjö.

This course offers an introduction to the global issue of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and other mass atrocities, and an in-depth look at two contemporary genocides in Asia: in China, and in Burma (Myanmar). First, we will study how genocide works: its prerequisites, its warning signs, and how it is carried out. We review the history of genocide in international law after WWII, the UN Genocide Convention, and the checkered history of failing to prevent genocides (Cambodia, Rwanda, etc.), but also some successes. Then, we focus on the new 21st century genocides under way in Xinjiang, China and against the Rohingya in Burma: the background, the events, the actors involved, the key role of media and propaganda, and why Burma’s government expels people, while China’s instead focuses on forced identity conversion and the erasure of languages and cultures, so that people paradoxically are “ethnically cleansed in place.” (SC)