Do you teach history or are you just interested in learning about the Armenian Genocide?

This summer, Fitchburg State is offering an online/hybrid course, Armenian Genocide, which will introduce students to key primary and secondary sources to focus on the paths, phases, and aftermath of the Armenian Genocide. We will also look at closely related campaigns of mass killing and ethnic cleansing that targeted other groups in the region, including Greeks and Kurds.

*Photo courtesy of Armin Wegner, a medical orderly in the German military during the First World War.

More than a century after the start of the Armenian Genocide, historical research into the genocide of Armenians of the Ottoman Empire still confronts efforts at denial.  The long effort to deny the reality of genocide slowed the emergence of historical analysis of the Armenian Genocide, but a wave of historical inquiry has both made clear the outlines of this early genocide of the twentieth century, and increased knowledge of the causes of the Armenian Genocide and of the experiences of perpetrators, bystanders, victims, and survivors. 

Topics will include:

• New historical discoveries about the planning of genocide
• Attacks on other Ottoman minorities, including Greeks, Kurds, and Assyrians
• Denial and manufacturing of denial
• Debates over recognizing the Armenian Genocide
• The place of the Armenian Genocide in Genocide Studies

This hybrid course runs during Summer I, 6/25 - 6/28, with four face-to-face meetings on 6/25, 6/26, 6/27 and 6/28. The course meets on campus for 4 days, followed by an online component.

Professor Benjamin Lieberman is the author of books, including Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe and the Holocaust and Genocides in Europe and has taught courses on Genocide in World History, the Holocaust, and the Armenian Genocide.