Professor M J Rodriguez-Salgado, E603

For MSc Theory and History of International Relations, MA/MSc History of International Relations, MSc History of Nationalism, LSE-Columbia University Double Degree in International and World History and as an outside option where regulations permit.

This is a unique and challenging course. It examines the mentality behind the savage persecutions of certain ‘out-groups’ in Europe from the Renaissance to the present day, and the mechanisms that were employed to achieve their execution or expulsion. The European witch-craze has been repeatedly used as a paradigm to explain processes of persecution. Consequently, the course begins with an in-depth study of the ideological underpinning and practical processes that allowed the witch-craze to take place. It moves on to consider other persecution and mass extermination : the expulsion of Muslims from Spain; French Revolutionary Terror and Genocide; the Stalinist pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe; the Holocaust and Nazi policies of extermination ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and recent panics over Child Abuse and Terrorism’. Issues such as the psychology of mass fear, moral panics, political expediency and the control of the masses will be investigated, alongside notions of how gender, race, age and place of origin might make some groups vulnerable to persecution. Psychological explanations for violent and coercive interactions will be looked at, as well as processes of persecution, especially changes to legal theory and practice. We will also devote three sessions to the mergence of Toleration and Human Rights and consider why they have failed to put a stop to these persecutions. The course will make use of a diverse range or primary and secondary materials, as well film and fiction. Ambitious and conceptually challenging, it requires that students both enter and yet distance themselves from other mentalities in order to understand persecution in Europe across the centuries, and why theories of toleration have made little progress.

The course will be taught in two-hour seminars. Minimum contact hours: 44.

Four formal pieces of work are required: two essays of up to 3,000 words; a substantive class presentation, and a mock exam (timed essay). Feedback will be given for all these. In addition, students are expected to do reading prior to each class and may be assigned specific, brief contributions to the class.

A full bibliography will be provided at the start of the course, but students will find the following useful: N Cohn, Europe’s Inner Demons; B P Levack, The Witch-hunt in Early-Modern Europe (2nd edn), J Oplinger, The Politics of Demonology. The European Witch-craze and the Mass Persecution of Deviance; J La Fontaine, Speak of the Devil. Tales of Satanic Abuse in Contemporary England; The Policy of Ethnic Cleansing. Final report of the United Nations Commission of Experts. http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/comexpert/ANX/IV.htm; F Chalk & K Jonassohn, The History and Sociology of Genocide; M Mann, The Darkside of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing; H Kamen, The Rise of Toleration. M. Shaw, What is genocide?

Three-hour examination in the ST.