Examines the nature, causes and consequences of genocide in order to understand the possibilities and challenges of preventing genocidal violence in the future. The course introduced students to the controversies surrounding the definition and analysis of genocide. It begins with the contested question of what constitutes genocide, and how genocide stands apart from other forms of mass violence such as ethnic cleansing and massacres. The course then considers several approaches to theorizing the causes of genocide. In addition, we analyze the challenges of identifying potentially genocidal situations before the killing begins and of intervening to prevent and stop genocides. The course also studies processes of reconciliation in societies that have experienced, or teetered on, the brink of genocide. Using scholarly texts, works of fiction and films, we explore issues of causation, intervention and healing in cases including the colonial genocides of indigenous populations, the Holocaust, Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia, Kosovo, the Iraqi Kurds and Darfur. Ultimately, the course asks students to decide whether genocide is an inevitable scourge of the human condition or a tragic aberration that humanly has the power to transcord. Fulfills general eduction requirement in History. [3 credits]