University of Michigan-Flint

Seminar and capstone experience providing opportunities for research and analysis to  examine a major subject, and to produce new insights, new information, and new knowledge about it.

Using primary materials (survivor testimonies, memoirs, interviews) and documentary evidence (transport lists, prisoner records) students develop a data base, conduct original research, and write an original essay that achieves the standard of producing new knowledge about human experience in the Holocaust.

Requirements:
Essay midterm, research topic and proposal, work in progress oral presentation, final research paper (15-25 pages). Regular attendance and participation (leading occasional discussions, critical commentary on another student’s work and presentation).  Graduate students write longer paper (25 pp) and are assigned to lead specific discussions.

Electronic resources:
 Shoah Visual History Foundation Archive (University of Southern California)
 Voices/Visions Archive of Holocaust Testimonies (UM-Dearborn)
 Holocaust Memorial Center testimonies (Farmington Hills)
 Red Cross International Tracing Service Archives (Bad Arolsen, Germany)

Texts:

  The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp
  W. Sofsky

  Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany: The New Histories
  J. Caplan and N. Wachsmann, eds.

  On Listening to Holocaust Survivors: Beyond Testimony
  H. Greenspan