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Tag: Holocaust

Humans and Nazis: Reevaluating the Conversation of Us and Them 

by admin

Kadence D. Jackson is a freshman majoring in Political Science and Religious Studies, along with a minor in Judaic Studies. “Evil, animals…,” “Devils, monsters, equivalent to Satan himself…”—these are expressions commonly used when we reference those who belonged to the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party during the Second World War. This language is usually voiced casually, perhaps as a means of rationalization; but ironically, I believe it’s actually disassociating Nazis from mankind. […]

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None is Too Many*

by etech_admin
Cover art for Ken Burns' documentary "The U.S. and the Holocaust"

Bar none, Ken Burns (b. 1953) is decidedly America’s most important documentary filmmaker, notable as well for his multi-episode contributions exploring facets of this nation’s history and story His latest contribution—The U.S. and the Holocaust [2022; 3]—is no exception, and, as he himself has acknowledged in more than one interview, builds upon his 2014 The Roosevelts where the Holocaust/Shoah played only a relatively minor role, but one which he readily has also acknowledged may yet prove to be the “most […]

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Third Time’s the Charm

by Steven Jacobs

Prof. Steve Jacobs, above, in April of 2017 at the annual Arts & Science reception at the University Club, for newly promoted faculty — celebrating his promotion that year to Full Professor. Since starting full-time at UA in 2001 (my “start date” is easy to remember: 1/1/01), past A&S Dean Robert Olin and current Dean Joseph Messina have accorded me three one-semester sabbatical research leaves to pursue avenues of research in my areas of academic specialization: the Holocaust of World […]

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Épater les Bourgeoise…?

by Steven Jacobs

I do no speak or read French. Many years ago, however, in undergraduate school, I had a professor of English literature who was inordinately fond of the French phrase épater les bourgeoise—as he would translate it on a regular basis, “to shock the ordinary human being out of his [or her] lethargy.”  That is, there are those works, persons, events to which ordinary human beings, most of us, can only react in shock, sometimes in dismay; other times in paralysis.  […]

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History, Identity, and Memory: The ‘Melting Pot’ is Bubbling Over!

by Steven Jacobs

The recent flap over the January 27, 2017, official White House Press Release of President Trump’s Statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day and its egregious omission of the primary victims of the Nazi genocide—the Jews—instead identifying and honoring “the [unnamed and unreferenced] victims, survivors, and heroes” beggars logic.  Coming as it did on the heels of the “Executive Order: Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorists Entry into the United States”—and attempting to temporarily ban legitimate refugees from seven predominantly Muslim-majority […]

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The Rhetoric of Exceptionalism

by Russell McCutcheon

The other day Inside Higher Ed posted an article that has now been re-posted at Slate. It’s one among many recent blogs that chronicles the longstanding difficulties of the academic job market, making evident the personal, social, and economic prices many people pay while trying to find work after earning their Ph.D. A much quoted line when friends post links to it on Facebook, from its second paragraph, reads as follows: Yet of all the machines that humanity has created, […]

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