LFU:online

Students have acquired the capacity to analyse ideologies that justify extreme forms of violence. They are competent in the critical analysis of politics, media, religion, and historiography.

Human history has been marked by imperial powers since the Neo-Assyrian, Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman empires. Empires have tended to employ excessive forms of violence to establish and maintain power, which is currently visible in Russia’s imperial invasion of Ukraine. Several European empires employed excessive violence, especially in their history of colonialism. The 20^th century has seen extreme forms of violence in National Socialist, Stalinist, and Maoist imperialisms. Great powers such as the USA and China have had a long history of excessive violence as well. This course will explore ideological strategies that have been employed to justify imperial violence from a broad variety of perspectives, including symbolic representations of power, religious justifications, historiographical narratives, ritual performances of violence, etc. The course aims at acquiring a deeper understanding of reasons and motivations behind the use of excessive violence in order to consider, in the end, possible strategies to overcome them. The course will involve interaction with the interdisciplinary team of the research project “Discourses of Mass Violence” (https://www.discoursesofmassviolence.komparatistik.uni-muenchen.de).

Lecture and discussion

Reading preparation, active participation in discussions, short presentation (10-15 minutes).

Gehler, Michael / Robert Rollinger, “Imperial Turn: Challenges, Problems and Questions”, in: iidem (eds.), Empires to be Remembered: Ancient Worlds through Modern Times, Wiesbaden: Springer, 2022, 3–39.

Gehler, Michael / Robert Rollinger / Philipp Strobl (eds.), “Decline, Erosion, Implosion and Fall, or Just Transformation? Diverging Ends of Empires Through Time and Space”, in: iidem (eds.), The End of Empires, Wiesbaden: Springer, 2022, 1–45.

Leader Maynard, Jonathan, Ideology and Mass Killing: The Radicalized Security Politics of Genocides and Deadly Atrocities. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022.

Münkler, Herfried, Imperien: Die Logik der Weltherrschaft – vom Alten Rom bis zu den Vereinigten Staaten, Berlin 2005. 

Naimark, Norman, Genocide. A World History, New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.