Perpetrator Studies Network

Books

American Public Memory and the Holocaust: Performing Gender, Shifting Orientations

By Lisa A. Costello. The recent rise of global antisemitism, Holocaust denial, and American white nationalism has created a dangerous challenge to Holocaust public memory on an unprecedented scale. This book is a timely exploration of the ways in which next-generation Holocaust survivors combine old and new media to bring newer generations of audiences into…

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Victim, Perpetrator, or What Else? Generational and Gender Perspectives on Children, Youth, and Violence

Edited by Doris Bühler-Niederberger and Lars Alberth. Children, while being the most victimised group in society, rarely become a topic of sociological research, neither as victims nor as perpetrators. The sociological discussion on power and violence happens beyond generation as an important dimension of social structure, and in many respects also beyond gender aspects that…

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The Palgrave Handbook of Holocaust Literature and Culture

Edited by Victoria Aarons and Phyllis Lassner. The Palgrave Handbook of Holocaust Literature and Culture reflects current approaches to Holocaust literature that open up future thinking on Holocaust representation. The chapters consider diverse generational perspectives—survivor writing, second and third generation—and genres—memoirs, poetry, novels, graphic narratives, films, video-testimonies, and other forms of literary and cultural expression. In…

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The Holocaust Short Story

By Mary Catherine Mueller. The Holocaust Short Story is devoted entirely to representations of the Holocaust in the short story genre. The book highlights how the explosiveness of the moment captured in each short story is more immediate and more intense, and therefore recreates horrifying emotional reactions for the reader. The main themes confronted in…

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Modern Genocide: A Documentary and Reference Guide

By Paul R. Bartrop. This primary source collection closely examines and analyzes documents related to genocides, focusing on genocidal events from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. Thematically organized into eight sections, each document comes with an introduction and analysis written by the author that helps provide the crucial historical background for…

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The Holocaust/Genocide Template in Eastern Europe

Edited by Ljiljana Radonić. The Holocaust/Genocide Template in Eastern Europe discusses the “memory wars” in the course of the post-Communist re-narration of history since 1989 and the current authoritarian backlash. The book focuses specifically on how “mnemonic warriors” employ the “Holocaust template” and the concept of genocide in tendentious ways to justify radical policies and externalize the…

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Confronting Humanity at its Worst: Social Psychological Perspectives on Genocide

Edited by Leonard S. Newman. How do otherwise ordinary people become perpetrators of genocide? Why are groups targeted for mass killing? How do groups justify these terrible acts? While there are no easy answers to these questions, social psychologists are especially well positioned to contribute to our understanding of genocide and mass killing. With research…

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The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66

By Geoffrey B. Robinson. The Killing Season explores one of the largest and swiftest, yet least examined, instances of mass killing and incarceration in the twentieth century—the shocking antileftist purge that gripped Indonesia in 1965–66, leaving some five hundred thousand people dead and more than a million others in detention. An expert in modern Indonesian…

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Genocide Never Sleeps: Living Law at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

By Nigel Eltringham. Accounts of international criminal courts have tended to consist of reflections on abstract legal texts, on judgements and trial transcripts. Genocide Never Sleeps, based on ethnographic research at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), provides an alternative account, describing a messy, flawed human process in which legal practitioners faced with novel…

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Child Perpetrators on Trial: Insights from Post-Genocide Rwanda

By Jastine C. Barrett. Following a devastating genocide in 1994, the Rwandan government elected to hold all perpetrators accountable – including children. Thousands of children were held in prisons while awaiting charges; some were later convicted. This book is about these children. Drawing on interviews and extensive archival research in Rwanda, it documents their journey…

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