Law and the Holocaust
LAWS6232
This unit examines the relationship between law and the origins and implementation of the events known as the Holocaust. Students will consider the lessons for law and legal theory arising from Hitler's rise to power, the legalization of the Nazi racial-biological worldview through eugenics and anti-Jewish legislation, the character of parallel anti-Jewish legal programs in Vichy France and elsewhere, the challenge to our conceptions of legal and moral responsibility that is presented by the idea of 'administrative massacre', and the question of how the Nazi legal era has been represented in mainstream jurisprudence. By studying the sequential moments of legal and institutional pathology that provided the context for the persecution of the Jews - loss of meaningful constitutionalism or constitutional values, loss of legal rights, loss of citizenship, loss of the standards of the rule of law, loss of the status of the legal subject as a bearer of dignity, amongst others - students will have the opportunity to think deeply about the significance of these pathologies for our understanding of what law is, what law should be, and what conditions are required for law to mediate power rather than merely provide a vehicle for its expression. The crucial role played by legal thinkers and legal actors in the Nazi project will be a key reference point, as will the question of how adequate our scholarly resources are to the task of illuminating the complex questions and connections that a study of law and the Holocaust presents.
Unit of study details
Unit of study level: Postgraduate
Credit points: 6
Commencing semesters: 104
Further unit of study information
Unit of study handbook: LAWS6232
Costs and scholarships information: Costs and Scholarships
Final dates to withdraw from units of study: Census Dates
Available for study abroad and exchange: No