HIST 395
Victimhood Nationalism in Global History & Memory Spring 2025
Division II W Writing Skills D Difference, Power, and Equity
Cross-listed GBST 294

As globalism of the 21st century has shifted its focus from imagination to memory, the global memory culture focusing on victims has dawned on us as an undeniable reality with the entangled memories of: Apartheid, American slavery, and white settler genocides of the indigenous peoples; German empire’s colonial genocide of the Nama and Herero in Namibia and the Nazi Holocaust; the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust; Vietnam War and Algerian war; Rwandan genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans; Japanese military “comfort women” and gendered violence during the Yugoslav Wars; forced sexual labor in the Nazi concentration camps and sexual slavery of the Islamic State; political genocide of Stalinism and the Latin American military dictatorships; civilian massacres of developmental dictatorships in the global Cold War era. Global memory formation intensified the victimhood competition among national memories. Victimhood nationalism epitomizes nationalism’s metamorphosis under the globalization of memory in the 21st century. This course will trace the mnemo-history of victimhood nationalism, focusing on the entangled memories of Poland, Germany, Israel, Japan, and Korea in the global memory formation. Other case studies, including former Yugoslavia, post-9/11 America, will also be discussed.