The decision to introduce a new academic program or department must be among the most difficult for a university to make. There is a widely noted trend in academia toward extreme specialization, and some commentators contend that there is already a glut of distinct academic fields.
Their concerns are not unwarranted. Each new subdivision generates its own set of methodological blinders, and an excessively narrow focus can entail a loss of critical perspective.
It is with due regard for these objections that I propose the creation of a Program in Genocide Studies at Princeton.
The concept of "genocide studies" is not as novel as it sounds. Yale University and the University of Minnesota both maintain centers dedicated to genocide-related research, and Oxford University Press publishes an academic journal titled "Holocaust and Genocide Studies."
To be clear: I am not proposing a Genocide Studies Department. Genocide studies would clearly be an interdisciplinary field — making use of historical, philosophical, literary, anthropological, psychological and sociological data. Princeton likes to classify interdisciplinary specialties as "programs of study" rather than as "degree programs," and I am willing to accept this distinction even if it is imperfectly applied — several departments, including my own, proudly bill themselves as interdisciplinary.
While the University has at least a theoretical policy restricting the establishment of new concentrations, there are no obvious constraints on the proliferation of "programs of study." In theory, we could combine different methodologies to study any region of the world, any segment of the population and any recurrent phenomenon. The more programs we add, the more aware we become of what and whom we are leaving out.
So how should we choose from among all the specialties that compete for formal recognition as bona fide academic fields? What should our criterion be for elevating a particular cluster of thematically-related courses to the status of "certificate program?"
My own approach to the problem is basically utilitarian. After all, we are frequently reminded that academic fields are culturally constructed — the boundaries between specialties are the products of our own creativity. As such, they are ours to manipulate to whatever ends we deem most useful.
Indeed, the recognition of new academic specialties is a primary way in which our culture communicates its social priorities. "Expertise" is whatever we choose to identify as a valuable bundle of knowledge. Princeton can choose to educate useful experts.
The potential usefulness of "genocide specialists" can hardly be disputed. During the sixty years since the term "genocide" was coined, we haven't begun to organize the knowledge that may help protect civilians from systematic extermination. Princeton owes it to the world's most vulnerable populations to produce:
Experts who are prepared to recognize genocide's early warning signs.
Experts who can describe concrete prevention and intervention models.
Experts who have studied the psychology of perpetrators, bystanders, and rescuers.
Experts who have investigated the sociology of collective indifference.
Experts who can discourse on the history and future of Western humanitarianism, the politics of international institutions and the ethics of military solutions.
Experts who can locate conversations about genocide within broader discussions of duty to strangers, moral objectivity and ethnic identity.
Experts who have found their footing on the slippery slope of human rights enforcement.
Can you imagine a more worthwhile class of experts?
I should emphasize that the history of genocide is not just the history of events that fall under that category. It is also the story of the category itself — a study of the process by which we distinguish genocide from more ordinary acts of human cruelty. Our efforts to draw those distinctions express some of our most profound moral reflections, and the struggle merits our most concerted scholarly attention.
The stakes couldn't be higher. The lives of millions depend on how we conceptualize their suffering. We had better put on our thinking caps. Jeremy Golubcow-Teglasi is a religion major from Potomac, Md. He can be reached at golubcow@princeton.edu.
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