Reference no: EM133689311

Assignment:

Choose one of the following prompts to respond in a six/seven paper concerning either World War I or the Armenian Genocide. Make sure to use all of the relevant materials in your response. should build papers from previous work and discussions. When using quotes, just put the author or title and page number for the reference following the end of the sentence, for example. (Hedges, p. 28)

1. Discuss how World War I served as an ironic reflection of the failures of the promises of progress brought by the Enlightenment, nationalism and the Industrial Revolution. Use the reading by Paul Fassell as the basis for your argument. At the beginning of the section he writes "Every war is ironic, because every war is worse than expected. Every war constitutes an irony of situation because its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its presumed ends." (page 8) How can World War I be seen as ironic both through the materials have explored and in the history have studied?

2. In Chris Hedge's chapter, "The Hijacking and Recovery of Memory," he writes about the Armenian genocide: "These atrocities -- denied by the perpetrators and sanctified by the victims -- leave huge chasms between peoples. They serve to create two distinct and antagonistic histories. It is only with an historical consensus that there can be reconciliation." (page 128)

Consider how reconciliation can or cannot be reached by evaluating the Balakian pieces, the survivor accounts, Naimark's historical analysis and the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs website dedicated to refuting the Armenian genocide.

3. Using the slide from class entitled: "Anatomy of a Genocide," trace the history of the Armenian Genocide by using the Naimark reading and the survivor accounts. How does this approach help to contradict one or more of the points made by the Turkish Government website that attempts to deny the genocide?