NJ Ramapo College to offer genocide course

PanARMENIAN.Net - Starting this fall, Ramapo College of New Jersey will offer its students a minor in human rights and genocide studies. It will be the first program of its kind in New Jersey’s state college system, according to Michael A. Riff, director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide studies at the Mahwah college.

The minor is being offered under the auspices of the college’s School of American and International Studies. Rebecca Root, assistant professor of political science and international studies, is to serve as convener of the program, New Jersey Jewish Standard reported

Courses to be offered as part of the minor include Jews in 20th-Century Europe and Paradigms of Genocide, both taught by Riff, as well as Human Rights in Latin America, taught by Root. Other offerings will include Literature and the Holocaust, Sociology of Race Relations, and Women in Middle East Societies.

In his class on genocide, Riff discusses the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, and the genocides of Christians and Darfuri Muslims in Sudan.

The minor combines the study of human rights violations and the study of genocide because of the historical connection between the two, according to Riff.

“Violations of human rights often precede genocide,” he said.