Raz Segal
Dr. Raz Segal holds a Ph.D. in History from Clark University (the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 2013). He is Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Endowed Professor in the Study of Modern Genocide at Stockton University, where he also serves as Director of the MA program in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Focusing on central and southeast Europe, Dr. Segal is engaged in his work with the challenges of exploring the Holocaust as an integral part of late modern processes of imperial collapse, the formation and occasional de-formation of nation-states, and their devastating impact on the societies they sought --- and still seek --- to break and remake. Dr. Segal has held a Harry Frank Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Lady Davis Fellowship at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His publications include Genocide in the Carpathians: War, Social Breakdown, and Mass Violence, 1914-1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016; paperback 2020), and he was guest editor of the special issue on Genocide: Mass Violence and Cultural Erasure of Zmanim: A Historical Quarterly, vol. 138 (June 2018) (Hebrew).
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Statement on Israel-Palestine May 2021 by Raz Segal
Academic articles by Raz Segal
century as particularly modern and how does the Holocaust figure in
this history? The article compares the work of two path-breaking
historians—Mark Levene and Timothy Snyder—while also discussing
recent research by other scholars. It argues that the emergence of
nation-states, together with technology and scientific knowledge to
alter the environment, created the conditions for distinctly modern
violence aiming to destroy diversity in societies and the environment.
The article examines the relation between genocide, including the
Holocaust, and the rise of twentieth-century nation-states. It follows
the persistent idea that the Holocaust is unique in a way that
establishes a hierarchy of Holocaust/genocide/other mass violence. As
Levene argues, the contextualization of the complex set of events and
processes called the Holocaust within the violent history of ethnonational and ethno-religious “homogenization” of nation-states
challenges this framework. The article then turns to Snyder’s
argument that, since Hitler’s worldview of racial struggle over land
and food rejected agricultural science, genetic engineering in
agriculture is one way to heed the Holocaust’s warning. A discussion
of the devastating impact of genetic engineering in agriculture—in
the frame of the violent implications of modern “development”—
underscores how the destruction of societies perceived as
“backward,” particularly indigenous groups in the Global South,
follows the destruction of their biodiverse habitats and agriculture to
make way for monoculture genetically engineered crops. A focus on
case studies of such mass violence and the responses by indigenous
groups facilitates, finally, a discussion of the recent turn to
microhistories in Holocaust scholarship. These offer another
contextualized view: of the societies that faced the assault of nation states. The article concludes that the complexities on the social level, each rooted in specific circumstances and histories, challenge the
analytical value of the general term “Holocaust.”
Papers by Raz Segal
century as particularly modern and how does the Holocaust figure in
this history? The article compares the work of two path-breaking
historians—Mark Levene and Timothy Snyder—while also discussing
recent research by other scholars. It argues that the emergence of
nation-states, together with technology and scientific knowledge to
alter the environment, created the conditions for distinctly modern
violence aiming to destroy diversity in societies and the environment.
The article examines the relation between genocide, including the
Holocaust, and the rise of twentieth-century nation-states. It follows
the persistent idea that the Holocaust is unique in a way that
establishes a hierarchy of Holocaust/genocide/other mass violence. As
Levene argues, the contextualization of the complex set of events and
processes called the Holocaust within the violent history of ethnonational and ethno-religious “homogenization” of nation-states
challenges this framework. The article then turns to Snyder’s
argument that, since Hitler’s worldview of racial struggle over land
and food rejected agricultural science, genetic engineering in
agriculture is one way to heed the Holocaust’s warning. A discussion
of the devastating impact of genetic engineering in agriculture—in
the frame of the violent implications of modern “development”—
underscores how the destruction of societies perceived as
“backward,” particularly indigenous groups in the Global South,
follows the destruction of their biodiverse habitats and agriculture to
make way for monoculture genetically engineered crops. A focus on
case studies of such mass violence and the responses by indigenous
groups facilitates, finally, a discussion of the recent turn to
microhistories in Holocaust scholarship. These offer another
contextualized view: of the societies that faced the assault of nation states. The article concludes that the complexities on the social level, each rooted in specific circumstances and histories, challenge the
analytical value of the general term “Holocaust.”