History Department Faculty
Devin Pendas
Professor
Devin Pendas
Ph.D.
Contact
Stokes Hall S341
Telephone: 617-552-6881
Email: devin.pendas.1@bc.edu
Education
- B.A., Carleton College
- M.A., University of Chicago
- Diplôme élémentaire, Institut Catholique de Paris
- Ph.D., University of Chicago
Research Interests
German history; modern Europe; legal history; history of mass violence and war
Department
Biography
Professor Pendas' teaching interests include courses on German history, European legal history, the history of war and genocide, the history of war crimes trials, and the history of human rights. His research focuses on efforts to curb and punish mass political violence, including the history of human rights, war crimes trials, and the international law of armed conflict.
Professor Pendas is a faculty affiliate and co-chair of the Contemporary Europe Study Group at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. He has received research fellowships from the German Academic Exchange Service, the MacArthur Foundation through the Center for the Study of International Peace and Cooperation, the Center for Contemporary Historical Research in Potsdam, Germany, the U.S. Holocaust Museum, and the American Council of Learned Societies (Burkhardt Fellowship). He has been a guest professor at Meiji University in Tokyo and the J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt.
REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS
Democracy, Nazi Trials and Transitional Justice in Germany, 1945-1950 (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
Political Trials in Theory and History, co-edited (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
"Against War: Pacifism as Collaboration and as Resistance" in The Cambridge History of the Second World War (2015)
"Anatomie eines Skandals. Die Ermittlungen im Mordfall Dr. Hans Hannemann im Kontext der deutschen Nachkriegsjustiz," in Kritische Justiz (2013)
“Toward a New Politics? On the Recent Historiography of Human Rights” Contemporary European History 21/1 (2012)
“Retroactive Law and Proactive Justice: Debating Crimes against Humanity in Germany, 1945-1950,” in Central European History (2010)
"Auf dem Weg zu einem globalen Rechtssystem? Die Menschenrechte und das Scheitern des legalistischen Paradigmas des Krieges," in Moralpolitik: Geschichte der Menschenrechte im 20. Jahrhundert (2010)
“Interrogating Torture: Human Rights, the War on Terror, and the Fate of America,” in The Journal of American Studies (2010)
“Punishment as Prevention? The Politics of Punishing Génocidaires,” co-authored with Donald Bloxham, in The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies (2010)
"Seeking Justice, Finding Law: Nazi Trials in Postwar Europe," in The Journal of ModernHistory (2009)
“Explaining Nazism: Ethics, Beliefs and Interests,” in Modern Intellectual History (2008)
"Transitional Justice and Just Transitions: The German Case, 1945-1950,” in European Studies Forum (2008)