Professor; Director of Graduate Studies
History Department
Telephone: 617-552-6881
Email: devin.pendas.1@dos5.net
German History
Modern Europe
History of Mass Violence and War
Genocide
Human Rights
War Crimes
Professor Pendas' research focuses on war crimes trials after World War II, particularly on West German Holocaust trials. He is currently working on two projects: a history of Nazi trials in German courts in all occupation zones from 1945 to 1950, to be published by Cambridge University Press; and a synthetic history of law and mass violence in the modern period. Dr. Pendas has authored “Toward a New Politics? On the Recent Historiography of Human Rights” (Contemporary European History); “Retroactive Law and Proactive Justice: Debating Crimes against Humanity in Germany, 1945-1950” (Central European History); “Interrogating Torture: Human Rights, the War on Terror, and the Fate of America” (Journal of American Studies); “Punishment as Prevention? The Politics of Punishing Génocidaires” (Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies); “Explaining Nazism: Ethics, Beliefs and Interests” (Modern Intellectual History). He is also the series editor for a book series with Bloomsbury Press, Genocide in Comparative Perspective.