Raphaëlle Bigras-Burrogano

Thesis supervisor: Lorenzo DiTommaso

Thesis title: Apocalyptic Identities and the "Other" in Nazi-Occupied Poland

Raphaëlle is a second year MA student who's research focuses on the influence of apocalypticism on identity formation and dichotomization in genocidal contexts. Their current thesis examines the techniques used by the Nazi regime in Occupied Poland in an attempt to define and exclude the "other" with the specific goal of dehumanizing and exterminating them. 

Throughout their research, they examine how perpetrators create an imagined identity of the 'othered' group and exclude it from the realm of humanity and consequently moral obligations and laws. Furthermore, they investigate how both the identities of perpetrators and the 'othered' group are built as each other's opposites, one being perceived as the embodiment of good and the other as the embodiment of evil. In a genocidal context, apocalypticism sharpens this "us vs them" divide to the point where the two identities are reduced to stereotypical depictions.

As well as examining how a group(s) is rendered 'other', Raphaëlle has an interest in the manner in which post-genocidal societies navigate the 'de-otherization' process and its immediate consequences as well as the more lasting effects which can still be felt in contemporary society, notably through various forms of discrimination.