This seminar traces the "ghetto" and the Holocaust as central concepts in Jewish and Black historiography. The course will divide its time between the Jewish ghetto of Rome and the city of Warsaw, where we will hold classes at the new POLIN Museum. In addition spending time in the ghetto in Italy, students will also visit the Vatican. In Poland, the class will also visit Krakow, where students will explore the intact Jewish quarter dating from the late medieval and early modern period. In comparative perspective, U.S. Black ghettos from World War II to the present will be studied in depth.