SCSU to hold series on genocide

NEW HAVEN — A series of events titled “Genocide: Weeks of Remembrance and Reflection,” set for April at Southern Connecticut State University, will look at issues pertaining to the genocides in Armenia and Cambodia, the Holocaust, genocide and women, and other related topics.
This reflection on genocide seeks to provide a thoughtful basis for bringing the catastrophe in Darfur to an end and for preventing or limiting the future occurrences of such crimes against humanity, organizers said.
‰April 11, at noon, poet and scholar Peter Balakian will speak on “The Armenian Genocide and Modernity,” followed at 1:30 p.m. by a light lunch and at 2 p.m. by a poetry reading. These events will take place in Engleman B121-A & B. Balakian has published two books on the Armenian genocide, “Black Dog of Fate,” winner of the PEN/Albrand Prize for memoir and a New York Times Notable Book, and “The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response,” which received the 2005 Raphael Lemkin Prize and was a New York Times Notable Book and New York Times and national best seller.
‰April 14, from 2-3:30 p.m., in the Adanti Student Center Ballroom, Daniel Mendelsohn, a professor of humanities at Bard College, will discuss his book, “The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million,” which looks at the fates of six of his relatives who died at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust. His lecture is on “Finding ‘The Lost’: A Journey into the History, Family, and Judaism.”
‰April 16, from 7:35 to 10:30 p.m., in Engleman A120, the Cinéma du Monde film series will present a screening of “The Killing Fields,” director Roland Joffé’s award-winning British film drama about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. A post-film discussion will be hosted by Jerry Dunklee, SCSU professor of journalism.
‰April 25, four speakers will deliver lectures in Engleman A120, beginning at 1 p.m. Benedict Kiernan, Whitney Griswold Professor of History, professor of international and area studies and director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University, and author of the book “Blood and Soil,” will speak on “A World History of Genocide.”
Claudia Card, Emma Goldman Professor in the philosophy department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a co-editor of the book “Genocide’s Aftermath,” will discuss “The Paradox of Genocidal Rape Aimed at Forced Pregnancy.”
James E. Young, professor of English and Judaic studies and chairman of the department of Judaic and Near Eastern studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, will speak on “Memory, Counter-memory and the Monument after 9/11: From Berlin to New York.” Young is the author of “At Memory’s Edge: After-images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture” (Yale University Press, 2000).
The session will open with remarks by Armen T. Marsoobian, chairman and professor of philosophy at Southern. Marsoobian is the author of articles dealing with moral responsibility and genocide.
The events are free to the public. For more information, call Marsoobian at 392-6788. For information about the film screening or the Mendelsohn lecture, call philosophy professor David Pettigrew at 392-6778.