Genocide In Our Time: It Can Happen Here

2019 Holocaust and Genocide Lecture Series - January 22-May 7, 2019

Study the nature of hate: Prevent the escalation of prejudice into genocide

January 22: THE HOLOCAUST IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Professor Stephen Bittner, Ph.D., Sonoma State University

January 29: THE CONCEPT OF GENOCIDE
Professor Emerita Myrna Goodman, Ph.D., Sonoma State University

February 5: ORDINARY MEN AS PERPETRATORS: A REAPPRAISAL AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
Professor Christopher Browning, Ph.D., Frank Porter Graham Professor Emeritus, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Robert L. Harris Memorial Lecture

February 12: MAKING HUNGARY GREAT AGAIN: STATE BUILDING, MASS VIOLENCE, AND THE IRONIES OF GLOBAL HOLOCAUST MEMORY
Professor Raz Segal, Ph.D., Stockton University
Underwritten by Ivan Barta and Miriam Susan Dregéy

February 19: THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Professor Sergio La Porta, Ph.D., CSU Fresno Armenian Studies Program
Armenian Genocide Memorial Lecture

February 26: CROWS OF THE DESERT: A HERO’S JOURNEY THROUGH THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE (Film)
Marta Houske, Emmy award-winning filmmaker with
Levon Parian, Armenian Genocide descendant, and Saud Attrache, Druze rescuer descendant
Presented in partnership with the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival
Underwritten by Carl Van Dyke

March 5: REFUGEES, CLIMATE CHANGE AND CONFLICT
Professor Alex Alvarez, Ph.D., Northern Arizona University
Underwritten by Dennis Judd and by Carol & Ralph Swanson

March 12: ISLAMOPHOBIA AND ANTISEMITISM: DIFFERENCES, PARALLELS, AND CHALLENGES
Professor Mehnaz Afridi, Ph.D., Director, The Holocaust, Genocide, and Interfaith Education Center, Manhattan College

March 19: SPRING BREAK (campus closed)

March 26: WHY? EXPLAINING THE HOLOCAUST
Professor Emeritus Peter Hayes, Ph. D., Northwestern University
Underwritten by Pearl & David Furman in memory of Murray & Ruth Mruvka and Gussie & Edward Furman

April 2: THE SECOND GENERATION: A Panel Discussion
Christyne Davidian, Sanders Feldhorn, Dennis Judd, John Kornfeld, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor,
Sonoma State University; and Elaine Leeder, Ph.D., Emerita Professor, Sonoma State University
Sylvia G. Sucher Memorial Lecture

April 9: BECOMING EVIL
Professor James Waller, Ph.D., Cohen Endowed Chair of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Keene State College

April 16th: GENOCIDE IN BOSNIA
Irfan Mirza, Voices of the Bosnian Genocide

April 23: GENOCIDE IN SYRIA
Professor David McCuan, Ph.D., Sonoma State University

April 30: THE DARFUR GENOCIDE AND EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY
Alexis Herr, Ph.D., Associate Director,
Jewish Family and Children’s Services Holocaust Center of San Francisco
Underwritten by Arline Thomas & Myrna Goodman in memory of Lillian Judd

May 7: THE GENOCIDE AGAINST THE TUTSI IN RWANDA
Her Excellency Mathilde Mukantabana, Rwandan Ambassador to the United States;
Simon Mudahogora, Genocide Survivor; and Ndahiro Bazimya, Genocide Descendant
Alexandre Kimenyi Memorial Lecture
Underwritten by Her Excellency Mathilde Mukantabana & Chiaya Rawlins

Interests: Arts & Culture, Israel, Meetings
Date: 
April 02, 2019
TIME: 
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Apple Calendar Outlook Google (online)
Location: 
Ives Hall (Warren Auditorium, ground floor)
Sonoma State University
1801 East Cotati Avenue
City: 
Rohnert Park
Cost: 
All lectures are free and open to the public. A daily parking permit ($5.00) is required at all times, but it is not valid in reserved lots. Permit machines accept cash and major credit cards.

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Organized By: 
Alliance for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide,
Event Contact Person: 
Barbara Lesch McCaffry
707.585.2291
alliance@sonoma.edu
Speakers: 
Professor Diane Parness, the Academic Coordinator for the Lecture Series, will be moderating a panel of second and third generation Holocaust and Genocide descendants. All of them share their family stories with students in local middle and high schools.
Christyne Davidian

Christyne Davidian is a third generation Armenian Genocide survivor whose grandmothers, aunt, and several uncles survived by escaping on foot from Turkey in 1915. Both of her grandfathers were working in the U.S. to be able to get their threatened families out of Turkey, but were unable to bring their wives and dozens of relatives here in time. Her grandmothers, both of whom had lost their husbands in the genocide, eventually made it to the United States and remarried.

Christyne founded the Armenians of the North Bay social organization in 2002 to connect with her heritage and she established the Armenian Genocide Memorial Lecture Fund at Sonoma State to support annual Armenian Genocide lectures. She has been an SSU Alliance Board Member for 14 years and was Board President for 7 years. She speaks about her family’s survival stories and the Armenian Genocide in local Sonoma County schools on behalf of the SSU Alliance's educational mission.
A double certified procurement professional, Christyne currently works at Medtronic.
Sanders Feldhorn
Sanders Feldhorn is a Holocaust descendant whose father was incarcerated in Dachau in 1938 and later in Buchenwald. Eventually, through the efforts of his mother, Charlotte, his father was released and they were able to escape from Vienna. They immigrated to the United States in 1939 with his oldest brother. He holds a B.S. degree in Engineering from UCLA and an M.A. in Deaf Education from CSU Northridge and is a retired teacher of the deaf.
Dennis Judd
Dennis Judd is a Holocaust descendant whose mother Lillian and father Emil were born in Czechoslovakia and were interned in Auschwitz during World War II. Lillian spoke to thousands of students in Sonoma County before her death in 2016. Dennis co-wrote a book with Lillian, From Nightmare to Freedom: Healing after the Holocaust. Dennis has a bachelor’s and a masters’ degree in Environmental Health and Industrial Hygiene from Cal State Northridge.
Professor John Kornfeld
Professor John Kornfeld is a Holocaust descendant whose parents escaped from Vienna, Austria in 1939. Kornfeld earned his A.B. degree in English from Princeton University, his M.A. in Education from Sonoma State University, and his Ph.D. in Education from Indiana University. He taught elementary, middle, and high school for sixteen years. Since 1996, he has been serving as a Professor of Education and Associate Vice President for Undergraduate Studies. Currently, in addition to teaching part-time at Sonoma State, he is President of West County Health Center’s Board of Directors.
Professor Elaine Leeder Ph.D
Professor Elaine Leeder Ph.D., is the Dean Emerita of the School of Social Sciences, holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Northeastern University, a Master’s of Social Work from Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University, Master’s of Public Health from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Ph.D. from Cornell University. She is currently a Professor Emerita of Sociology where she still teaches. She also works with perpetrators of violent crime, bringing victims and the perpetrators together to engage in restorative justice. Leeder, who was instrumental in creating the Erna and Arthur Salm Holocaust and Genocide Memorial Grove on the Sonoma State campus, is the child of a Holocaust survivor from Lithuania.