Genocide In Our Time: Refugees, Climate Change And Conflict

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
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

Date: 
March 05, 2019
TIME: 
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
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
Speakers: 
Professor Stephen V. Bittner, Ph.D.
Sonoma State History Professor, Stephen V. Bittner, received a B.A. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a Ph.D. in Russian history from the University of Chicago. In addition to being a fellow at the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington, D.C., Professor Bittner has also lived in Moscow.

He has written two books on Russian History: The Many Lives of Khrushchev's Thaw: Experience and Memory in Moscow's Arbat; and Exploring Reform: De-Stalinization in Moscow's Arbat District, 1953-1968. He is also edited the memoirs of Dmitrii Shepilov, a high-ranking official in the Soviet Communist Party who was implicated in an unsuccessful coup: The Kremlin's Scholar: A Memoir of Soviet Politics under Stalin and Khrushchev.

Professor Myrna Goodman, Ph. D
Professor Goodman is the Director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide. She is a graduate of Sonoma State University (B.A. Sociology) and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Sociology from the University of California, Davis. Professor Goodman's dissertation was an analysis of the contributions of ideology, culture and political process in the formation of the Danish Resistance Movement and the rescue of the Jews in Denmark during World War II. She is currently an Emerita Professor of Sociology, having taught at Sonoma State from 1990-2013.
Christopher Browning
Christopher Browning, the Frank Porter Graham Professor of History Emeritus at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, will update us on his groundbreaking work, Ordinary Men. Browning is best known for his 1992 book Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, a study of German Ordnungspolizei (Order Police) Reserve Unit 101, which committed massacres and round-ups of Jews for deportations to the Nazi death camps in German-occupied Poland in 1942. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and a M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. He has written extensively about three issues: first, Nazi decision- and policy-making in regard to the origins of the Final Solution; second, the behavior and motives of various middle- and lower-echelon personnel involved in implementing Nazi Jewish policy; and thirdly, the use of survivor testimony to explore Jewish responses and survival strategies. His published work includes: The Final Solution and the German Foreign Office: A Study of Referat D III of Abteilung Deutschland l940-43 (l978), Fateful Months: Essays on the Emergence of the Final Solution (l985), The Path to Genocide (1992), Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers (2000), Collected Memories: Holocaust History and Postwar Testimony (2003), The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 (2004) and Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave Labor Camp (2010).
Professor Raz Segal
Stockton University Professor Raz Segal will discuss Making Hungary Great Again: State Building, Mass Violence, and the Ironies of Global Holocaust Memory. His lecture has been underwritten by Ivan Barta and Miriam Susan Dregéy.

Dr. Segal earned his Ph.D. at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (History Department), Clark University. Dr. Segal is engaged in his work with the challenges of exploring the Holocaust as an integral part of modern processes of imperial collapse, the formation and occasional deformation of nation-states, and their devastating impact on the societies they sought (and seek) to break and remake.

Integrative and comparative, his research stands at the intersection of modern European history, Holocaust scholarship, Genocide Studies, and Jewish history, and links the Holocaust to genocide and mass violence before, during, and after World War II. Dr. Segal’s book, Genocide in the Carpathians: War, Social Breakdown, and Mass Violence, 1914-1945 (2016) explores these issues through a regional case study. Dr. Segal also serves on the Executive Board of the International Network of Genocide Scholars.
Professor Sergio La Porta
Professor Sergio La Porta, Haig and Isabel Berberian Professor of Armenian Studies at Fresno State, will be delivering the annual Armenian Genocide Memorial Lecture.

Professor La Porta holds a master’s and doctoral degree from Harvard University in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in Middle Eastern and Asian Languages. Since 2009 he has served as the Haig and Isabel Berberian Professor of Armenian Studies at Fresno State University. Prior to that, he taught Armenian and Religious Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Professor La Porta, who has spoken several times in this series, always provides an accessible and highly informative lecture that also illuminates the connection between the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust
Marta Houske
As a Producer-Director-Writer, Marta Houske is an Emmy Award winner for her historical documentaries. She received a degree in Communications-Filmmaking from University of California San Diego and completed post-graduate studies at USC, UCLA, and the American Film Institute.
Marta Houske will be joined by Levon Parian, Armenian Genocide descendant, and Saud Attrache, Druze rescuer descendant. This film is being presented in partnership with the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival and has been underwritten by Carl Van Dyke.
Professor Alex Alvarez, Ph.D.
Professor Alex Alvarez, Ph.D. will be discussing Refugees, Climate Change and Conflict. His lecture has been underwritten by Dennis Judd and Carol & Ralph Swanson.

Alvarez holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Northland College and a master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of New Hampshire. He is a Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northern Arizona University. From 2001 until 2003 he was the founding Director of the Martin-Springer Institute for Teaching the Holocaust, Tolerance, and Humanitarian Values. In 2017-2018, he will serve as the Ida E. King Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton University. His main areas of study are in the areas of collective and interpersonal violence, including homicide and genocide. His published works include: Governments, Citizens, and Genocide (2001), Murder American Style (2002), Violence: The Enduring Problem (2007), Genocidal Crimes (2009), and Native America and the Question of Genocide (2014). His latest book, Unsteady Ground: Climate Change, Conflict, and Genocide was published in 2017. Alvarez has also served as an editor for the journal Violence and Victims and was a founding co-editor of the journal Genocide Studies and Prevention.
Professor Mehnaz Afridi
Professor Mehnaz Afridi, Director of The Holocaust, Genocide, and Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan College, will present Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism: Differences, Parallels, and Challenges.

Afridi holds a B.A. in English and Religion and a M.A. in Religion from Syracuse University. Her doctorate in religious studies was awarded by the University of South Africa. Professor Affridi’s research primarily focuses on Islam and contemporary literature and she also is interested and works on the intersections of Judaism and Islam. Her recent work has been on the Holocaust and the role of Muslims, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Her current scholarly work includes Shoah through Muslim Eyes (2017).
Professor Emeritus Peter Hayes, Ph.D.
Northwestern University Professor Emeritus Peter Hayes will discuss his new book, Why? Explaining the Holocaust. His lecture has been underwritten by Pearl & David Furman in memory of Murray & Ruth Mruvka and Gussie & Edward Furman.

Professor Peter Hayes (Ph.D., Yale) specializes in the histories of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust and, in particular, in the conduct of the nation’s largest corporations during the Third Reich. He taught at Northwestern for thirty-six years from 1980 to 2016. Professor Hayes currently serves as the chair of the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He is the author or editor of twelve books
Why takes on the most difficult of challenges posed by the Holocaust and attempts to answer four basic questions: Why were Jews the primary targets? Why Germany and not some other European country with possibly a more entrenched anti-Semitic tradition? Why was total elimination the goal, and how were the particular means of extermination chosen? And why was the eradication of the Jews so nearly successful?
Hayes challenges the widely held assertion that the Holocaust is unfathomable and inexplicable. He asserts that the Shoah is comprehensible in the same way that other complex historical events are—if patience, scholarship, careful reasoning, and application are brought to the task.