NASHVILLE, Tenn. – In the last installment of this year’s Holocaust Lecture Series at Vanderbilt University, Arthur J. Caplan will speak on "The Morality of Evil: Lessons from Nazi Medical Experiments."
Caplan, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, will speak at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 20, in Room 126 of Wilson Hall at Vanderbilt. The event is free and open to the public.
"It’s an interesting and difficult topic, as bioethicists currently debate issues like selective infanticide and euthanasia," said Sara Eigen, an assistant professor of German at Vanderbilt. "We’re hoping to foster a richer, more nuanced discussion."
On Monday, Nov. 10, the documentary Liebe Perla will be screened at Sarratt Cinema at 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. The film by Shahar Rozen documents the brutality toward disabled people by the Nazi regime.
A public discussion will follow the 8:30 p.m. screening, which is free and open to the public.
The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of about 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime and their collaborators. The Nazis justified their actions with the belief that Germans were a superior race and Jews inferior. The Nazis also targeted Gypsies, some Slavic peoples, Communists, Socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals and the disabled.
The Holocaust Lecture Series is a 26-year tradition at Vanderbilt, making it the longest-running sustained series of its kind at an American university. Continued reflection is needed to prevent another Holocaust said Gregg Horowitz, associate professor of philosophy and chair of this year’s Holocaust Lecture Series.
"The task of doing justice has turned out to be vastly more complicated than anybody thought it would be," Horowitz said.
Media contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
Jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu