Download a high resolution photo of Robert Barsky.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. ñ The longest continuous Holocaust lecture series at
an American university begins its 27th year on Thursday, Oct. 21, at
Vanderbilt University and will expand to consider genocides beyond
those perpetrated by the Nazis.
The series has been renamed the Vanderbilt Lecture Series on the
Holocaust and Other Genocides. Included this year will be discussions
of the Sudan, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and present-day
anti-Semitism in France.
"We think it’s entirely consistent to the spirit of the series to take
a hard look at genocide wherever it occurs or may occur," said Robert
Barsky, director of the 2004 lecture series and a professor of French
and comparative literature in the Department of French and Italian at
Vanderbilt.
The theme of the 2004 series is "The Fragility of Democracy."
"The fragility of democracy is always a concern," Barsky said, "and
although representative democracy and free elections can offer the
strongest protection against tyranny, we must also recall that
elections have sometimes brought mass murderers to power."
The first Holocaust Lecture Series at Vanderbilt was organized by
University Chaplain Beverly Asbury, now emeritus. The series has
brought many prominent speakers to Nashville, including Elie Wiesel,
Simon Wiesenthal, Emil Fackenheim and Deborah Lipstadt.
This year’s schedule:
* 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 21, in Room 126 of Wilson Hall
Thomas Childers, professor of history at the University of
Pennsylvania, speaks on the lessons to be learned from the rapid rise
in popularity of the Nazi Party in the early 1930s.
* 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 22, in Room 5326 of the Stevenson Center
Courtney Angela Brkic, author of "The Stone Fields," will speak about
how silence causes traumatic events to fester, using the Holocaust as
an example.
* 5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 24, in Room 126 of Wilson Hall
Jacqueline Murekatete and David Gewirtzman will compare experiences.
Murekatete fled genocide in Rwanda for the United States and Gewirtzman
was a boy in World War II Poland.
* 5 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 26 in Room 115 of Wilson Hall
Jerry Fowler, staff director, committee on conscience at the U.S.
Holocaust Memorial Museum, speaks on the role of the Holocaust in
combating contemporary genocide.
* 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 28, in Room 126 of Wilson Hall
William Scheuerman, professor of political science at the University of
Minnesota, speaks about the dialogue between Carl Schmitt and Hans
Morgenthau. Schmitt aspired to be the "crown jurist" of Nazi Germany,
while Morgenthau was a Jew who fled Germany and became one of the most
prominent critics of U.S. foreign policy between the 1940s and 1970s.
* 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 1, in Sarratt Cinema
Screening of "Mephisto," a 1981 film directed by Istvan Szabo about a German stage actor popular in World War II-era Germany
* 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 4, in Room 126 of Wilson Hall
Richard Weisberg, Walter Floersheimer Professor of Constitutional Law
and director of the Center for Holocaust and Human Rights Studies at
Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, speaks on "From Vichy
Deportations to Present-Day Anti-Semitism: France (Again) at the
Crossroads."
* 3 p.m. Friday, Nov. 5, in Sarratt 363
Graduate students present a forum, "Critical Approaches to the Holocaust and the Contemporary World."
* 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 8, in Sarratt Cinema
Screening of documentary film "The Mascot," about a young Jewish boy
who was adopted by a German SS regiment in Latvia in 1942. The boy was
given a new identity, dressed in a Nazi uniform and kept as a mascot.
Filmmaker Mark Kurzem, whose father Alex Kurzem was the mascot, will
answer questions after the screening.
* 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 9, in Sarratt Cinema
Screening of the film "Europa Europa," a 1990 film directed by
Agnieszka Holland about a Jewish boy who survived World War II by
posing as an Aryan, joining the German army and becoming a Hitler
Youth. It is based on the true story of Solomon Perel.
* 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 18, in Room 126 of Wilson Hall
Donald Horowitz, James B. Duke Professor of Law and Political Science
at Duke University, speaks about the phenomenon of "The Deadly Ethnic
Riot," or the mass killing of ethnic strangers, often by onetime
neighbors.
Media contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu