Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Human Rights? What A Good Idea! From Universal Jurisdiction To Crime Prevention, Daniel Feierstein

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Over the last decades, Genocide Studies has entered in a “comfort zone.” With fellowships and support from governments or NGOs, we have developed a very comfortable environment in which the knowledge we produce about genocide prevention is neither critical nor useful. We have become trapped by assumptions we have never checked against reality and many of us have chosen to work inside the circle of those assumptions: genocide and mass violence are horrible acts committed by horrible people; we cannot stand by and do nothing; we have the responsibility to protect civilian populations and that responsibility takes the form, as …

Film Review: The Trial Of Ratko Mladić, Iva Vukušić

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Scenarios Of Intractability: Reframing Intractable Conflict And Its Transformation, Kerry Whigham

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

For those working toward long-term conflict transformation and atrocity prevention, cases of so-called “intractable conflict” are an enduring source of frustration, continually resisting what seems to be an otherwise useful toolbox of "lessons learnt" and "best practices." Referring to these cases as intractable, however, only serves to naturalize their intractability, rendering it an essential and immutable quality of the conflicts, and thus foreclosing options for engagement and prevention. Moreover, it obscures interventions that may have already emerged from within these conflicts that are transforming the way they play out. This article suggests, instead, to perceive these cases as scenarios of …

Sacerdoti-Ravenscroft, Sebastiane, Samantha Round, Kaitlynn Werner

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Sebastiane Sacerdoti-Ravenscroft is a non-binary lesbian, who uses they/them/theirs pronouns. They’re currently working on their Graduate degree in Psychology at the University of Southern Maine, as well as working at CIEE Maine, launching a podcast about mental health with their wife, and they are acting Chair of Pride Portland! During the interview, religion, mental health, activism, and family dynamics are discussed, as Sebastiane explains their life in Maine after living in many different places across the globe.

Citation

Please cite as: Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson …

An Untold History: Intergenerational Trauma & The Armenian Genocide, Erik Anderson

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The plan for my project is to do a video documentary in which I interview trauma victims and survivors and discuss their instances and some of the practices that allowed them to overcome this difficult time. More specifically I am going to focus on the theme of inter-generational trauma and the effects that genocides and mass killings can have on people and their offspring. Being. That I am the great-grandson and 4th Generation descendant of an Armenian genocide survivor I hope to interview my grandmother and talk with her about the experiences of what it was like being the daughter …

Mayan Bloodshed: Examining What Allowed For Genocide To Occur In Early Colonial Yucatan, Tyler C. Rodriguez

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

By the mid-sixteenth century, Yucatan was firmly under Catholic control. By 1561, there were dozens of friars and eight monasteries in operation, and programs aimed at converting Mayan natives to Catholicism appeared to be going smoothly. However, in 1562 friars at Mani were confronted with clear evidence that the “Christian Indians” were still worshiping their previous gods in secret. The Indians accused of idolatry were rounded up and subject to a severe form of torture known as the garrucha, a form of torture including flogging and the burning of flesh using wax.

This paper explores what factors lead to …

Imaginaire De La Fin, Icônes, Esthétique. (Ir)Représenter La Post-Apocalypse Dans La Bande Dessinée Et Le Cinéma Du Génocide Tutsi., Alain Agnessan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Cette étude sur la bande dessinée et le cinéma du génocide tutsi s’écarte de l’analyse désormais canonique des politiques mémorielles et pratiques testimoniales pour en investir le parti pris post-apocalyptique . Elle s’agence en deux volets, ou, plutôt, en deux lieux de regard. Envisageant l’imaginaire de la fin qui s’est constitué autour du génocide tutsi, le premier volet de l’étude s’attelle à décrire une scène « cross-traumatic » ou transtraumatique, appelée génoscape, sur laquelle la pensée, les images et les discours critiques lient le destin éthique, esthétique et épistémique du génocide tutsi à celui de la Shoah. Cette démarche …

Towards A Decolonial Narrative Ethics, Hille Haker

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay explores the contribution of two works of German literature to a decolonial narrative ethics. It analyzes the structures of colonialism, taking narratives as a medium of and for ethical reflection, and reinterprets the ethical concepts of recognition and responsibility. This essay examines two stories. Franz Kafka’s Report to an Academy (1917) addresses the biological racism of the German scientists around 1900, unmasking the racism that renders apes (or particular people) the pre-life of human beings (or particular human beings). It also demonstrates that the politics of recognition, based on conditional (mis-)recognition, must be replaced by an ethics of …

Comprehending Just Peacemaking Theory And Its Application To The Rwandan Genocide, Caroli Shao

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

"...Make Them Disappear With A Piece Of Paper": Understanding The Lived Realities Of Federally Unrecognized Indigenous Women In The Southeast, Brian A. Pitman

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Indigenous women experience some of the highest rates of violence and negative health outcomes of any racial/ethnic group yet are largely ignored in social science research. This dissertation explores the lived realities of Indigenous women who are members of federally unrecognized nations and how their tribal membership impacts their experiences with a variety of criminal justice and social issues. Unrecognized nations do not have access to potential benefits, opportunities, and legitimacy that comes with federal recognition thereby creating an additional intersection to consider for some Indigenous women. Essentially, federal recognition policies seek to place further constraints on Indigenous identity, while …

Film Review: The Uncondemned, Jessica M. Adach

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Film Review of The Uncondemned

Film Review: A Snake Gives Birth To A Snake, Juan Pablo Artinian

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Michael Lessac's 2014 documentary “A snake gives Birth to a Snake” from 2014 discusses a less explored topic: the relationship between the work of truth commissions (following the example of South Africa) and the ways art can help do this work of conflict resolution through a in various places where there were serious violations of human rights

Book Review: Death, Image, Memory: The Genocide In Rwanda And Its Aftermath In Photography And Documentary Film, Scott Ahearn

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

As Rwanda marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the genocide this spring, Piotr Cieplak’s book, Death, Image, Memory: The Genocide in Rwanda and its Aftermath in Photography and Documentation, is timely as an exploration of the documentary imagery developed since 1994 and its “uncomfortable coexistence with the genocide and its aftermath.” His book looks at still and video images from Westerners and Rwandans alike, and examines the ways in which these images succeed or fall short in bringing identity and remembrance to the victims of the genocide.

Book Review: Forced Confrontation: The Politics Of Dead Bodies In Germany At The End Of World War Ii, Christiane K. Alsop

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

The Black Freedom Movement And The Politics Of The Anti-Genocide Norm In The United States, 1951 - 1967, Daniel E. Solomon

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article explores the political uses of the anti-genocide norm by black freedom activists in the United States between 1951, when the Civil Rights Congress petitioned the United Nations with evidence of genocide against black Americans, and 1967, when the topic of genocide returned to mainstream public debate with the beginning of William Proxmire’s campaign for US ratification of the Convention. Using public speeches and pamphlets of the US black freedom movement, and private documentation by movement activists, this paper demonstrates how black activists used the nascent anti-genocide norm to (1) critique the relationship between the US government’s role in …

Editor's Introduction

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Between Hagiography And Wounded Attachment: Raphaël Lemkin And The Study Of Genocide, Benjamin Meiches, Jeff Benvenuto

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

In this article, we outline the significance of the special issue on the scholarship of Raphaël Lemkin. We argue that genocide scholars tend to identify with one of three different types of Lemkin scholarship. Each of the articles for the special issue challenges these genres in an effort to extend the study of genocide in new directions. Moreover, we contend that this work suggests that genocide scholars should endeavor to extend the study of genocide beyond Lemkin's vision and writings.

The Mass Murder Of The European Jews And The Concept Of ‘Genocide’ In The Nuremberg Trials: Reassessing Raphaël Lemkin’S Impact, Alexa Stiller

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Nuremberg’s prosecutors prominently used Lemkin’s genocide concept. They also dealt in detail with the mass murder of Europe’s Jews. However, for them ‘genocide’ and the Holocaust were not congruent. They used different definitions of Lemkin’s concept and interpreted the relationship between the mass murder of the European Jews and the entire mass violence of the Nazis differently. Lemkin had little influence on the application of his concept in the Nuremberg trials between 1945 and 1949. The implementation of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention put an end to the broad use of the original concept from 1944. Although both Lemkin …

The Complicated Cases Of Soghomon Tehlirian And Sholem Schwartzbard And Their Influences On Raphaël Lemkin's Thinking About Genocide, Steven Leonard Jacobs

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The article is an examination of the persons and trials of Soghomon Tehlirian and Sholem Schwartzbard, their political assassinations as acts of vengeance for genocide and pogroms, their trials and subsequent acquittals. It is also an examination of the influences of these two events on the evolved thinking of Raphael Lemkin on his conceptualization of the needs for an international law contra genocide. Finally, it also elaborates on what information is now available on both men and their associations, and what was known and unknown to Lemkin and whether or not these two cases remained centrally important to his understandings.

Legible Testimonies: Raphaël Lemkin, The Victim’S Voice, And The Global History Of Genocide, Charlotte Kiechel

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article offers a new portrait of Raphael Lemkin, as a historian of mass violence. It argues that, in contrast to recent characterizations that focus on Lemkin’s methodological amateurism, Lemkin was in fact highly attentive to the “Historian’s Craft.” Moreover, he was invested in employing a specific approach in writing his global History of Genocide. This approach revolved around his interest in psychology and frequently depended upon his psychologically attentive readings of testimonies. After detailing Lemkin’s psycho-cultural approach, this article compares his use and readings of victim testimony in his writings on mass violence in Western and non-Western societies. …

A Series Of Political Russian Events To Exploit And Destroy The Volga Germans, 1914-1921, Kassidy Whetstone

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

Advanced Research Winner 2019:

Immigration has been controversial for centuries, as it is not always successful; the relationship between the host country and immigrants can become tense and even disastrous. This was the case for the Volga Germans in the Russian Saratov region, an immigration experiment gone wrong. It is important that the story of the Volga Germans be told, as it is suspected of being an experience of ethnic cleansing and genocide. In this project, I will investigate the Volga Germans in the Russian Saratov region, analyze the relationship between the Germans and their Russian neighbors in the early …

Drawing Lines: A Suggestion For Addressing The Moral Problem Of Reproducing Immoral Biblical Texts In Commentaries And Bibles, James Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

Some verses of Leviticus express norms that explicitly conflict with the legal and ethical teachings of contemporary Jewish and Christian denominations, and also with the laws of modern nations. Among them are texts mandating that readers treat some other people in ways now widely regarded as immoral, cruel, inhumane, and exploitative—texts that call for and / or have historically justified genocide, indiscriminate capital punishment, slavery, and the subjugation of women by men. National and international law today declares most of these behaviors illegal and subject to criminal prosecution. The moral problem for commentators and publishers is that, by publishing bibles …

Can Nonhumans Be Victims Of Genocide?, Kirstin Waldkoenig

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

“Genocide” appears commonly in critical animal studies literature and sparsely in philosophy to describe human-caused violence against nonhuman beings. However, such uses of the term have rarely been informed by relevant work in genocide studies, nor otherwise formally substantiated. This thesis explores what is at stake when employing the term and proposes a model for appropriate application to nonhuman contexts. Claudia Card’s notion of genocide as social death allows for the consideration of nonhuman animals as victims of genocide. Social vitality is important to the lives of some nonhuman animals and its forcible diminishment results in social death for those …

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act's Evolving Genocide Exception, Vivian Grosswald Curran

Articles

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) was passed by Congress as a comprehensive statute to cover all instances when foreign states are to be immune from suit in the courts of the United States, as well as when foreign state immunity is to be limited. Judicial interpretation of one of the FSIA’s exceptions to immunity has undergone significant evolution over the years with respect to foreign state property expropriations committed in violation of international law. U.S. courts initially construed this FSIA exception by denying immunity only if the defendant state had expropriated property of a citizen of a nation other …