Hybrid lecture by Ronald Grigor Suny with discussion by A. Dirk Moses.
This event is organized by the
Richard Hovannisian Chair of Modern Armenian History at UCLA, with co-sponsorship by the
the UCLA Department of History, the
Armenian Studies Center at the Promise Armenian Institute at UCLA, the
UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies (CNES), the
Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA Law, and the
National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR).
Friday, April 21, 2023
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM (Pacific Time)
6275 Bunche Hall (UCLA)
Australian historian and student of genocides, Professor Dirk Moses, recently published a bold and provocative challenge to political and military leaders, as well as the field of genocide studies -- The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression (Cambridge University Press, 2021) -- which questions the utility of the concept of genocide, analyzes its harmful effects, and proposes that an alternative concept, permanent security, be used as a more inclusive and effective analytic for crime against civilians. Genocide leaves too much out, for example, aerial bombing, and lets states, notably Western countries, off the hook by allowing arguments made from military necessity.
Professor Ron Suny, emeritus of the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan -- and author of a major study of the massacres and deportations committed by the Ottoman Turks in 1915, "They Can Live in the Desert But Nowhere Else": A History of the Armenian Genocide (Princeton University Press, 2015) -- uses the insights of Moses' work to take a fresh look at the Armenian tragedy and how it provides another lens to look at the concept of genocide.
Ronald Grigor Suny is William H. Sewell, Jr. Distinguished University Professor of History and Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Michigan and Emeritus Professor of Political Science and History at the University of Chicago. He was the first holder of the Alex Manoogian Chair in Modern Armenian History at the University of Michigan, where he founded and directed the Armenian Studies Program. He is the author of The Baku Commune: Class and Nationality in the Russian Revolution; The Making of the Georgian Nation; Looking Toward Ararat: Armenia in Modern History; The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union; The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the Soviet Union and the Successor States; “They Can Live in the Desert But Nowhere Else”: A History of the Armenian Genocide; Red Flag Unfurled: History, Historians, and the Russian Revolution; Red Flag Wounded: Stalinism and the Fate of the Soviet Experiment; Stalin: Passage to Revolution; and co-author with Valerie Kivelson of Russia’s Empires. He is currently working on a book on the history of the nation-form and the recent upsurge of exclusivist nationalisms and authoritarian populisms: Forging the Nation: The Making and Faking of Nationalisms.
A. Dirk Moses is Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of International Relations at the Colin Powell School for Civic and International Leadership at the City College of New York, CUNY. Raised in Brisbane, Australia, he was educated at the Universities of Queensland (B.A. 1987), St. Andrews (M.Phil. 1990), Notre Dame (M.A. 1994), and University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D. 2000). His first book, German Intellectuals and the Nazi Past (2007), was awarded the H-Sozu-Kult ‘'Historical Book of the Year'’ prize for contemporary history. Moses has also written extensively about genocide, memory, and global history. Prof. Moses's latest book, The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression was published in 2023 by Cambridge University Press.
Sponsor(s): Armenian Studies Research and Outreach Program, Center for Near Eastern Studies, Department of History, Richard Hovannisian Chair of Modern Armenian History at UCLA, Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA Law, National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR).