The Genocide Awareness Lecture is an annual event designed to encourage people of good will and conscience to give vigilant, public attention to our still genocidal world. The lecture features experts who can initiate thoughtful reflection and responsible engagement with the mass violence and perpetration of human atrocity that continue to hold others in our world hostage, fearful for their lives and for the lives of their children.
To interrupt genocide, we must disrupt our complacent acceptance of the status quo to focus on the realities of those who live beyond our immediate concern. All human beings count in our moral universe. While this lecture series on genocide awareness does not prescribe any specific program of individual or social action or assume any single framework of meaning, it challenges each of us to draw our boundaries of moral concern inclusively and initiates an ongoing conversation about the value and the place of others in our world.
Past Genocide Awareness Lectures
| Year | Speaker | Lecture Title |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Victoria Sanford | “Friends Who Disappear: Documenting the Guatemalan Genocide and Forced Disappearance” |
| 2024 | Loung Ung | “Ordinary Citizens, Extraordinary Leaders: Creating Change Through Activism and Volunteerism” |
| 2023 | Omar Ndizeye | “Memory, Culture, and Emotional Expression in Post-Genocide Rwanda” |
| 2022 | Philippe Sands | “Love, Lies and Justice: From East West Street to Ratline” |
| 2021 | Suzan Shown Harjo | “Healing Spirit: The Power of Remembrance, Reflection and Reclamation” - in conjunction with the Sidore series |
| 2019 | Andrea Gualde | “The Past on Trial: Argentina’s Journey to Memory, Truth and Justice” |
| 2018 | Dr. Tibi Galis | “Current Challenges in Preventing Atrocities” |
| 2017 | The Honorable Patricia Whalen | “Why Justice Matters” |
| 2016 | Ned Blackhawk | “Genocide in Native America and the Rise of Settler Colonial Studies” |
| 2015 | Peter Balakian | “Transmission of Trauma Across Generations: Growing Up with the Armenian Genocide” |
| 2014 | Mathilde Mukantabana | “Remember, Unite, Renew: Retracing Milestones in Country Building after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda” |
| 2013 | Dr. Carol Rittner | “Rape, Religion, and Genocide” |
| 2012 | Dr. Ervin Staub | “Overcoming Evil: Preventing Genocide and Creating Peaceful Societies” |
| 2011 | Dr. James Waller | “Genocide Prevention: Our World, Our Watch” |
| 2010 | Dr. Gregory Stanton | “The Eight Stages of Genocide” |
| 2008 | Donald Bloxham | “Genocides in Comparative Perspective: Does The Holocaust Fit?” |
| 2007 | Ambassador Peter Galbraith | “Preventing Genocide in the 21st Century: Lessons from Iraq, Bosnia, and East Timor” |
