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AP: Purify And Destroy - The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide
Date: September 25, 2007 from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm EDT
Location: Columbia University
Morningside Campus
International Affairs Building, Lindsay Rogers Room (7th Floor)
Contact: For further information regarding this event, please contact
Elodie Luquet by sending email to [email protected] .
The Alliance Program (AP) presents a seminar with Jacques Semelin a
professor of political science and research director at CERI-CNRS in
Paris entitled, "Purify And Destroy - The Political Uses of Massacre and
Genocide."
After having studied civil resistance within Nazi Europe, he developed
comparative genocide research and is now exploring processes of
reconciliation and prevention. His previously published book in
English is Unarmed Against Hitler: Civil Resistance in Europe,
1939-1943, and he is founder of the Online Encyclopedia of Mass
Violence.
How can we comprehend the sociopolitical processes that give rise to
extreme violence, ethnic cleansing, or genocide? A major breakthrough
in comparative analysis, Purify and Destroy demonstrates that it is
indeed possible to compare the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and
ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina while respecting the
specificities of each appalling phenomenon. Jacques Semelin achieves
this, in part, by leading his readers through the three examples
simultaneously, the unraveling of which sometimes converges but most
often diverges. Semelin's method is multidisciplinary, relying not
only on contemporary history but also on social psychology and
political science. Based on the seminal distinction between massacre
and genocide, Purify and Destroy identifies the main steps of a
general process of destruction, both rational and irrational, born of
what Semelin terms "delusional rationality." He describes a dynamic
structural model with, at its core, the matrix of a social imaginaire
that, responding to fears, resentments, and utopias, carves and
recarves the social body by eliminating "the enemy." Semelin
identifies the main stages that can lead to a genocidal process and
explains how ordinary people can become perpetrators. He develops an
intellectual framework to analyze the entire spectrum of mass
violence, including terrorism, in the twentieth century and before.
Strongly critical of today's political instrumentalization of the
"genocide" notion, Semelin urges genocide research to stand back from
legal and normative definitions and come of age as a discipline in its
own right in the social sciences. Jacques Semelin is professor of
Political Science at Sciences Po in paris and research director at
CERI-CNRS in Paris. His previously published book in English is
Unarmed Against Hitler: Civil Resistance in Europe, 1939- 1943, and he
is founder of the Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence.
Source: http://calendar.columbia.edu/sundial/webapi/get.ph p?brand=sipa&id=16452&vt=detail&contex t=standalone
Date: September 25, 2007 from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm EDT
Location: Columbia University
Morningside Campus
International Affairs Building, Lindsay Rogers Room (7th Floor)
Contact: For further information regarding this event, please contact
Elodie Luquet by sending email to [email protected] .
The Alliance Program (AP) presents a seminar with Jacques Semelin a
professor of political science and research director at CERI-CNRS in
Paris entitled, "Purify And Destroy - The Political Uses of Massacre and
Genocide."
After having studied civil resistance within Nazi Europe, he developed
comparative genocide research and is now exploring processes of
reconciliation and prevention. His previously published book in
English is Unarmed Against Hitler: Civil Resistance in Europe,
1939-1943, and he is founder of the Online Encyclopedia of Mass
Violence.
How can we comprehend the sociopolitical processes that give rise to
extreme violence, ethnic cleansing, or genocide? A major breakthrough
in comparative analysis, Purify and Destroy demonstrates that it is
indeed possible to compare the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and
ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina while respecting the
specificities of each appalling phenomenon. Jacques Semelin achieves
this, in part, by leading his readers through the three examples
simultaneously, the unraveling of which sometimes converges but most
often diverges. Semelin's method is multidisciplinary, relying not
only on contemporary history but also on social psychology and
political science. Based on the seminal distinction between massacre
and genocide, Purify and Destroy identifies the main steps of a
general process of destruction, both rational and irrational, born of
what Semelin terms "delusional rationality." He describes a dynamic
structural model with, at its core, the matrix of a social imaginaire
that, responding to fears, resentments, and utopias, carves and
recarves the social body by eliminating "the enemy." Semelin
identifies the main stages that can lead to a genocidal process and
explains how ordinary people can become perpetrators. He develops an
intellectual framework to analyze the entire spectrum of mass
violence, including terrorism, in the twentieth century and before.
Strongly critical of today's political instrumentalization of the
"genocide" notion, Semelin urges genocide research to stand back from
legal and normative definitions and come of age as a discipline in its
own right in the social sciences. Jacques Semelin is professor of
Political Science at Sciences Po in paris and research director at
CERI-CNRS in Paris. His previously published book in English is
Unarmed Against Hitler: Civil Resistance in Europe, 1939- 1943, and he
is founder of the Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence.
Source: http://calendar.columbia.edu/sundial/webapi/get.ph p?brand=sipa&id=16452&vt=detail&contex t=standalone