Assembly to hold Armenian Genocide Symposium in Florida

Assembly to hold Armenian Genocide Symposium in Florida

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Armenian Assembly of America (Assembly) has announced the speakers for the Armenian Genocide Symposium that will take place during the Annual Members Meeting weekend in Boca Raton, Florida, March 13-14.

Entitled "A Century of Genocide: The 1915 Armenian Genocide & Its Lasting Impact," the symposium will feature Dr. Rouben Adalian, Dr. Rosanna Gatens, and Hannibal Travis.

Dr. Adalian will present on the topic "The Armenian Genocide as a Prototype of 20th Century Mass Killings." Dr. Gatens will discuss "The Impact of the Armenian Genocide on Holocaust Education," and Hannibal Travis will present "The Armenian Genocide as a Political & Illegal Crime." Assembly Trustee Marta Batmasian will moderate the discussion.

Dr. Rouben P. Adalian is the Director of the Armenian National Institute (ANI) in Washington, DC. He is the editor of “The Armenian Genocide in the U.S. Archives 1915-1918” and its accompanying Guide and associate editor of the “Encyclopedia of Genocide”. Adalian is also the author of “From Humanism to Rationalism: Armenian Scholarship in the Nineteenth Century and Historical Dictionary of Armenia” and has contributed to “Genocide in Our Time; Studies in Comparative Genocide; America and the Armenian Genocide”; and “Centuries of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts”. He is a specialist on the Caucasus and the Middle East, and has taught at a number of universities, including George Washington University, Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University. He received a Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dr. Rosanna M. Gatens is the Director of the Center for Holocaust and Human Rights Education (CHHRE) at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in Boca Raton, Florida. Dr. Gatens is a specialist in the social and intellectual history of Germany, especially during the era of the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. Dr. Gatens has written about the collapse of academic freedom in German universities during the 1920s, the anti-fascist and anti-militarist campaigns of the German League for Human Rights during the interwar years, and racism as a component of National Socialism. Her research and writing in the area of Holocaust education focuses on the effectiveness of particular teaching and learning strategies for high school and college students. Dr. Gatens is a member of the Florida Task Force on Holocaust Education and a member of the Save Darfur Coalition of South Palm Beach.

Hannibal Travis is a Professor of Law at Florida International University (FIU) College of Law in Miami, Florida. He has published widely on Ottoman Turkey's Christian genocide, freedom of expression, religious freedom in the contemporary Middle East, and human rights in Africa. Travis wrote the first comprehensive legal history of genocide in the Middle East and North Africa, entitled “Genocide in the Middle East: The Ottoman Empire, Iraq, and Sudan”. His second book, entitled “Genocide, Ethnonationalism, and the United Nations: Exploring the Causes of Mass Killing Since 1945”, undertakes the first in-depth exploration of the causes of genocide and politicide using the UN archives.

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres and deportations, involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths reaching 1.5 million.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the Genocide survivors.

Present-day Turkey denies the fact of the Armenian Genocide, justifying the atrocities as “deportation to secure Armenians”. Only a few Turkish intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and scholar Taner Akcam, speak openly about the necessity to recognize this crime against humanity.

The Armenian Genocide was recognized by Uruguay, Russia, France, Lithuania, Italy, 45 U.S. states, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Argentina, Belgium, Austria, Wales, Switzerland, Canada, Poland, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, the Vatican, Luxembourg, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Sweden, Venezuela, Slovakia, Syria, Vatican, as well as the European Parliament and the World Council of Churches.

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