Past Events

Organizers: George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights and Conflict Prevention, American University of Paris, the USC Shoah Foundation and the Institut Français de l’Éducation (ENS de Lyon).

Place: Library of the American University of Paris, 9 rue Monttessuy, 75007 Paris

Participants: Secondary school French teachers (history, literature, languages, philosophy…) and trainers for teachers

Maximum 15 participants

Context: Memorialization and the digital revolution have had a strong impact on current pedagogical practices. Despite the pedagogical possibilities offered by these new memorial and technological trends, documentary resources are not easily available and digital tools are not necessarily used by teachers. This training session will give French secondary school teachers the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the collection of the USC Shoah Foundation: with more than 54 000 video testimonies dealing with the Holocaust as well as other genocides and mass crimes (the genocide of the Armenians, of the Tutsis in Rwanda, massacre of Nankin, of the Mayas in Guatemala and those perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia). This unique material is now available at the American University of Paris and the the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Lyon. The stories told by the actors of these dramatic events (survivors as well as rescuers…) have all been digitized and indexed. More than 62 000 key words and 5 search engines enable users to search every minute of each testimony. Very precise information can be found on many topics.

This training session will reflect on the pedagogical uses of these testimonies. Strategies of adapting this video material to schoolwork will be presented. 

Schedule: In the morning, teachers will have the opportunity to discover the collection and the pedagogical resources available. In the afternoon, the organizers will present the software IWitness, which was created for teachers by the USC Shoah Foundation. Participants will be able to freely browse the collection of testimonies and start designing their own pedagogical activities.

Following: Activities prepared by teachers will be followed and can be showcased on the website of the USC Shoah Foundation.

To register: Please contact Emmanuel Debono (emmanuel.debono [at] ens-lyon.fr (emmanuel[dot]debono[at]ens-lyon[dot]fr))

Note that this workshop is not part of either the PAF or the PNF.

Organisateurs :

Cette journée de formation est organisée par le George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights and Conflict Prevention, l’USC Shoah Foundation et l’Institut Français de l’Éducation (ENS de Lyon).

Lieu : Bibliothèque de l'American University of Paris, 9 rue Monttessuy Paris VIIe

Public visé :

Formateurs d’enseignants et enseignants du second degré (histoire, lettres, langues, philosophie…)

Effectif : 15 personnes

Contexte :

Les enjeux mémoriels et la révolution numérique pèsent sur les pratiques enseignantes actuelles. Sur ces deux plans, l’offre pédagogique s’est considérablement accrue au cours des dernières années sans que s’en soient toujours trouvés facilités l’accès aux ressources documentaires et la prise en main des outils proposés. Cette journée de formation sera l’occasion de se familiariser avec la collection de l’USC Shoah Foundation : avec 54 000 témoignages audiovisuels portant sur la Shoah ainsi que sur les autres génocides et crimes de masse (génocide des Arméniens et des Tutsis, massacres de Nankin, des Mayas au Guatemala…), cette vidéothèque unique au monde est désormais consultable à l'Université américaine de Paris et à l’École normale supérieure de Lyon. Les récits des acteurs de ces événements (rescapés, sauveteurs, etc.) ont été intégralement numérisés et indexés à la minute à l’aide de 62 000 mots-clés. Cinq moteurs de recherche permettent d’identifier au plus près tous sujets d’études.

Il s'agira donc d’engager une réflexion collective sur les usages pédagogiques possibles de ces témoignages et sur certains dispositifs numériques conçus pour les exploiter en classe.

Déroulement de la journée :

La matinée sera consacrée à la découverte de la collection et des ressources pédagogiques disponibles. L’après-midi consistera en la présentation du logiciel IWitness, créé par l’USC Shoah Foundation. Les participants se verront proposer d’explorer librement la collection de témoignages et pourront s’engager dans la réalisation d’une activité pédagogique.

Suites envisagées :

Suivi des travaux engagés par les enseignants avec leurs élèves et valorisation (portail de l’USC Shoah Foundation)

Modalités d’inscription :

Merci de prendre contact avec Emmanuel Debono (emmanuel.debono [at] ens-lyon.fr (emmanuel[dot]debono[at]ens-lyon[dot]fr))

Attention : cette formation ne fait partie ni du PAF, ni du PNF.

On May 10, 11 and 12th, the Institute for Advanced Study of Paris organizes an international conference with the support of the George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights and Conflict Prevention, "The Brains that Pull the Triggers". 

The conference will bring together scientists and scholars from the human, social and brain sciences to bear upon the question of transformation of seemingly ordinary individuals to repetitive agents of extreme violence in groups (Syndrome E). The menacing specter of such transformation in the human condition that has caused immense loss of life in the past, is a matter of grave concerns in contemporary civilization with the increase in global radicalization and discontent. In a special editorial, Nature magazine has described the first conference as “…a bold and important attempt to bring interdisciplinary approach to one of the biggest questions facing humanity”. 

The aim of the upcoming conference is to foster a multidisciplinary approach trying to elucidate the brain mechanisms of this behavior and its collective characteristics, and also to evoke the social, psychological, ethical and juridical aspects. The conference will be a culmination and synthesis of three years of studies and discussions and will conclude with plans for further actions.

Find out more and sign up for this event here.

The George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights and Conflict Prevention invites you to an evening with Hélios Azoulay and his musicians at Maison de la Chimie.

Composer, clarinetist, writer, Hélios Azoulay is the Music Director of the Ensemble de Musique Incidentale. For ten years, he has been interpreting music composed in the concentration camps. His album « … même à Auschwitz », the first in France devoted to the subject, has been acclaimed by the musical press (Clef du Mois – Resmusica). Creative and versatile, Hélios is also the author of several books, including L’enfer aussi a son orchestre, co-written with Pierre-Emmanuel Dauzat and published in 2015.

For AUP and its wider community, Hélios Azoulay and his musicians will perform a range of works composed in the camps.

The concert will be introduced by the composer.

« Une extraordinaire énergie ! »
( Franck Ferrand, Europe 1 )

« C'est grandiose ! »
( France Musique, Christophe Bourseiller )

"ARTISTE GÉNIAL"
( Valérie Sasportas, Le Figaro )

All external guests must sign-up using the registration form below:

After a brief introduction to the field of oral history, Amia Lieblich (Professor of Psychology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) will describe the Jewish-Palestinian village Wahat al-Salam - Neve Shalom that was the subject of her study in 2010 and its development since its foundation in 1977. She will elaborate on the complicating factors in conducting the study, provide its main results and discuss the contribution of oral history research for conflict management and alleviation. The talk will be accompanied by photographs of the location and exemplary personal narratives of the participants of the study.

"Climate change in a populists' world: can we meet the goals of the Paris Agreement without a World Government?"

Myles Allen is Professor of Geosystem Science in the Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment and Department of Physics, University of Oxford, and co-Director of the Oxford Martin Net Zero Carbon Investment Initiative. His research focuses on how human and natural influences on climate contribute to observed climate change risks of extreme weather and in quantifying their implications for long-range climate forecasts. He is currently a Coordinating Lead Author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on 1.5 degrees threshold, having served as lead author on the IPCC's 3rd, 4th and 5th Assessment reports.

His guest lecture will address the IPCC 5th Assessment report (AR5), which gave a cumulative budget from 2011 of 400GtCO2 for global temperatures to remain "likely below" 1.5 oC, about half of which has already been emitted since 2011. Does this mean we are only a few years away from "blowing the 1.5oC carbon budget", suggesting that the only realistic way to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement is through geoengineering planetary albedo? Professor Allen will argue that the AR5 budget looks pessimistic if we take into account both cumulative carbon emissions and human-induced warming to date, particularly if we assume that emissions are continuously adjusted in future to meet the 1.5oC long-term temperature goal,as the Paris Agreement sets out to do, so talk of the inevitability of geoengineering is both premature and irresponsible.

External guests must sign up on the form below:

Mikael Rask Madsen’s research is focused on globalization and the role of legal institutions and professionals in these processes. His current research concerns the special interaction between law and global integration, the role and power of lawyers in globalization, the increased importance of supranational legal institutions and more generally, the international transformation of law and authority towards networked expertise. 

The George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights and Conflict Prevention has asked Mikael Madsen, as the director of the innovative Danish research center iCourts (Centre of Excellence for International Courts, University of Copenhagen) and well-known specialist on international justice, to address the impact of international tribunals on the ‘reassembling’ of international society.  

Prof. Madsen is the author or co-author of numerous publications, including most recently two chapters in the Dictionnaire de la Justice pénale internationale (2017); and a chapter on ‘The European Court of Human Rights and the Politics of International Law’ in the Handbook on the Politics of International Law (2017), as well as a chapter on ‘Global Actors: Networks, Elites, Institutions’ in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics (2016).  

Convener and moderator: Pr. Susan Perry (AUP)  Discussant: Dr. Philipp Ambach, Legal Advisor, International Criminal Court 

Nineteenth and early-twentieth century colonialism shaped the modern world in fundamental ways, with effects that are still with us today. By the 1930s, more than a third of the world population had been incorporated in formal imperial systems whose creation, maintenance and expansion was characterized by structural material and symbolic violence – the physical violence of conquest and of colonial rule, and the daily experience of suppression and cultural subordination of indigenous peoples. In settler-colonial areas such as  Australia, the United States, external intrusion and  the  forced  “removal” of indigenous peoples led to catastrophic human ecology crises and demographic collapses. In others, such as Algeria, colonial violence coupled with severe ecological impacts led to mass deaths. The Japanese empire’s expansion in China was likewise characterized by unspeakable mass violence. Since Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism the question of colonial genocide has been much debated. There were genocidal tendencies in colonial expansion but is genocide a relevant category of analysis in the colonial context?   

The George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights and Conflict Prevention has asked Olivier Lecour Grandmaison, a distinguished specialist of French colonial history, to address this question as well as the ways in which colonial history continues to shape the present.  

Prof. Lecour Grandmaison is a political scientist, historian and political philosopher at the Université d’Evry. He has published four important books on different dimensions of the French colonial experience: Coloniser. Exterminer. Sur la guerre et l’Etat colonial, (Fayard, 2005); La République impériale. Politique et racisme d’Etat, (Fayard, 2009); De l’indigénat. Anatomie d’un « monstre » juridique: le droit colonial en Algérie et dans l’empire français, (Zones/La Découverte, 2010); L’Empire des hygiénistes. Vivre aux colonies, (Fayard, 2014).  

Convener and moderator: Philip Golub (AUP) 
Discussants:  Michelle Kuo (AUP)  and Miranda Spieler  (AUP)

All external guests must sign up at the bottom of this event posting.

The George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights and Conflict Prevention invites students to a discussion with Stephanie Wolfe, Assistant Professor at Weber State University, to hear about her work in a large scale research project with Never Again Rwanda, a human rights and peace-building organization. Students may apply for fellowships through the center to become involved in this work with Dr Wolfe.

The George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights and Conflict Prevention welcomes guest lecture from Stephanie Wolfe, Assistant Professor at Weber State University. Dr. Wolfe specializes in international politics and human rights, with an emphasis on genocide, crimes against humanity, and other atrocities.  She received her PhD in International Relations from the University of Kent, Brussels School of International Studies in 2011. Her publications include The Politics of Reparations and Apologies (2013), which focuses on the aftermath of World War II atrocities; specifically the Holocaust and the Romani genocides, the Japanese American internment, and the Japanese ‘comfort women’ system. In addition a book chapter: The Politics of Reparations and Apologies: Historical and Symbolic Justice within the Rwandan Context was published in 2014.  

Dr. Wolfe’s current projects and forthcoming publications center on the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. She has recently submitted for publication a co-edited anthology of research on the genocide against Tutsi that grew out of the 20th commemoration conference she hosted at her University. She is also currently immersed in a large scale research project with Never Again Rwanda to write a comprehensive book on memorials throughout country.  

Finally, Dr. Wolfe is a member of the International Association of Genocide Scholars and is serving as the Media and Communications Officer for the Executive Board for the 2015-2017 term.