The Howard R. Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borders at Yale University will host a symposium September 14-15 on the subject of ethnic cleansing on the frontiers of Europe and America.
Distinguished scholars, including Yale professors John Mack Faragher and Paul Kennedy, acclaimed biographer Robert Remini and Stanford professor Norman M. Naimark, will discuss the historical, political and social origins of ethnic cleansing.
The program will begin on Friday at 5:15 p.m., with keynote presentations by Naimark, historian of Russia and Europe, and author of the recently published “Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe,” and Faragher, the Arthur Unobskey Professor of History at Yale and director of the Lamar Center.
Naimark will present the view that ethnic cleansing is rooted in late-nineteenth century European nationalism. Faragher, who is working on a study of the 1755 expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia, will argue that the phenomenon of modern state-sponsored ethnic cleansing has to be understood in the context of the dispossession process accompanying colonization.
A public reception hosted at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library will follow the opening addresses.
On Saturday, a panel of historians will deliberate about the two points of view, broadening their discussion to include frontiers in Southeast Asia, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand. The panel will be composed of Remini, professor at the University of Illinois; Carl Brasseaux, a scholar of Louisiana history; Kennedy, author most notably of “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers”; Ben Kiernan, director of the Genocide Studies Program; and Yale Ph.D. candidate Jeremy Mumford. Historian Jennifer Baszile of Yale will serve as the moderator.
No registration is required, and all events are free and open to the public. For more information about the symposium or other Lamar Center events, write to Jay Gitlin, executive coordinator, at bgbmusic@aol.com.
