Publicity Page . Michael Dobkowski, professor of religious studies, leads the Genocide Symposium steering committee. W e live in an age of genocide.
Genocide is a crime against humanity because it negates human value.
To be sure, these human tragedies are often intoned, but then easily ignored. They retain the power, however, to undermine the value of the human person, the meaning of history and modernity, the value and truth of religion and the significance of social organization. The suffering of our century confronts philosophers, theologians, artists, writers, and scholars with the dilemma of orienting human life and thought around the experience and memory of mass death and broken cultural traditions. Recent genocidal events in the Balkans, Africa, and elsewhere underscore the importance of educating the Hobart and William Smith and local communities about the lethal effects of racial, religious, political, and other forms of prejudice in this country and abroad, in history and in our time. Racism, anti-Semitism, and genocide may be best understood by studying and exposing their roots and by placing their origins and effects in a broader framework of analysis.