Yair Auron Yair Auron is a Senior Lecturer in the field of contemporary Judaism and genocide at the Open University of Israel and the Kibbutzim College of Education. He received his Ph.D. in Contemporary Jewry in 1980 from l’Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris III, France, with the dissertation: “Les Mouvements de Jeunesse Juifs en France, le Judaisme Contemporaine à Travers le Miroire de sa Jeunesse.” [The Jewish Youth Movement in France - Contemporary Judaism through the Prism of Its Youth.] Dr. Auron has published numerous essays, mainly on the impact of the Holocaust on Jewish identity in Israel and Europe. He is the author, in Hebrew, of such books as Between Paris and Jerusalem (Selected Passages of Contemporary Jewish Thought in France), Jewish-Israeli Identity, Sensitivity to World Suffering: Genocide in the 20th Century and We Are All German Jews: Jewish Radicals in France During the 60s and 70s (also in French). His book The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide was published in both Hebrew and English. Auron recently presented a curriculum for an Open University of Israel, MA course named “The Pain of Knowledge: Reflections on Teaching the Holocaust and Genocide.” He is currently working on another curriculum named “Genocide,” which includes theoretical units regarding the phenomenon of genocide, as well as the analysis of case studies such as the Holocaust, the genocide of the Gypsies, the Armenian Genocide and other historical and contemporary genocides such as that of Rwanda, Tibet and the Indian population of the Americas.

Frank Chalk Veteran professor Frank Chalk, of the Department of History at Concordia University in Montreal, was honoured during the sixth annual History in the Making conference in March 2000 for his “20 years of imaginative teaching.” This genocide studies specialist is co-director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies with Sociology Professor Kurt Jonassohn. Chalk is known for the support he provides to his students, as well as the boundless energy he devotes to his work. He and Jonassohn have been at the helm of a course called “The History and Sociology of Genocide,” the first of its kind in North America, and have written what is now a standard work in the field, The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analyses and Case Studies.

Vahakn N. Dadrian Vahakn N. Dadrian received his undergraduate and graduate education in Europe at the University of Berlin (mathematics), the University of Vienna (history) and the University of Zürich (international law). He received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago. His academic background includes affiliations with Harvard University as a Research Fellow, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Guest Professor and Duke University as a Visiting Professor. In the last twenty years he has lectured extensively in French, English and German in such European institutions as the Free University of Berlin and the Universities of Munich, Parma, Torino, Zürich, Uppsala, Frankfurt am Main, Cologne, Bochum, Münster, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Geneva, Brussels and UNESCO's Paris center. Professor Dadrian was the first Armenian scholar invited in 1995 to the British Parliament, House of Commons, to deliver a lecture commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Armenian genocide; upon a second invitation, he delivered another lecture there in 2002, on the occasion of the 87th anniversary of that genocide. In 1998, through a special ceremony, he was inducted into the ranks of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia. At the same time, he was decorated by that republic's president with the Khorenatzi Medal, Armenia's highest cultural award. Professor Dadrian's field of specialization is genocide in general and the Armenian genocide in particular. He has an extensive list of publications on the subject, including several articles on the Jewish Holocaust and the victimization of the American Indians. His groundbreaking research has been supported by two large grants from the National Science Foundation, resulting in the publication of two separate monographs by the Yale Journal of International Law. The monograph published in 1989 is a legal analysis of the Armenian genocide from the perspective of international law; the other, published in 1998, examines within the same perspective the comparative aspects of the Armenian and Jewish cases of genocide. After serving as Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York from 1970 to 1991, Professor Dadrian shifted his academic career to conducting research full-time on the Armenian genocide. For several years he was engaged as Director of a large Genocide Study Project sponsored by the H. F. Guggenheim Foundation. The project's first major achievement was the publication, now in its fourth printing, of an extensive volume titled The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus (Oxford & Providence, RI, 1995). This work has appeared in French (Paris, 2nd printing) and in Greek (Athens). Professor Dadrian's other major work, German Responsibility in the Armenian Genocide: A Review of the Historical Evidence of German Complicity, was published in 1996 (Cambridge, MA) and is now in its third edition. His third volume, Warrant for Genocide: The Key Elements of the Turko-Armenian Conflict, appeared in 1999 (London and New Brunswick, NJ). His latest work is titled The Key Elements of the Turkish Denial of the Armenian Genocide (Cambridge, MA, 1999). In addition to the French and Greek translations listed under Books in his bibliography, the Russian and Arabic translations of Professor Dadrian's History of the Armenian Genocide have been completed. The Italian translation is in progress. Professor Dadrian currently is Director of Genocide Research at the Zoryan Institute.

 

Lorne Shirinian Lorne Shirinian received his PhD in Comparative Literature at l’Université de Montréal. He founded and edited Manna: A Review of Contemporary Poetry from 1971 to 1974. Born in Toronto, he lived, taught, and wrote in the Montreal area for 20 years and in 1994 moved to Kingston, where he is the Head of the Department of English at the Royal Military College of Canada. One of his principle fields of research has been Armenian-North American literature and culture, which has led to considerations of genocide, diasporas, transnationalism, hybridity, and ethnicity in relation to cultural production. He has written many articles and several books in this area. Lorne Shirinian is also a writer. He has published four books of poetry and three works of fiction. He is at work on a new collection of stories which will be published this summer, a play, and a new film.

 

Roger W. Smithh Roger Smith is Professor Emeritus of Government at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, where he has taught political theory and the comparative study of genocide. Prof. Smith has written extensively on the nature, language, history and denial of genocide. In addition to numerous articles, he is the editor and co-author of Guilt: Man and Society, and editor of Genocide: Essays Toward Understanding, Early-Warning, and Prevention. As past president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, he has spoken extensively on the topic of genocide in the United States, Canada, France and Armenia. In 2000, Prof. Smith gave testimony before the U.S. Congress relating to the Armenian Genocide Resolution (H. Res. 596). Dr. Smith has been honoured by the Armenian Students Association with the Arthur Dadian Award for the preservation and presentation of Armenian history.

Khachig Tölölyan Khachig Tölölyan is a professor of English at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and is the author of many articles on modern narrative and critical theory. He also publishes in the fields of Armenian Studies, international terrorism, ethnicity, nationalism, transnationalism and diasporas. In addition to holding the position of Editor of Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, Professor Tölölyan also co-edits Pynchon Notes.