2016 Summer Institute for Genocide Studies and Prevention

The inaugural Summer Institute for Genocide Studies and Prevention will be held June 6-10, 2016 at Keene State College in Keene, New Hampshire (US).  Keene State College is home to the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, one of the nation’s oldest Holocaust resource centers, and also offers the only undergraduate major in Holocaust and Genocide Studies in the United States.  The Center and campus resources provide unique facilities for teaching and scholarship in genocide studies.

The 2016 Summer Institute is the first in a series of biennial summer institutes supporting the following objectives:

1. Promote study, research and teaching in the growing field of genocide studies and prevention as a self-standing scholarly discipline that is distinct and independent from the existing schools of academic inquiry.
2. Encourage participating institutions to develop courses, academic modules and foreign study programs incorporating genocide studies and prevention into department teaching.
3. Strengthen institutional capacity in terms of teacher-scholars conducting research in genocide studies and prevention, with an ultimate goal of developing interdisciplinary academic specializations in the field (that is, a major, minor, or area of concentration) at participating institutions.

The 2016 Summer Institute will focus on the teaching of genocide prevention, with particular attention paid to primary or upstream prevention; the “before” analysis of the longer-term governance, historical, economic, and societal factors that leave a country at risk for genocide and other mass atrocities and the inoculation avenues open to mitigating those risk factors. 

The institute will be organized by Dr. James Waller, Cohen Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College and author of Confronting Evil: Engaging Our Responsibility to Prevent Genocide (forthcoming May 2016, Oxford University Press). In addition to Dr. Waller, other invited instructors include Dr. Benjamin Valentino (Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and co-designer of the Early Warning Project), Ms. Savita Pawnday (Director of Programs, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect), and Dr. Ashad Sentongo (Director of Africa Programs, Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation and author of “The Practical Use of Early Warning and Response in Preventing Mass Atrocities and Genocide: Experiences from the Great Lakes Region”). 

The Summer Institute is intended primarily for full-time college or university teachers interested, or already teaching, in the field of genocide studies.  Current PhD students and post-docs with similar teaching interests also will be considered.  The institute is intentionally interdisciplinary and international, so encourages applications from across the disciplinary spectrum and around the world.  The language of the institute will be English. 

The Summer Institute if funded to provide fellows five nights of single lodging in a recently-opened air-conditioned campus dormitory, food for the entirety of the institute, and a $800 fellowship stipend.  Participants may use their fellowship stipend however they see fit, including helping to offset travel costs to and from the institute for those participants who may have difficulty receiving travel funding from their home institutions.  There is no tuition fee for the institute.  The institute is funded to allow for 16 participants in its inaugural year and participants are expected to be at the institute for its duration (arrival on Sunday afternoon/evening June 5 and departure on Friday afternoon June 10).  Keene State College is in the Currier & Ives southwest corner of New Hampshire and enjoys beautiful summers with vibrant recreational and cultural activities.  The Summer Institute is funded by a generous gift from the Charles E. Scheidt Family Foundation.

To apply for the 2016 Summer Institute, please send a (a) statement of interest, (b) list of related courses or modules currently taught (or interested in developing), and (c) CV to Dr. James Waller at jwaller@keene.edu.  The application deadline is March 1, 2016 with selection decisions communicated by March 18, 2016.