BELMONT, Mass. — The Society for Armenian Studies (SAS) and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) will present a webinar with Prof. Joachim Savelsberg discussing his newly published book, Knowing About Genocide: Armenian Suffering and Epistemic Struggles (Univ. of California Press, 2021) on Friday, April 23, 2021, at 8 p.m. (Eastern). The program will be accessible live on Zoom (registration required) and on the SAS YouTube channel.
How do victims and perpetrators generate conflicting knowledge about genocide? Using a sociology of knowledge approach, Joachim Savelsberg answers this question for the Armenian Genocide committed in the context of the First World War. Focusing on Armenians and Turks, he examines strategies of silencing, denial, and acknowledgment in everyday interaction, public rituals, law, and politics.
Drawing on interviews, ethnographic accounts, documents, and eyewitness testimony, Savelsberg illuminates the social processes that drive dueling versions of history. He reveals counterproductive consequences of denial in an age of human rights hegemony, with implications for populist disinformation campaigns against overwhelming evidence.
Savelsberg is professor of sociology andl and holder of the Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of Representing Mass Violence: Conflicting Responses to Human Rights Violations in Darfur.
For more information contact NAASR at hq@naasr.org.
