Past News and Events
March 16, 2009 “I Have No Right to Be Silent", a celebration of the human rights legacy of rabbi Marshall T. Meyer
Sponsored by the Archive for Human Rights at Duke University Libraries, The Duke Center for Jewish Studies, and The Duke Human Rights Center. Cosponsored by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
On Monday March 16, 2009 Duke University will celebrate the human rights work and legacy of Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer. The program includes Keynote Speaker Héctor Timerman, Argentine Ambassador to the United States, followed by a panel discussion. A reception, food, and musical performance will precede the lecture and panel. The March 16th celebration will begin with a catered reception in the atrium of the Nasher Musuem of Art. The reception will include a performance by Kol Kachol, a co-ed Jewish a cappella group with undergraduate and graduate student members. They sing a diverse repertoire ranging from traditional Hebrew melodies to current popular music. The group was recently started in 2008. The keynote address will be delivered by Héctor Timerman, Argentine Ambassador to the United States, at 6:00pm. Son of Jacobo Timerman, Héctor will speak first hand of Marshall’s impact not only on the Timerman family but on many others in Argentina who stood up to the human rights abuses perpetrated by the military. Joining Mr. Timerman for a panel discussion will be Marshall’s wife, Naomi Meyer, and Deborah Benchoam. Ms. Benchoam, now an attorney for the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, was taken prisoner in 1977 at the age of 16 after witnessing the assassination of her brother by military forces. She spent over four years in prison during which time Marshall Meyer visited and counseled her and worked with national and international organizations and governments to obtain her release. The panel will be moderated by noted author and human rights champion Ariel Dorfman.[3/24/09 - Mr. Timerman was regrettably not able to attend the event but sent a moving letter with a tribute to rabbi Meyer. Eric Meyer read the letter out load at the event.]
All events Monday March 16th, 5:00pm to 7:30pm at the Nasher Musuem of Art Auditorium. Free and open to the public.
November 18 Francisco Goldman, author of The Art of Political Murder , winner of the first WOLA-Duke Book Award.
The Art of Political Murde, an exhaustively researched story of assassination, impunity and justice in Guatemala, has won the first annual WOLA-Duke Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America. Goldman’s book, published by Grove Press, recounts the 1998 killing of Monsignor Juan Jose Gerardi, four days after he and a group of lawyers presented a devastating report on human rights abuses committed by the Guatemalan military against civilians, and the trial of several military officers for the assassination. The book award is another cooperative venture between WOLA and Duke University. Under an agreement signed in January, WOLA has donated its inactive archives dating back to the organization’s founding to the Archive for Human Rights at Duke Libraries.
Tuesday November 18, 2008, 7:00 pm -8:00 pm, followed by a reception and book-signing. In the RareBook Room. Free and open to the public.
In August 2008, the Duke Human Rights Center (DHRC) became an official affiliate of the Franklin Humanities Institute. To mark the inauguration of this partnership, the FHI and the DHRC will present a series of public events in October 2008. The events are cosponsored by the office of the vice-provost for interdisciplinary studies, the Archive for Human Rights and the Duke University Center for International Studies.
"IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY: ATLANTIC SLAVERY, LEOPOLD'S CONGO AND THE LEGACY OF EARLY HUMAN RIGHTS PIONEERS"
October 5 "King Leopold's Ghost" screening
The series begins with a screening of the award-winning documentary film King Leopold's Ghost, directed by Pippa Scott and based on the acclaimed book by Adam Hochschild. With narration by Don Cheadle, Alfre Woodard and James Cromwell, the film recounts the genocidal plunder of the Congo by Belgian King Leopold II. Under his greedy reign, over 10 million people died, a tragedy that has grim echoes today. Winner of several awards, the film includes original footage from the Congo and Belgium as well as archival materials. The screening will be followed by a panel featuring film director Pippa Scott and journalist Adam Hochschild.
6:00 pm-9:00 pm, Griffith Film Theater. Free and open to the public. Parking available in the Bryan Center deck http://map.duke.edu
October 6 Adam Hochschild, "Freeing an Empire's Slaves"
Award-winning journalist Adam Hochschild will speak about his recent work on the Abolitionist movement in 19th-century Great Britain. Hochschild's most recent book is Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery, one of the inspirations for the film "Amazing Grace." He also authored King Leopold's Ghost, the basis for this film. A co-founder of Mother Jones magazine, Hochschild has also written for The New Yorker, Harper's, the New York Review of Books and The Nation. Hochschild teaches writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.
5:00 pm-8:00 pm, with a reception following the talk Love Auditorium (in the Levine Science Research Center, http://maps.duke.edu/) Free and open to the public Parking available in the Bryan Center deck http://map.duke.edu
October 8 George Washington Williams: The Case of a Neglected American Hero. A Wednesdays at the Center Conversation with John Hope Franklin & Lea Wernick Fridman
The final event in the series returns to King Leopold's Congo to explore an African American's remarkable role in exposing its horrors and calling the Belgian monarch to account internationally. Noted historian John Hope Franklin, for whom the FHI is named, will talk with holocaust studies scholar Lea Wernick Fridman about the life and work of George Washington Williams, an African American writer, historian, legislator, and pioneer of the keystone human rights concept of "crimes against humanity." Franklin is the author of George Washington Williams: A Biography, winner of the Clarence L. Holte Literary Prize, which traces Franklin's forty-year quest to find information about Williams. An Associate Professor of English at Kingsborough Community College in New York, Fridman has published many scholarly works and a play on the Holocaust. Her current research project focuses on Williams' "Open Letter to King Leopold."
12 noon -1:00 pm Wednesday at the Center, Franklin 240 Free and open to the public. Lunch provided. Parking vouchers for the medical deck are available at the event.
Nobel Peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi
Friday April 11, 2008 - Shirin Ebadi is the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace prize. An Iranian, Ebadi is the first woman to be named to the bench in her country. After serving as president of the Tehran city court from 1975 to 1979, Ebadi was forced to resign after the Islamic republic decided that women were not suitable for such posts. Ebadi then established a law practice and took on the kind of politically sensitive cases many lawyers refused, including alleged human rights violations by the Iranian authorities. Her memoir, Iran Awakening: One Woman's Journey to Reclaim Her Life and Country, was hailed by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu as "the riveting story of an amazing and very brave woman living through some quite turbulent times. And she emerges with head unbowed." Ebadi also works for women's rights and greater legal protection for Iranian children. A professor at Tehran University, she lives in Iran.
There will be a book signing of Iran Awakening: One Woman's Journey to Reclaim Her Life and Country from 7:00 to 7:30 pm, hosted by the Regulator Bookshop Sponsored by the Duke Human Rights Center and Research Triangle International. Co-sponsored by the Karl von der Heyden endowment, the Trent Foundation, Duke Libraries, the Duke Center for International Studies, the Duke Islamic Studies Center, the Kenan Institute for Ethics and Women's Studies and the Duke Chapter of Amnesty International.
Documentary Interventions
Grace Lile, Media Archive and Distribution Manager for Witness,March 20, 2008, 1:15 PM, in Duke Libraries’ Rare Book Room
One of the primary elements of the architecture of impunity that buttresses human rights abuses is invisibility: people, evidence, facts, and truth itself are “disappeared”, systems of accountability are thwarted and dismantled, and clandestine records and archives are mobilized in the name of terror and oppression. Practitioners and activists often find then that an effective and crucial tool to combat human rights violations is documentation. The speaker series “Documentary Interventions” explores the various and innovative documentary strategies that have been deployed by human rights workers to render human rights abuses recordable, visible, and thus addressable.
On March 20, 2008, Grace Lile, moving image archivist and Media Archive and Distribution Manager for Witness (http://witness.org/ ), will discuss this organization's innovative use of video and other moving image technology to "open the eyes of the world to human rights violations”. Grace will screen "Missing Lives: Disappearances and Impunity in the North Caucasus" (2007) Memorial / WITNESS (14 minutes)
The Past is Political: Public Memory, Policy Choices and Human Rights
Our speaker series The Past Is Political: Public Memory, Policy Choices, and Human Rights focuses on how we can actively engage with the past and with processes of public memory and history-telling to develop policy choices and programs that strengthen civil society and help foster a culture of human rights. Co-sponsored by the Duke Human Rights Center, The Charles Murphy Fund, and the Center for History, Public Policy, and Social Change.
"Remembering Past Atrocity: Monuments, Memorials and Museums in Comparative Perspective". Louis Bickford of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), October 29, 2008
Louis Bickford, Director of both the Policymakers and Civil Society Unit and the Memory, Museums and Monuments Program at the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) will speak on "Remembering Past Atrocity: Monuments, Memorials and Museums in Comparative Perspective". Throughout the world, societies must choose how to remember episodes of past human rights abuse and mass atrocity. How they do so is critical for sustainable peace and democratization. Louis Bickford will discuss the complex issues related to remembering the past, with a special emphasis on the role of both the state and civil society in creating public memorials that strengthen democracy for the long-term.
Wednesday October 29, 2008, 12:00pm at the John Hope Franklin Institute. Lunch provided. Free and open to the public.
"Activating Historic Sites for Human Rights"Liz Ševčenko, Director, International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience - Wednesday, January 30, 2008 .
Liz Ševčenko is founding director of the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience, a network of historic sites that foster public dialogue on pressing contemporary issues. She works with over 1300 initiatives in more than 90 countries to design programs and practices that reflect on past struggles and inspire citizens to become involved in addressing their contemporary legacies. Before launching the Coalition, she had over ten years of experience developing public history projects designed to catalyze civic dialogue in New York and around the country. Her project “Mapping Memories,” in which visitors were invited to contribute their memories to a changing map of New York City and discuss conflicting claims to urban space, was produced at the Museum of the City of New York, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, the Eldridge Street Project, and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, as well as at community centers and street fairs. She has partnered with public artist Shimon Attie on projects in New York and Boston exploring the hidden histories of urban landscapes. As Vice President for Programs at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, she developed exhibits and educational activities that connect the dramatic stories of the neighborhood’s immigrants past and present. She also developed national and community initiatives to inspire civic dialogue on cultural identity, labor relations, housing, welfare, immigration, and other issues these stories raise. Ms. Ševčenko has a B.A. from Yale University and is completing her PhD in history at New York University. She has most recently published “The Making of Loisaida” in Mambo Montage: The Latinization of New York City.
"A Place for Memory" Patricia Tappata de Valdez, Director, Memoria Abierta, Wednesday, October 31, 2007.
Patricia Valdez is the director of the Argentina-based "Memoria Abierta," a physical and digital memorial to the dirty war. "Memoria Abierta," or Open Memory, is a ground-breaking effort to not only collect and display objects from Argentina's period of state terrorism, but also to use memory-gathering activities as a way to strengthen a social conscience that values active memory and influences Argentine political culture and the construction of identity and the strengthening of democracy. "Memoria Abierta" is a founding member of the "Sites of Conscience" association of museums, which include New York's Lower East Side Tenement Museum and Cape Town's District Six Museum.
Sponsored by the Archive for Human Rights and the Duke Human Rights Center. Cosponsored by the Duke Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the Duke University Program on History, Public Policy and Social Change.
2007 Dia de los Muertos
October 2007 - Memory and forgetting are the currency of archives, museums, libraries, monuments, and other institutional efforts aimed at disciplining the wayward path of history. There is an inherent tension in archival interventions, in that the preservation of memory requires elaborate technologies of selection, control, and surveillance. By exploring archival collections related to human rights and social justice and curating their own exhibit in the form of a traditional Latin American Dia De Los Muertos ofrenda, Duke students will have the chance to ruminate on the relationships between memory, history, community, social action, and power.
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