Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Murder

The Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies along with Queens University’s Greenspon Center for Peace and Social Justice and UNCC’s Center for Holocaust, Genocide & Human Rights Studies invites you to an online program with Professor Jim Waller, the Cohen Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College. Professor Waller will speak on Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Murder, also the title of one of his most influential and pathbreaking studies. The presentation will start on Tuesday, January 26, at 6:00 PM CST. Based on an evolutionary perspective, Professor Waller offers an equally intriguing and disturbing psychological view of how (almost) anyone can participate in genocidal crimes. The event also marks and commemorates the 76th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz camps by a division of the Red Army’s First Ukrainian Front in January of 1945.

Dr. James E. Waller is the inaugural Cohen Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College, one of the nation’s oldest Holocaust resource centers. A widely-recognized scholar in the field of Holocaust and genocide studies, Professor Waller widely researches, teaches and consults for memorials, research centers, universities, government, and non-governmental institutions around the world. Among his many roles and accomplishments is the Directorship of Academic Programs at the Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities and lead instructorship for the Raphael Lemkin Seminars for Genocide Prevention. These well-respected seminars held on-site and in cooperation with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, introduce government officials and security sector personnel from around the globe to pressing questions of genocide warning and prevention. He is the author of five important books, including Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing, on which his talk is based, and Confronting Evil: Engaging Our Responsibility to Prevent Genocide (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Like almost all Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies events, this online program is free of charge and open to the public. For more information, please contact the Center at 828.262.2311 or via e-mail. Register here for this free Zoom event.