Come along to the final Research Month public lecture for 2008: 'Am I a murderer' An insight into genocide'. This thought provoking lecture is being presented by Associate Professor Mark Baker, Director of the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation at Monash University.
Date: Wednesday, 10 September
Time: 6-7 pm
Venue: Level 1, Building H, Caulfield campus
To book: www.monash.edu/researchmatters
Overview: Who are the people mobilised to commit mass murder?
Are there attributes that drive individuals to kill innocent civilians? Or does war transform ordinary people into perpetrators of extreme violence? Does each of us have a genocidal gene and are any of us immune?
What of the victims? Do victims in extreme situations respond to crisis according to culturally predetermined norms of behaviour, or do all people, when faced with their imminent murder, respond in uniform ways? What does research demonstrate about those who are prepared to risk their lives to save others? Can we predict heroic behaviour based on personality types?
Join Associate Professor Mark Baker as he considers how research has treated the subject of genocide by comparing perpetrator, bystander and victim behaviour during the Holocaust with the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda and present day Darfur. The talk will focus on his research into the experience of victims of the Holocaust using the Shoah Visual History Archive and recent field work in Rwanda observing the gacaca system of local genocide trials.
