LEMKIN AWARD CEREMONY TO DARIUS REJALI NOV. 5, 2009 AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

The Institute for the Study of Genocide is pleased to announce presentation of the fifth biennial Lemkin award to Darius Rejali for his book: TORTURE AND DEMOCRACY (Princeton University Press, 2007)

The Lemkin presentation and talk entitled “Torture and Democracy: What next?” by Darius Rejali will take place on Thursday November 5 at New York University at Kimmel Hall located at 60 Washington Square South (at the corner of Laguardia Place and one block from Bobst Library) in room 400 at 4:30-6 PM sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Genocide and NYU Liberal Studies Program. It will include a reception for Darius Rejali preceding the ceremony from 4:00-4:30 PM. There will be books available for purchase and signing by the author after the presentation.

The public is invited. Please RSVP by October 20 to be put on a pre-registered list as space is limited. Send an e-mail to: Joyce Apsel, President, Institute for the Study of Genocide at jaa5@nyu.edu or Helen Fein, Board Chair at feinhelen@comcast.net

Darius Rejali is Professor of Political Science at Reed College and a 2003 Carnegie Scholar; he is one of the world’s leading writers and thinkers on the subject of torture and its consequences on modern society. Iranian-born, Rejali has spent his scholarly career reflecting on violence including his earlier book, Torture and Modernity: Self, Society and State in Modern Iran, authored many articles on violence, and has been interviewed extensively on the subject from Democracy Now to Al Jazeera and the Washington Post.

“Torture and Democracy is a provocative, state-of-the art consideration of what Rejali calls ‘stealth’ or ‘clean’ torture. He makes a powerful case that democracies tend to be laboratories for these forms of torture and that one of the unintended consequences of democratization is that torture, rather than being eliminated, becomes harder to identify and document.” Austin Sarat, Amherst College

The Lemkin award honors Raphael Lemkin, the originator of the concept of genocide and first exponent of a United Nations Genocide Convention. The biennial award recognizes the best book (for non-fiction works published in English) published in the preceding two years which focuses on explanation of genocide, crimes against humanity, state mass killings and gross violations of human rights, and strategies to prevent such crimes and violations. Previous recipients of the award include Donald Bloxham (2007), Peter Balakian (2005), Samantha Power (2003) and Alison Des Forges (2000).