Kragalott Lecture on Genocide, Mass Atrocity, and Human Rights

The history department is pleased to announce that the Kragalott Lecture has been scheduled for Thursday, April 11, 2024 at 7 pm in the Benes Room at the Hamilton Williams Campus Center. Join the OWU History department as A. Dirk Moses, Ph.D. presents:

How and why did genocide become the "crime of crimes"?

When Raphael Lemkin devised the concept of genocide in 1943, he aimed to augment The Hague Conventions so the Nazis' destruction of the nations it occupied, especially of European Jews, could be prosecuted at post war trials. Since then, genocide has become a distinct crime with its own convention (1948). Indeed, it has been invested with the status of the "crime of crimes," the crime that victims of mass violence insist accurately names their experience. As we observe in cases today, this claim is highly controversial and contested. This paper explains how and why we reached this state of affairs. What if "genocide" had not become a distinct crime and we had inherited the alternative of "crimes against humanity" from the Nuremberg Trials?

A. Dirk Moses is the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of International Relations at the City College of New York CUNY. He is the author and editor of publications on genocide and memory, including The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression (2021). He is senior editor of the Journal of Genocide Research.

For more about the Kragalott Lecture visit History of Kragalott Lecture

Richard W. Smith Lecture on Civil War History

The 2023 R.W. Smith Lecture in Civil War History: 

The Howling Storm: Weather, Climate, and The American Civil War

Kenneth W Noe, Ph.D.

A native of Virginia, Kenneth W. Noe received his doctorate from the University of Illinois in 1990.  He is the Draughon Professor of Southern History Emeritus at Auburn University, and the author or editor of eight books, including most recently The Howling Storm: Weather, Climate, and the American Civil War (Baton Rouge, 2020).  It was a Pulitzer Prize entrant, a finalist for the Lincoln Prize, and co-winner of the Colonel Richard W. Ulbrich Memorial Book Award.  If you would like to learn more about Dr. Noe, check out this website: https://kennethwnoe.com/ 

This took place on Thursday, October 26, 2023.  This lecture was recorded.  Please click on this link The 2023 Smith Lecture presents The Howling Storm by Dr. Kenneth Noe to see the recorded lecture. 

Dr. Smith has actively promoted the importance of learning history from the first time he stepped onto Ohio Wesleyan's campus as a professor in 1950 to his current role as an emeritus professor.  Dr. Smith's remarkable legacy includes no fewer than 18 of his former students having continued their education through the doctoral level.  For all of his students, Dr. Smith succeeded in instilling in them a life long love of learning and history.  He remains a role model having published his book: Bishop McIlvaine, Slavery, Britain & the Civil War in 2014.  His former students created The Richard W. Smith Lecture in Civil War History in Dr. Smith's honor to educate students and the public about the Civil War.  This year is a special one as Dr. Smith will turn 100 a few short weeks after this year's lecture.  

Historical Interview with Dr. Smith

(shown at the October 26, 2023 Smith Lecture)