PRESS RELEASE
Armenian Genocide Museum of America
October 13, 2009
Contact: Press Office
Email: news@agmm.org
Phone: (202) 383-9009
PIONEERING GENOCIDE SCHOLAR ROGER SMITH DONATES PERSONAL LIBRARY TO
THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MUSEUM OF AMERICA
Washington, DC – Dr. Roger W. Smith, professor emeritus of government
at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and a
co-founder and past president of the International Association of
Genocide Scholars (IAGS) has donated his personal library of books on
the subject of genocide to the Armenian Genocide Museum of America
(AGMA).
In making this gift, Dr. Smith shared the following thoughts: "I had
long been involved with various Armenian scholarly organizations, had
given talks about the Genocide, and especially denial, to many
Armenian community groups, but I had also been deeply committed to
educating a new generation of scholars who could carry on the work
begun by some of us twenty-five years ago. I offered my collection of
books to the Armenian Genocide Museum of America to provide materials
that could help educate scholars and policy makers about the Genocide,
but also as a kind of fulfillment, and continuation, of my association
with a people whose cause I had come to care about deeply."
Trustee of the museum and chairman of its building and operations
committee Van Z. Krikorian welcomed the gift as a valuable addition to
the resources being assembled to create a state-of-the-art museum
facility in the nation’s capital.
"As an educator and as a human rights advocate, Dr. Smith has
selflessly dedicated his time to speak on the Armenian Genocide at
international conferences, in lecture halls and in the classroom,"
Krikorian said. "In 2000 he was invited by the House International
Affairs Committee to testify in Congress about the Armenian Genocide
resolution then under consideration, and all Armenians owe him our
gratitude for that and so much more. Along with Robert Jay Lifton,
Erik Markusen, Vahakn Dadrian, Richard Hovannisian, Helen Fein, Robert
Melson, Israel Charny and many others, Roger Smith has been a true
pioneer in bringing the problem of genocide, and the consequences of
denial, to the attention of policymakers. His choice of the Armenian
Genocide Museum of America as the repository of his library testifies
to his continuing commitment to encourage new generations to study,
analyze, and solve the problem of genocide through prevention and
tolerance. This library complements our specialized holdings on the
Armenian Genocide and equips the museum with hard to find resources.
We are so very grateful to him for his generosity and express our deep
appreciation for his strong support."
In 1995, along with Robert Jay Lifton and the late Erik Markusen,
Roger Smith published a critical exposé of the Turkish Embassy’s and
the Institute of Turkish Studies’ campaign of denying the Armenian
Genocide in the groundbreaking article "Professional Ethics and the
Denial of the Armenian Genocide," which appeared in the journal
Holocaust and Genocide Studies issued by Oxford University Press and
the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Dr. Smith, who has written extensively on the problem of denial, is
the editor and co-author of Guilt: Man and Society and editor of
Genocide: Essays Toward Understanding, Early Warning, and Prevention,
a selective compilation of the presentations from the first biennial
meeting of IAGS at the College of William and Mary.
An educator par excellence who recently retired after a lifetime of
teaching, Dr. Smith continues as a leader in the field of human rights
and genocide education. He has served as the director of the Genocide
and Human Rights University Program since 2002. This is an intensive
summer studies program created by the Zoryan Institute based out of
the University of Toronto. Thanks to Dr. Smith, the two-week seminar
has hosted over the years dozens of specialists on the Armenian,
Cambodian, and Rwandan Genocides, the Holocaust, and other crimes
against humanity, and trained hundreds of students to identify the
early warning signs of genocide and the steps that can be taken toward
its prevention.
Dr. Smith has been the chairman of the Zoryan Institute’s Academic
Board of Directors since 2004. He also served on the Armenian
National Institute’s Academic Council, and in 2008 he was awarded by
the president of Armenia with the Movses Khorenatsi medal "for his
considerable contribution to the international recognition of the
Armenian Genocide."
The Armenian Genocide Museum of America is an outgrowth of the
Armenian Assembly of America and the Armenian National Institute
(ANI), catalyzed by the initial pledge of Anoush Mathevosian toward
building such a museum in Washington, DC.
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