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=Welcome to Center for Peace Justice and Reconciliation at Bergen Community College=

Genocide Awareness Week April 23 to April 27th, 2012




 * GENOCIDE AWARENESS WEEK APRIL 23 TO APRIL 27 CENTER FOR PEACE, JUSTICE AND RECONCILIATION **

Dialogue with Professor Cristina Haedo (A113)
 * = SUNDAY = || = MONDAY4/23 = || ** TUESDAY 4/24 **  ||  ** WEDNESDAY 4/25 **  ||  ** THURSDAY 4/26 **  ||  ** FRIDAY4/27 **  ||  ** SATURDAY 4/28 **  ||
 * || 12:00 to 2:00

Dissemination of ID Card Curriculum || 11:00 to 1:00: First showing of The Last Survivor (A104) 1:45 to 3: Showing of Diary of Immaculaee(Ciccone)* 3:15 to 5:15 Showing of Worse Than War(A104) || 11 to 12: Terrorism and Genocide Lecture by Dr. Itah Sneh, John Jay College (C313) 12 to 3: Interactive Workshop on Eliminationism, Peter Nelson, NY Director, Facing History (C313) 6 to 8: Melissa Hacker’s Showing of Academy Award nominated film on Kindertransports(A113)***in conjunction with Holocaust Remembrance Committee** || 12:00 to 2:00 Dialogue with Professor Cristina Haedo (A113)

6 to 8: Peter Balakian and Closing of Art Gallery(A113) || 1:45 to 3: The First Dance Written by Professor Ellen RosnerFeig (Ciccone)

||  ||  ** Armenian Art Gallery Exhibit: //Fractured History, Reconstructing Identity: Degrees of Westernization in Armenian Painting and Other Mediums// runs from April 3 to April 26 ** ** *Films will be followed with Q&A with Filmmakers **
 * The Films: **


 * My Knees Were Jumping: Remembering the Kindertransports **

In the nine months just prior to World War II nearly 10,000 children were sent, without their parents, to Great Britain from Nazi Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. These children were rescued by the Kindertransport movement. Most of the children never saw their parents again. Those courageous parents who had the strength to send their children off to an unknown fate soon boarded transports taking them to concentration camps. The story of the Kindertransports is an extraordinary piece of history-- unknown far too long. The children who lived the trauma and terror of being uprooted from secure homes tell amazing stories. Into the darkness of the Holocaust it is important to add true tales that are life affirming.


 * The Diary of Immaculaee: **

The Diary of Immaculaee reveals the horrific, yet inspiring, true story of remarkable women’s experiences in the midst of one of history’s most tragic events. Immaculaee Ilibagiza, and others who were there, will tell you what happened… and you shall never forget it. With powerful and emotional on- camera appearances from the Good Samaritans who kept Immaculee alive in Rwanda, and inspirational personalities such as Dr. Wayne W. Dyer and Carl Wilkins, this amazing story of a journey through the darkness of holocaust will touch your heart and soul.


 * The Last Survivor: **

The Last Survivor is a character-based, feature-length documentary film that presents the stories of genocide Survivors and their struggle to make sense of tragedy by working to educate, motivate and promulgate a civic response to mass atrocity crimes. As Survivors from four genocides and mass atrocities - The Holocaust, Rwanda, Darfur, and Congo - unite in a story of dignity and hope, the film focuses both on their activism and the deep-rooted connections that bind them as human beings. Having shot on location in five countries across four continents, the film focuses on the universality of the horror of genocide – combating the misguided notion that genocide is something that happens “over there.” Rather, the film asks its audience to consider genocide as an evil that has occurred on nearly every single continent and one that affects all of us as human beings.


 * The First Dance: **

Based on a true story, The First Dance is a multimedia performance (film/music/theater) focusing on the experience of genocide survivors in Armenia, Nazi Germany, Cambodia and Rwanda. Bergen Community College students will perform the piece.


 * Presenter Bios: **


 * Peter Balakian: **

Balakian is the author of the memoir Black Dog of Fate, winner of the PEN/Albrand Prize for memoir and a New York Times Notable Book, and The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response, winner of the 2005 Raphael Lemkin Prize and a New York Times Notable Book and New York Times and national best seller. He is also the author of Theodore Roethke’s Far Fields (LSU, 1989). His essays on poetry, culture, art, and social thought have appeared in many publications including Art In America, American Poetry Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The American Quarterly, American Book Review, and Poetry. Balakian’s prizes and awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship; National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship; Emily Clark Balch Prize for poetry, Virginia Quarterly Review 2007; Movses Khorenatsi Medal from the Republic of Armenia 2007; Raphael Lemkin Prize, 2005 (best book in English on the subject of genocide and human rights); PEN/Martha Albrand Prize for Memoir, 1998; the New Jersey Council for the Humanities Book Award, 1998; Daniel Varoujan Prize, New England Poetry Club, 1986; Anahid Literary Prize, Columbia University Armenian Center, 1990.

He is currently Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities in the department of English, and Director of Creative Writing at Colgate University. He was the first Director of Colgate’s Center For Ethics and World Societies.


 * Cristina Haedo: **

Cristina Haedo is a counselor and professor at Bergen Community College where she also focuses on promoting dialogue as an essential part of the community building process.


 * Melissa Hacker: **

Melissa Hacker has worked as an editor for National Geographic Television and the PBS/BBC American Cinema series. She is a graduate of New York University Film School and teaches there. She has been an assistant editor on many documentary films including the popular Paris is Burning, the 1988 Academy Award winner The Ten Year Lunch: The Wit and Legend of the Algonquin Round Table; Indians, Outlaws and Miss Angie Debo, a documentary film for the PBS history series The American Experience; and L.A. is Burning for the PBS series Frontline.


 * Vicki Hovanessian: **

Founded in 1995, Vicki Hovanessian Contemporary Art Gallery has played a pivotal role in introducing works of pioneering, contemporary artists based in Armenia to private collectors and museums in the United States. The gallery has mounted four or five monographic exhibitions per year devoted to mid-career artists that the gallery has represented, in addition to several group exhibitions per year.

In the early 1990s, while building an extraordinary international collection, Vicki Hovanessian served the position of Chairman of the Collectors Forum of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago. This fueled Hovanessian’s desire to launch a non-profit art space that would represent works by Armenian artists produced within Armenia to a wider audience. What is astonishing and singular is that Hovanessian’s acquisition of works by such legendary artists as Willem de Kooning, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, James Rosenquist, Pat Steir and Damien Hirst led to her ever-increasing interest in works produced by Armenian artists based in Yerevan. For Hovanessian, this approach would translate as a healthy balance of high art and social awareness. According to Hovanessian, there is no doubt that artwork by Armenian artists remain some of the most important and yet insufficiently studied pages on the account of late-twentieth century and contemporary world art. As Armenian artists continue to strive in gaining international acclaim, Hovanessian considers the recognition of their presence in the upcoming history of art to be of paramount importance.


 * Peter LeDonne: **

A former advertising executive and marketing executive, Mr. LeDonne has represented theatre, films, entertainment venues, personalities and record companies. He has written, produced and directed commercials for literally hundreds of theatrical productions including: Annie, The Wiz, Equus, Dracula, Evita, Woman of the Year, Sophisticated Ladies, Amadeas, Deathtrap, La Cage Aux Folles, Barnum, Singin’ in the Rain, Nine, Show Boat, Master Class, The Gin Game, Kiss of the Spider Woman. Mr. LeDonne is currently the Director of Community and Cultural Affairs for Bergen Community College.


 * Peter Nelson: **

Peter Nelson has a B.A. in Psychology from S.U.N.Y at Binghamton and an M.A. in Philosophy, C.U.N.Y. Graduate Center. As Director of the New York Office of Facing History and Ourselves, Nelson oversees an office of fifteen employees. He also creates and facilitates weeklong seminars and one and two-day workshops for educators. Prior to coming to Facing History, for fifteen years Nelson served as a teacher in New York City schools, including five years at Satellite Academy, a multi-sited transfer school for students who have not been successful in a traditional high school setting. At Satellite, Peter was involved in the on-going creative process and implementation of interdisciplinary team-teaching.


 * Itah Sneh: **

Tenured at the Department of History in John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Associate Professor Itai Sneh completed his doctorate at Columbia University. He also holds a law degree and a master’s degree in Eastern European Jewish History from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and a BA in Jewish History (with minors in International Relations, Biblical Studies and Yiddish Language and Culture) from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. His research interests and resulting publications include articles on human rights, U.S. politics, American foreign policy, terrorism, the Vietnam War, and the Middle East. His forthcoming book with Peter Lang Publishers is The Future Almost Arrived: Why Jimmy Carter Could Not Change U.S. Foreign Policy. His Torture Through the Ages is under contract with the Praeger division of Greenwood Press.