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Conference on Denial Brings Together Natural and Social Scientists
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2014/06/19/denial/
By Admin on June 19, 2014
WORCESTER, Mass.--Four academic centers and institutions have teamed up
to organize a conference on "Manufacturing Denial and the Assault on
Scholarship and Truth," to be held on Friday and Saturday, October
24-25, 2014, at Worcester State University and Clark University in
Worcester.
The academic conference will bring together, for the first time,
social scientists and natural scientists to discuss the analogous and
interrelated, though not always identical, phenomena of genocide
denial and the denial of scientific truth--from evolution to climate
change.
The conference is co-sponsored and organized by the Strassler Center
for Holocaust and Genocide Studies; the Kaloosdian/Mugar Chair in
Modern Armenian History and Genocide Studies, Clark University;
Worcester State University; the Armenian Genocide Program, CGHR,
Rutgers University-Newark; and the National Association for Armenian
Studies and Research (NAASR).
The conference will open at Worcester State University on Oct. 24 with
a keynote address by Prof. Brendan J. Nyhan and a response by Prof.
Henry Theriault.
Professor Nyhan is assistant professor in the Department of Government
at Dartmouth College and a former Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan. His
research focuses on political scandal and misperceptions about
politics and health care. His work has been published in several
prestigious journals and he has served as contributor to the New York
Times politics/policy website The Upshot, and media critic for
Columbia Journalism Review. Nyhan is co-author of All the President's
Spin, a New York Times bestseller.
Prof. Theriault is chair of the Philosophy Department at Worcester
State University. His research focuses on philosophical approaches to
genocide issues, especially genocide denial, long-term justice, and
the role of violence against women in genocide.
The following day, sessions held at Clark University will explore
"Modern Strategies and Rhetoric of Denial," "Political Uses of
Denial," and "Countering Denial: How and When?" The conference will
conclude with a summing up and open discussion session. Further
information about the participants and schedule will be released at a
later date.
Since the 1980s, genocide denial, particularly of the Holocaust and
the Armenian Genocide, has generated a substantial body of literature
analyzing and documenting the methods and rhetoric of those who seek
to negate or obscure documented cases of mass violence. More recently,
an impressive amount of literature has explored the ways in which
various industries and political operatives have used the strategy of
"manufacturing doubt" to undermine the scientific consensus on
smoking, pollution, evolution, and global warming. Nonetheless, the
corruption and co-opting of scholarship for the purposes of fomenting
denial continues.
Although these efforts stretch from governments to corporations to
grass roots organizations, the focus of this conference will be on the
ways in which the corruption and co-opting of scholarship and the
academy function as part of a struggle that resonates far beyond
academia.
For more information, please contact Sarah Cushman, Strassler Center
Academic Program Liaison Officer, at 508-793-7764 or
[email protected].
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2014/06/19/denial/
By Admin on June 19, 2014
WORCESTER, Mass.--Four academic centers and institutions have teamed up
to organize a conference on "Manufacturing Denial and the Assault on
Scholarship and Truth," to be held on Friday and Saturday, October
24-25, 2014, at Worcester State University and Clark University in
Worcester.
The academic conference will bring together, for the first time,
social scientists and natural scientists to discuss the analogous and
interrelated, though not always identical, phenomena of genocide
denial and the denial of scientific truth--from evolution to climate
change.
The conference is co-sponsored and organized by the Strassler Center
for Holocaust and Genocide Studies; the Kaloosdian/Mugar Chair in
Modern Armenian History and Genocide Studies, Clark University;
Worcester State University; the Armenian Genocide Program, CGHR,
Rutgers University-Newark; and the National Association for Armenian
Studies and Research (NAASR).
The conference will open at Worcester State University on Oct. 24 with
a keynote address by Prof. Brendan J. Nyhan and a response by Prof.
Henry Theriault.
Professor Nyhan is assistant professor in the Department of Government
at Dartmouth College and a former Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan. His
research focuses on political scandal and misperceptions about
politics and health care. His work has been published in several
prestigious journals and he has served as contributor to the New York
Times politics/policy website The Upshot, and media critic for
Columbia Journalism Review. Nyhan is co-author of All the President's
Spin, a New York Times bestseller.
Prof. Theriault is chair of the Philosophy Department at Worcester
State University. His research focuses on philosophical approaches to
genocide issues, especially genocide denial, long-term justice, and
the role of violence against women in genocide.
The following day, sessions held at Clark University will explore
"Modern Strategies and Rhetoric of Denial," "Political Uses of
Denial," and "Countering Denial: How and When?" The conference will
conclude with a summing up and open discussion session. Further
information about the participants and schedule will be released at a
later date.
Since the 1980s, genocide denial, particularly of the Holocaust and
the Armenian Genocide, has generated a substantial body of literature
analyzing and documenting the methods and rhetoric of those who seek
to negate or obscure documented cases of mass violence. More recently,
an impressive amount of literature has explored the ways in which
various industries and political operatives have used the strategy of
"manufacturing doubt" to undermine the scientific consensus on
smoking, pollution, evolution, and global warming. Nonetheless, the
corruption and co-opting of scholarship for the purposes of fomenting
denial continues.
Although these efforts stretch from governments to corporations to
grass roots organizations, the focus of this conference will be on the
ways in which the corruption and co-opting of scholarship and the
academy function as part of a struggle that resonates far beyond
academia.
For more information, please contact Sarah Cushman, Strassler Center
Academic Program Liaison Officer, at 508-793-7764 or
[email protected].