At the 2025 Atrocity Studies Lecture—presented by the School of Education’s minor in Atrocity Studies and the Practices of Social Justice—human rights expert James Waller will explore “Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Mass Atrocity.”
The lecture takes place on Thursday, March 20, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in Bird Library’s Peter Graham Scholarly Commons (Room 114). The lecture also will be streamed online. More details and a Zoom registration link can be found on the Syracuse University Events Calendar.
James Waller
Drawing from his award-winning book, “Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing,” Waller will discuss internal and external factors that can lead ordinary people to commit mass atrocities if left unchecked and unexamined. By examining these forces, Waller argues that no country is immune to the potential for atrocity crimes and that this awareness can facilitate atrocity prevention.
On Friday, March 21, Waller will lead a Genocide Prevention Workshop as part of an all-day series of campuswide events to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Taking place in Huntington Hall 107 between 9 and 10:30 a.m., the workshop will present an analysis of genocide in the modern world that draws out the lessons to be learned in preventing genocide, further atrocities once genocide has begun and future atrocities when a society rebuilds after genocide.
Waller is the inaugural Christopher J. Dodd Chair in Human Rights Practice and Director of the Dodd Human Rights Impact Programs for the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut. His other books include “Confronting Evil: Engaging Our Responsibility to Prevent Genocide,” and “A Troubled Sleep: Risk and Resilience in Contemporary Northern Ireland.”
Other events during the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination are “Joiri Minaya: Unseeing the Tropics at the Museum” at the Syracuse University Art Museum; the book talk “Representation Revolution: Black Twitter’s Lasting Impact on Television,” with Sherri Williams (10:30 a.m.; Newhouse 3, Room 434); and human rights tabling and open houses between 1 and 5 p.m. at 113 Euclid, the Barner-McDuffie House, Disability Cultural Center, LGBTQ+ Resource Center and the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration.
Convening speakers from disciplines at the intersection of history, memory, and international human rights, the annual Atrocity Studies Lecture is supported by Lauri ’77 and Jeffrey Zell ’77. The 2025 spring lecture is co-sponsored by the following Syracuse University departments and programs: citizenship and civic engagement program, Department of Psychology, Humanities Center, Department of History, international relations program, Department of Political Science and the sociology department.
