Lecture | Seminar
Genocide: Lessons from 20th Century History
- Date
- Thursday 8 May 2025
- Time
- Address
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 0.05
Genocide. The Nazi German-engineered extermination campaign against the Jews during the Second World War is understandably synonymous with the term, but right up to the present day, modern history has sadly witnessed multiple calamities deserving of the name. What lessons of history are relevant for what we are now witnessing in Gaza (a situation which authorities including the United Nations and the International Court of Justice have deemed worthy of the genocide designation)? What forces drive groups and societies in a genocidal direction? How do such phenomena as colonialism, war, propaganda, resistance, fear, and clashes of ideology factor into the equation?
On a day that marks the 80th anniversary of the victory over fascism in Europe, in a year that also marks the 60th anniversary of the start of the Indonesian genocide of 1965-66, the three expert participants in this seminar will seek comparative answers by focusing on two distinct historical times and three distinct locations: Japanese and German soldiers’ experiences on respectively the Chinese and Eastern fronts in the Second World War (Ethan Mark), and Indonesian state, society, and military at the height of the Cold War (Grace Leksana). The discussion will be led and chaired by distinguished global historian Remco Raben.
About the speakers
Ethan Mark is associate professor of modern Asian history at Leiden University. His works include Japan’s Occupation of Java in the Second World War: A Transnational History (2018) and an annotated English translation of Yoshimi Yoshiaki’s classic Grassroots Fascism: The War Experience of the Japanese People (2015).
Grace Leksana is assistant professor of Indonesian history at Utrecht University. Her works include Embedded Remembering: Memory Culture of the Anti Leftist Violence in Indonesia (2023).
Remco Raben is Associate Professor in Indonesian history, global history, and the history of international relations at Utrecht University and Professor by special appointment in colonial and postcolonial literary and cultural history at the University of Amsterdam. His works include Tales of Violence: Dutch Management of Information in the Indonesian War of Independence, 1945-1949 (with Peter Romijn, 2025)