Peter Balakian will give Washington University’s Holocaust Lecture for the Assembly Series at 4 p.m. Thurs., Nov. 4 in Graham Chapel. The lecture, “The Armenian Genocide and America’s First International Human Rights Movement,” is free and open to the public. Graham Chapel is located just north of Mallinckrodt Center (6440 Forsyth.)
Balakian is the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities and professor of English at Colgate University, and a human rights activist who has been involved in the national and international movement for Armenian genocide recognition.
In his most recent book, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response, published in 2004, he describes the systematic deportation and murder of as many as 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks during World War I. The book was a New York Times Notable Book and a New York Times best seller.
The Burning Tigris followed a 1997 memoir, Black Dog of Fate, which won the 1998 PEN/Martha Albrand Prize for the Art of the Memoir and which appeared on the “best books of the year lists” for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and Publisher’s Weekly.
In addition, Balakian has written a book of poetry, June-tree: New and Selected Poems, 1974-2000, published in 2001, and a book on the American poet Theodore Roethke. He also has co-translated Armenian poet Siamanto’s Bloody News from My Friend. Between 1976 and1996 he edited with Bruce Smith the poetry journal Graham House Review.
Most notable among Balakian’s many awards, prizes and civic citations are a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, an Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and the Ahanhit Literary Prize.
He is a graduate of Bucknell University, where he received an undergraduate degree, and Brown University, where he received a doctoral degree.
For more information on this lecture or another Assembly Series events, check the Web site at http://assemblyseries.wustl.edu or call 314-935-4620.