Journalist and author David Rieff will give a talk for the Holocaust Memorial Lecture as part of the Assembly Series at 11 a.m. Nov. 8 in Graham Chapel. The lecture is free and open to the public.
In his book, A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis, and in numerous articles and essays, Rieff tries to make sense of the ravages of war and gauge the effectiveness of humanitarian aid. His ideas about humanitarian aid are considered by many to be controversial.
While greatly admiring the ideals of aid workers, he has witnessed the stark divide between noble intentions and the suffering that knows no relief. His book discusses current American collective ideology regarding the desire to help people in need and notes that this conflicts with the harsh and overwhelming realities on the ground.
He posits that sometimes governments use humanitarian assistance to evade the hard work involved in ending wholesale suffering and genocide.
Rieff deals with a variety of topics that have an international focus.
His research is extensive, and much of his work is based on firsthand experience in many war- and famine-ravished places.
In addition to A Bed for the Night, he has written Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West; Going to Miami: Exiles, Tourists and Refugees in the New America; Los Angeles: Capital of the Third World; and The Exile: Cuba in the Heart of Miami.
His contributions as a journalist have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, Vanity Fair and The Washington Post, among others.
In addition, he is a contributing editor for The New Republic, with experience as an editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
This is the final program for the Fall 2006 Assembly Series.
For information, visit the Assembly Series Web page at assemblyseries.wustl.edu, or call 314-935-4620.