Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz is a truly eye-opening piece that layers themes of physical and mental confinement, race, suffering, and perseverance. The most complex aspect of his depictions, to me, is the role of the victims in this a gray zone of the just and unjust. While those in concentration camps are the people … More On Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz
As a human rights activist, I was incredibly fascinated by Laura Poitras’ 2014 film Citizen Four and especially drawn to the content and how it’s displayed. The narrative, though taking place mostly in Edward Snowden’s Hong Kong hotel room, played out swiftly and enabled the viewer to understand Snowden’s choices in how he ‘blew the … More Citizen Four: Effectiveness of Documentary
The 1933 “Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees” was the first real commitment to build a legal framework on behalf of refugees, specifically Russian and Armenian refugees (Article 1), and was ratified by nine nations in which France and the United Kingdom were included. The primary strength of the 1933 convention was the establishment … More 1933 Convention and Interwar Humanitarianism
In “Torrents of Emotion,” Historian Lynn Hunt argues that eighteenth century literature endorsed the modern human rights movement by developing personable characters with whom readers could empathize. Taking Hunt’s ideas into consideration, the opening of Pamela by Samuel Richardson allows the reader to directly relate to characters by drawing on techniques of the epistolary novel … More “Torrents of Emotion” in Pamela and Pilgrim’s Progress
The time had come. They knew troops would arrive for them, to take them away. And so six villages congregated and settled upon a mountain. A battle in midst of a World War had begun. … More Over a Century: It’s Time to Remember the Armenian Genocide
Humanitarianism is the organized compassion across political borders. It is generally transnational, intergovernmental, and neutral. However, humanitarianism is strongest when backed by factors such as politics, religion, or war, as proven throughout history. … More Letter to Bill Gates on Humanitarianism
To millions of people across the world, the term genocide refers to the systematic decimation of a group of people. Yet genocide in and of itself refers to a much broader sense of subjection, one which is explained through the roots of holocaust that generally lies in interwar periods and sinks back into the history of rising tension between two distinct groups. … More 21st Century: Genocide and the state of international activism
The question in Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men posed towards the beginning, when the author questions how a group of normal/sane policemen could “[shoot] some 1,500 Jews in the Polish village of Jozefow in the summer of 1942,” encompasses much of Browning’s analysis within his work. He investigates the motivation of the Holocaust perpetrators and attributes … More Holocaust: The Perpetrator’s Psych
Through this film we don’t explore the events in Auschwitz as a message of the historic barbarities that took place there, but rather as a reflection of denial. As humans, we often overestimate our own rightness and forget that there exists a world beyond that in our own minds…How do you even begin to educate a people whose history has been reshaped?
For millenniums slavery has infected cultures and civilization around the world, seeping its way into the histories of Babylon, Rome, and the Americas. Yet perhaps no slavery compares to that within the African continent, from which hundreds of millions of humans have been enslaved and trans-continentally exported for centuries. … More The African Slaveries: Distinction of Trade
