Recognition Versus Denial of Genocide: Art Films, Documentaries, and Graphic Novels

Round table organized by Joachim J. Savelsberg and Hakan Seckinelgin, 2018-2019 Paris IAS fellow

Presentation

How can films and graphic novels fight denial of genocide and secure recognition? How can they inform scholarship on issues of mass violence? Can they, in reverse, benefit from the work of historians, social scientists and other researchers? The round table addresses these questions in a time in which human rights agendas expand, but in which, simultaneously and paradoxically, denial persists. This is also a time when movements strengthen that subscribe to the same ideas and symbols that once gave rise to genocidal regimes.

Three panelists, two filmmakers and one scholar, will show and discuss segments of films, images of graphic novels, and related representations in the spirit of the above questions. Panelists are renowned filmmakers Serge Avedikian and Bernard George and Claire Mouradian, historian at the EHESS and curator of historic exhibits on the Armenian genocide.

Joachim Savelsberg and Hakan Seckinelgin, both currently fellows at the Institute for Advanced Study of Paris and organizers of the event, will facilitate the session.

Program

18:00   Brief introduction by organizers/facilitators

18:10   "La Ligne de Vie", a film by Serge Avedikian

18:25   Reflections by Serge Avedikian

18:40   Segment of "Le procès Tehlirian, la vengeance des arméniens", a film by Bernard George

18:55   Reflections by Bernard George

19:10   Commentary by Claire Mouradian on graphic novels and related representations on the Armenian genocide

19:30   Questions by facilitators and audience and responses by panelists

19:55   Concluding comments by facilitators

20:00   End of symposium