Philosophy Professor to Address Topic of Genocide

NEW PALTZ — Berel Lang, professor of humanities at Trinity College (Hartford, CT) will speak at the State University of New York at New Paltz on Monday, November 9 on the topic “Genocide and Group Rights.” The program is sponsored by the Philosophy Club in conjunction with the philosophy department at SUNY New Paltz.

Lang’s presentation will look at the term “genocide” which was coined during World War II. Lang has stated that few terms have the extreme connotation that “genocide” has acquired. He says, “That, in itself, is a clue to the existence of a group right to existence which run parallel (and is not reducible) to the individual right to existence.” Lang’s presentation will focus on whether there are other group rights and, if so, which groups have them. In addition, he will focus on what rights should or should not be included, and on what basis do either group or individual rights rest.

Lang has taught philosophy at the University of Colorado, SUNY Albany, Wesleyan University, and the Hebrew University. He holds degrees from Yale University and Columbia University. Lang is the author or editor of 16 books, including Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide; Mind’s Bodies: Thought in the Act; Heidegger’s Silence, and the forthcoming book, The Future of the Holocaust: Between History and Memory.

A reception will be held at 4:45 p.m. in Jacobson Faculty Tower 1010. The lecture will follow at 5 p.m.