Abel Endowed Lecture Series Guest Speakers
The advisory committee for the Dr. Harold Abel Endowed Lecture Series in the Study of Dictatorship, Democracy and Genocide will invite to campus distinguished scholars to discuss the past, present and future of worldwide genocide. The series focuses on the impact of historical events such as the Holocaust and mass murders in Africa, Southeast Asia and Central America.
Spring 2026
Khatchig Mouradian
'The Very Limit of our Endurance': Unarmed Resistance during the Armenian Genocide
Tuesday, March 31, 2026
6:30 p.m.
Park Library, Opperman Auditorium
Khatchig Mouradian is a historian of the late Ottoman Empire, the Middle East, and mass violence. He is a Lecturer in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS) at Columbia University and the Armenian and Georgian Area Specialist in the African and Middle Eastern Division of the Library of Congress. He serves as Co-Principal Investigator on two interdisciplinary research initiatives: the Connectivity and Individuality in Textual Traditions project, funded by a Humanities and AI Virtual Institute grant from Schmidt Sciences; and the Armenian Genocide Denial project at New York University’s Global Institute for Advanced Study. Since 2024, he has also taught in the College of Letters and Science at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
Mouradian is the author of the award-winning book The Resistance Network: The Armenian Genocide and Humanitarianism in Ottoman Syria, 1915-1918 (2021). The book received the 2022 Aronian Book Prize for Excellence in Armenian Studies and the 2021 Syrian Studies Association honorable mention.
Mouradian is the co-editor of After the Ottomans: Genocide’s Long Shadow and Armenian Resilience (2023) and The I.B.Tauris Handbook of the Late Ottoman Empire: History and Legacy (2025). He has published articles and book chapters on ethnic cleansing in the 19th century, concentration camps, unarmed resistance, the aftermath of mass violence, midwifery in the Middle East, and approaches to teaching history. He also serves as the editor of the peer-reviewed journal The Armenian Review.
At Columbia University, Mouradian is also Associate Faculty at the Harriman Institute for the study of Russia, Eurasia, and Eastern Europe, and the Institute for the Study of Human Rights (ISHR).
Past speakers
Debórah Dwork
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
Saints and Liars: The Story of Americans Who Saved Refugees from the Nazis
Hanako Wakatsuki-Chong
Wednesday, April 16, 2025
Executive Order 9066 and Japanese American Concentration Camps
Amy Simon
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Emotions in Ghettos during the Holocaust
Panel Discussion
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Learning Beyond Borders: Voices of Displaced Students
Jeffrey Veidlinger
Wednesday, October 11, 2023
Jews and Ukraine in Times of War: Lessons from the Past
Yascha Mounk
Tuesday, April 18, 2023
Video: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure
Dara Horn
Tuesday, November 1, 2022
Discussion of her book, People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present (Norton 2021)
Ian Urbina
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
Video: Migrants and Mercenaries on the Outlaw Ocean: A Discussion of EU Efforts to Build a Virtual Wall Across the Mediterranean
Judy Batalion
Monday, November 1, 2021
Author of The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos
Art Spiegelman
February 18, 2021
Virtual conversation with author and illustrator Art Spiegelman
Claudia Montero Miranda
April 24, 2019
Video: "Violence Against Women's Resistance Under Pinochet's Dictatorship"
Martin Lowenberg
November 7, 2018
Video: Holocaust Survivor Martin Lowenberg
Megan Bradley
March 21, 2018
"Ending Exile: The Meaning and Making of Solutions to Refugee Crises"
Laura Jockusch
November 9, 2017
"Jewish Honor Courts in the Aftermath of the Holocaust"
Jennifer Trahan
April 7, 2017
"From Rwanda to the Present: The Prosecution of Atrocity Crimes"
Debórah Dwork
November 17, 2016
You Too Can Make a Difference: Rescue and Rescuers during the Holocaust
Christine Ahn
April 7, 2016
Video: "Women's Leadership in the Korean Peace Process"
Steven E. Aschheim
November 17, 2015
"Why the Germans? Why the Jews? The Perennial Holocaust Question"
Allida Black
April 1, 2015
"Can a Declaration Combat Genocide?"
Steve Hochstadt
November 17, 2014
"Seeing the Holocaust from Shanghai"
Zoltan Tibori Szabo
March 24, 2014
"Right Wing Extremism in Central and Eastern Europe"
Murry Sidlin
November 19, 2013
"Terezín, 1941-1945: The Most Unlikely, Curious, Accidental, Enigmatic, and Inspiring ‘Improvised University’ in History"
Vera Meisels
April 7, 2013
Reading by Holocaust survivor Vera Meisels
Robert Melson
March 21, 2012
"The Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust Through the Extraordinary Experiences of Two Survivors Who Outwitted Their Killers"
Guy Stern
November 9, 2011
"Kristallnacht: A Night of Broken Glass, Broken Bodies, Broken Hearts"
Gérard Prunier
March 28, 2011
"The Partition of Sudan and the Crisis in the Arab World"
Claudia Koonz
November 9, 2010
"Genocide and the Moral Order in a Globalized World"
Gerhard Weinberg
November 9, 2009
"A New Look at Hitler and the Beginning of the Holocaust"
