 Monday 9 February 2009
Mass Violence as Integral Part of European Modernity - The dark side of Enlightenment
Lecture
by Henning Melber
Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
18.30
the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation,
Övre Slottsgatan 2, Uppsala
European modernity is based on fundamental norms and values emerging since the era of enlightenment. But the human emancipation is only one side of this process. The expansion of Europe into the other regions of this world and the oppressive nature of such expansionist tendencies as well as its legitimizing ideology is its flip side.
The lecture presents an overview on critical theories reflecting upon the limits to the liberating processes in the emerging industrial-capitalist societies as well as the mindset of European modernity and its value system as reflected in the dominant perspectives of progress and development. Special reference is made to the violent character of these processes and the forms of mass violence as an integral part of modernity.
Combined with the lecture is a presentation of the Development Dialogue no. 50 (“Revisiting the heart of darkness – Explorations into genocide and other forms of mass violence”), published by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in December 2008 on occasion of the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on Genocide. Copies will be freely available.
Coorganised with:
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