Journalist and author David Rieff, will give a talk for the Holocaust Memorial Lecture, as part of the Washington University Assembly Series, at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, November 8, in Graham Chapel on the Danforth Campus. The lecture is free and open to the public.
In his book, A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis, and in numerous articles and essays, Rieff tries to make sense of the ravages of war and gauge the effectiveness of humanitarian aid. His ideas about humanitarian aid are considered by many to be controversial. While greatly admiring the ideals of aid workers, he has witnessed the divide between noble intentions and the suffering that knows no relief. He believes that the current American collective ideology regarding the desire to help people in need often conflicts with the harsh and overwhelming realities on the ground, and that sometimes offering humanitarian aid is an evasion governments use instead of taking steps to end wholesale suffering.
Rieff deals with a variety of topics that have an international focus. His research is extensive, and much of his work is based on firsthand experience in many war- and famine-ravished places.
In addition to A Bed fo the Night, he has written Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West; Going to Miami: Exiles, Tourists and Refugees in the New America; Los Angeles: Capital of the Third World; and The Exile: Cuba in the Heart of Miami. His contributions as a journalist have appeared ed in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, Vanity Fair and The Washington Post, among others. In addition, he is also a contributing editor for The New Republic, with experience as an editor previously at Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
This is the final program for the Fall 2006 Assembly Series, Graham Chapel is located north of Mallinckrodt Center, 6445 Forsyth Blvd., on the University’s Danforth Campus. For information, visit the Assembly Series Web page at http://assemblyseries.wustl.edu, or call 314-935-4620.