USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research Will Host the 2024 International Network of Genocide Scholars Convention

In recognition of its pioneering work advancing Holocaust and Genocide Studies since its inception in 2014, the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research has been awarded the honor of hosting the next biennial meeting of the International Network of Genocide Scholars (INoGS). The INoGS 9th International Conference on Genocide will take place in June 2024 at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles and coincide with the Center’s 10-year anniversary celebration.

Founded in 2005, the International Network of Genocide Scholars is one of two major global scholarly organizations in the field of Genocide Studies. Its mission is to foster cutting edge research on all aspects of genocide and other forms of collective violence throughout history. The organization holds international conferences every two years. Past INoGS conferences have been held in Mexico City, Mexico; Daytona Beach, Florida; Marseille, France; Jerusalem, Israel; Cape Town, South Africa; San Francisco, California; Sussex, UK; and Sheffield, UK.

“Being invited to host an international conference of this scale and prominence in the field is an honor that signifies USC's and the Center's international reputation as a leading academic hub for Holocaust and Genocide Studies research and teaching,” reflected Center Founding Director Wolf Gruner, Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies and Professor of History at USC. The interdisciplinary conference is expected to attract 200 to 250 scholars at all academic levels from everywhere in the world, including the Global South.

As the convention’s host and co-organizer, the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research proposed the theme for the 2024 meeting: “Genocide and Survivor Communities: Agency, Resistance, Recognition.” This theme takes full advantage of our location, as Los Angeles is home to a multitude of large communities of genocide survivors and their descendants, including from the Californian genocide against Native Americans, the genocide against Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, the Holocaust in Europe, the genocides in Cambodia and Guatemala, as well as other instances of mass violence in the Americas and the rest of the world.

As a major international academic hub, USC holds unique and extensive Holocaust and Genocide Studies research resources focused on survivors, including the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, with more than 55,000 survivor testimonies, not only from the Holocaust, but also from the Armenian genocide and the genocides in Rwanda and Guatemala. The USC Libraries house the extensive Holocaust and Genocide Studies collection, including the original transcripts of the Nuremberg trials and the materials of the New York Life Insurance settlement regarding the Armenian genocide. Unique primary sources in the Special Collections at USC include the Feuchtwanger Memorial Library, which also houses the private papers of dozens of emigrants from the Third Reich, as well as private collections from Jewish Holocaust survivors and liberators.

This important conference advancing international genocide studies will last several days and will be a significant undertaking. The Center is currently identifying strategic partners to contribute to funding, supporting, and promoting the 9th INoGS conference. Interested parties are invited to contact the Center at cagr@usc.edu.

Image above: Organizers and presenters at the INoGS 8th International Conference on Genocide, Mexico City, June 2022.