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Leading death penalty scholar to speak Wednesday
Jan. 23, 2001
EDITORS: Robert Jay Lifton, a psychiatrist, historian and director of the Center on Violence and Human Survival at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, will speak Wednesday (Jan. 24) at 5 p.m. at Whittenberger Auditorium in Indiana University's Indiana Memorial Union. Lifton's presentation will be followed by concurrent group discussions led by faculty in IU's history, philosophy, criminal justice and religious studies departments.
Lifton's latest book, Who Owns Death? Capital Punishment, the American Conscience, and the End of Executions (William Morrow, 2000, with Greg Mitchell), explores the change in public opinion about the death penalty. His views may be of particular interest in light of convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh's recent decision to forfeit appeals of his death sentence.
Lifton also is Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the City University of New York and the Mount Sinai Medical Center. He has been particularly interested in the relationship between individual psychology and historical change, and in problems surrounding the extreme historical situations of our era. His other recent books include Destroying the World to Save it: Aum Shrinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism (Metropolitan Books, 1999); Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial (Putnam and Avon Books, 1995, with Greg Mitchell); and The Protean Self: Human Resilience in an Age of Fragmentation (Basic Books, 1993).
He will be available for interviews Wednesday morning and early afternoon. Please contact George Vlahakis, IU manager of media relations, at 812-855-0846 or gvlahaki@indiana.edu; or Julie Reed of the IU Center on Philanthropy at 812-856-4539 or jureed@indiana.edu. Arrangements also can be made for interviews with IU faculty who will be discussing the historical, philosophical and political perspectives.
This event is being co-sponsored by the Indiana Memorial Union Board; the IU Center on Philanthropy; the IU departments of History, Philosophy, Political Science, and Religious Studies; the IU School of Law; the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions; the Center for the Study of Democracy and Public Life; the IU Honors College; and the IU Wells Scholars Program. (George Vlahakis, 812-855-3911, gvlahaki@indiana.edu)