John K. Roth, the Edward J. Sexton Professor of Philosophy and director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College, will be the featured speaker for Keene State College's Sixth Annual Holocaust Memorial Lecture on Thursday, Sept. 18, in Keene, New Hampshire. The event is sponsored by the Cohen Center for Holocaust Studies at KSC.
Roth, a member of the California Council for the Humanities, will discuss Ethics After the Holocaust, at 7:30 p.m. in the college's Mabel Brown Room, L.P. Young Student Center. As part of his visit, he will also serve as keynote speaker for the Northern New England Philosophical Association's annual conference, a two-day event that will devote some of its sessions to Roth's work on the Holocaust, particularly in the area of ethics following the Holocaust. Both discussions, Roth says, will focus on material from his recent and forthcoming books.
Roth has chaired of the department of philosophy and religious studies at CMC and instructs classes on the Holocaust and American culture. "I have spoken many times at various Holocaust memorial events, but I am particularly pleased that a group of philosophers is interested in Holocaust-related topics," he said of the Keene event. "Relatively few philosophers have devoted sustained attention to that significant history, but the number is growing a bit, and I hope that my work has made a contribution in that direction."
Roth was named 1988 National Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement & Support of Education (CASE) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He joined CMC in 1966, after earning his master's and doctorate degrees at Yale University. In addition to lecturing throughout the U.S. and around the world, he has authored, coauthored, or edited more than 35 books, including: Holocaust Politics, Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust, and a revised edition of Approaches to Auschwitz, which has been widely used in college and university classrooms.