Comparative Human Rights Lecture Series


he UNESCO Chair has established a regular lecture series that brings to the University a wide array of human rights scholars, educators, advocates, and policy makers, to address human rights issues from historical and global perspectives.

Dr. Charles Prewitt: A Bomb Created a Rebel

April 22, 2004
University of Connecticut, Storrs

Charles Prewitt supported World War II and served as a chemist with duPont, including two years on the Manhattan Project. As a result of Hiroshima, he became convinced that humans could destroy themselves totally with nuclear weapons. Hence, he left his career in the natural sciences and obtained a Doctorate in Education. It appeared to him that humanity could cease to exist as a result of knowledge in the natural sciences and could only be saved through application of expanded knowledge in the social sciences. In 1970 he retired as Professor Emeritus from Eastern Connecticut State University. He had taught thirty-eight years in universities, ten of those in Asia, including six in Afghanistan, and eight in the peace studies program at the University of Connecticut. While in Asia he wrote several textbooks. During retirement he has been active in a number of peace organizations and has been lecturing on peace
topics from Massachusetts to Tennessee. He now opposes all wars and all military expenditures by all nations.

Kathleen Patricia Thrane: The Impact of Photojournalism on
Human Rights Issues and How Human Perceptions Are
Influenced By the Media

April 15, 2004
University of Connecticut, Storrs

Kathleen Patricia Thrane is a painter, documentary-photographer, archaeologist, and activist. Her activism against apartheid included working with Dali Tambo, the son of African National Congress president Oliver Tambo and the founder of Artists Against Apartheid, in London during the 1980’s. In 1985-6, Thrane worked and lived in the townships of apartheid South Africa, using her skills as a photographer to document poverty and discrimination. Her work was difficult and dangerous. She entered South Africa in the guise of a fashion photographer and had to work in secret. In addition to her photography and painting, Thrane helped develop the sound track for the movie Cry Freedom; and she worked on concerts sponsored by Artists Against Apartheid, including the “Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute” in 1988, part of the campaign for Mandela’s release from Robben Island, where he was being held as a political prisoner.

Mr. E.S. Reddy: South Africa: Liberation and Reconciliation, Role of International Solidarity

April 8, 2004
University of Connecticut, Storrs

E.S. Reddy, a national of India, has been an active supporter of the South African freedom movement for more than half a century. As head of the United Nations Center against Apartheid for over two decades, he played a key role in promoting international sanctions against South Africa and assistance to the liberation movement, as well as in organizing the world campaign to free Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners.

After his retirement from the UN in 1985, he was a senior fellow of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (1985-1993) and a member of the Council of Trustees of the International Defense and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (1986-1992). He has written extensively on the history of the South African liberation movement and its leaders, United Nations action against apartheid, anti-apartheid movements and campaigns, and relations between India and South Africa.

His papers – which have been donated to several institutions - are a valuable resource for a study of the struggle for liberation in South Africa and its international repercussions. To read more on Mr. Reddy, please visit: http://www.anc.org.za/un/reddy/

Dr. Philip Iya: Implications of the Death Penalty
for Human Rights

April 1, 2004
University of Connecticut, Storrs:

Dr. Philip Iya is a Professor of Law, former Dean of Law at the University of Fort Hare, and currently Executive Dean of Research and Development, a status he holds at the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. He is, however, now on Sabbatical at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law where he heads the Research Project on the Application of the Death Penalty in Commonwealth Africa.

Dr. David Adams: Moving from the Culture of War to the Culture of Peace in the 21st Century

March 18, 2004
University of Connecticut, Storrs

Dr. David Adams retired in 2001 from UNESCO where he was the Director of the Unit for the International Year for the Culture of Peace, proclaimed for the Year 2000 by the United Nations General Assembly. Following a career as Professor of Psychology for 23 years at Wesleyan University (Connecticut, USA), he had come to UNESCO in 1992 to develop the Culture of Peace Program as an supplement and alternative to military peacekeeping operations. His responsibilities have included development of national culture of peace projects, research and development of the culture of peace concept and training in peace-building and conflict resolution. On behalf of UNESCO he prepared UN documents, including the draft Declaration and Program of Action on a Culture of Peace (1999). While at Wesleyan University, and previously at Yale University, he was a specialist on the brain mechanisms of aggressive behavior, the evolution of war, and the psychology of peace activists, and he helped to develop and publicize the Seville Statement on Violence. He is the author of several books and numerous publications in neurophysiology, cardiovascular physiology, genetics, ethnology, biopsychology, social psychology, cross-cultural anthropology, history, and ethics. A number of these studies have helped lay the scientific basis for work towards a culture of peace. http://www.culture-of-peace.info