TISHK Center for Kurdistan Studies is organising the third seminar with a seminar titled Book Discussion: Being Human
Political Modernity and Hospitality in Kurdistan-Iraq.

The seminar will be presented by Dr. Fazil Moradi, a visiting associate professor at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, University of Johannesburg. He is also an associate researcher at the Institute for Social Anthropology, Austrian Academy of Sciences. Additionally, Dr. Moradi is an affiliated scholar at the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes against Humanity at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, Graduate Center—CUNY.

Dr. Fazil Moradi's publications explore a wide array of themes related to genocide, femicide, and the broader impacts of modernity's violence. His research covers historical and contemporary issues such as the destruction of the Kingdom of Benin, restitution of plundered artifacts, and the genocidal violence inflicted by modern colonial states. His work is cross-disciplinary, delving into topics like the juridical erasure of marginalized groups in the Middle East, the impact of chemical warfare on Kurdish populations, and the cultural memory of genocide. Dr. Moradi has also examined the translation of genocidal violence across different contexts and the challenges of representing such atrocities. His studies are marked by a deep engagement with justice, memory, and the possibilities of decolonial knowledge, often reflecting on the paradoxes inherent in modernity's legacy. His contributions are published in various journals and books, addressing both academic and public audiences.
The seminar will be moderated and led by Dr. Fateh Saeidi, the member of the Advisory Board of the TISHK Center for Kurdistan Studies.

Scheduled for Sunday, October 27, 2024, at 6 PM (Berlin time), the seminar will be conducted in Kurdish. The session includes a 10-minute introduction, a 30-minute presentation, a 25-minute Q&A session, and a 10-minute panel discussion and conclusion. Participants can join via Zoom using the provided link.

Being human: political modernity and hospitality in Kurdistan-Iraq

The Iraqi Baʿth state’s Anfāl operations (1987-1991) is one of the twentieth century’s ultimate acts of destruction of the possibility of being human. It remains the first and only crime of state in the Middle East to be tried under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, the 1950 Nuremberg Principles, and the 1969 Iraqi Penal Code and to be recognized as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Baghdad between 2006 and 2007. Being Human: Political Modernity and Hospitality in Kurdistan-Iraq offers an unprecedented pathway to the study of political violence. It is a sweeping work of anthropological hospitality, returning to the Anfāl operations as the violence of political modernity only to turn to the human survivors’ hospitality and acts of translation – testimonial narratives, law, politics, archive, poetry, artworks, museums, memorials, symbolic cemeteries, and infinite pursuit of justice in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Being Human gathers together social sciences, humanities, and the arts to understand modernity's violence and its living on.