Journalist and Harvard professor holds genocide lecture today

By: Chase Smith

Posted: 2/11/08

The University Programs Cultures and Concepts Committee and Students Take Action Now: Darfur (STAND) will present a lecture about genocide by Samantha Power, a journalist and senior advisor to U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, at 5 p.m. today in the Union Ballroom.

The topic of the lecture will be the relationship between the failures of foreign policy and genocide, according to the UP press release.

Power is a Harvard professor of practice global leadership and public policy and has also published a book titled "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," according to her profile on the Harvard University Web site. Her lecture will cover the material presented in her book.

Power has devoted a great portion of her life to the education of people on the matters of foreign policy and its importance in America's future.

In 2004, she was named by Time Magazine as one of the top scientists and thinkers of that year, according to the magazine's Web site.

She spent 2005 and 2006 working in the office of Obama and is currently promoting her latest book, a political biography of Sergio Vieira de Mello, a UN official who was killed in Baghdad, Iraq, according to the press release. The book is titled "Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World."

Before her lecture, Power will be showing the 2007 documentary "The Devil Came on Horseback" about the genocide in Darfur, Sudan, as personally experienced by former U.S. marine Brian Steidle, who returned home to tell his story, according to the UP press release. The documentary has won prizes at many film festivals and was an official selection at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, according to the film's poster.

Roberto Noensie, chair of the UP Cultures and Concepts Committee, discovered Power's lecture and believed it to be beneficial to the students at the UA.

"It will help give students a better understanding of American foreign policy and also to gain more understanding on the causes of genocide," Noensie said.

More information about "The Devil Came on Horseback" can be found on www.MySpace.com.