Lecture on Terrorism and War at Holy Cross

WORCESTER, Mass. – Psychologist Robert Jay Lifton will present a lecture titled "Terrorism and War: Struggles with Apocalyptic Violence," on Tuesday, April 8 at 4 p.m. in the Rehm Library. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Robert Jay Lifton is a visiting professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance. Until recently he was Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at The City University of New York. He had previously held the Foundations' Fund Research Professorship of Psychiatry at Yale University for more than two decades.

Lifton's research interests include the relationship between individual psychology and historical change, and problems surrounding the extreme historical situations of our era. Since 1995, he has been conducting psychological research on the problem of apocalyptic violence, focusing on Aum Shinrikyo, the extremist Japanese cult that released poison gas in Tokyo subways. His book Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism was published by Metropolitan Books in October 1999.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, Lifton has been studying Islamist apocalyptic violence and American responses to the Sept. 11 attacks, including their own apocalyptic tendencies.

Lifton has published numerous books including Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial (Putnam and Avon Books, 1995), The Protean Self: Human Resilience in an Age of Fragmentation (Basic Books, 1993), The Genocidal Mentality: Nazi Holocaust and Nuclear Threat (Basic Books, 1990), The Future of Immortality: And Other Essays for a Nuclear Age (Basic Books, 1987), The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (Basic Books, 1986), and Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima (University of North Carolina Press, 1991).

This lecture is part of the Deitchman Family Lecture in Religion and Modernity series and is sponsored by the College's Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.