Annual Dominick S. Graham Lecture Featuring Dr. Lisa Todd - FR-FR

Event date(s): March 19, 2026
Time(s): 07:00 PM - 09:00 PM
Category: Fredericton
Location: Fredericton

Investigating Atrocity: Military Violence, Civilian Suffering, and Propaganda in the Era of the First World War

Violence against civilians has marked every modern conflict, yet it has often been minimized, justified, or dismissed as an inevitable byproduct of war. This lecture examines the era of the First World War as a pivotal moment in efforts to document and prosecute such crimes. It shows how governments gathered evidence of abuses committed against French, Belgian, Namibian, Cameroonian, and Armenian civilians, circulated those testimonies in public propaganda campaigns, and later deployed them as proof of war guilt at the Paris Peace Conference.

In the decades that followed, most people dismissed these eyewitness accounts of violence, including wartime rape, as “atrocity propaganda.” Today, historians and activists are reassessing these sources as vital, if complex, archives of survivor voices. By placing 1914–1918 within a longer history of violence against civilians, the lecture invites us to reconsider how societies recognize suffering, assign responsibility, and seek justice in times of war.

Building: Wu Conference Centre

Room Number: Kent Auditorium