Dr Waller is Director of the Summer Institute at the Department of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College which runs annual programmes intended primarily for full-time college or university teachers interested, or already teaching, in the field of genocide studies.

He also serves as Director of Academic Programs for the Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, an international NGO devoted to atrocity prevention.

James’ fieldwork includes research in Germany, Israel, Northern Ireland, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Guatemala.

During his previous Visiting Scholar tenure at the Institute, James carried out research in Northern Ireland which informed his latest book A Troubled Sleep: Risk and Resilience in Contemporary Northern Ireland (Oxford University Press, September 2021).

James has published extensively and his book Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing (Oxford University Press, 2^nd edition, 2007) was widely acclaimed.

In 2017, Waller was the inaugural recipient of the Engaged Scholarship Prize from the International Association of Genocide Scholars in recognition of his exemplary engagement in advancing genocide awareness and prevention.  He has written for The Washington Post, The Irish News, and The Conversation and is frequently interviewed by broadcast and print media, including PBS, CNN, CBC, the Los Angeles Times, Salon, National Geographic, and The New York Times.

In addition, he has published more than thirty articles in peer-reviewed professional journals, contributed over twenty chapters in edited books, was a co-editor of Historical Dialogue and the Prevention of Mass Atrocities (Routledge, 2020), and has written four commissioned policy papers and briefing reports.

James’ current research project is a comparative analysis of the literal and figurative notion of “walls” in deeply divided societies.  Grounded in the lived experience of people in deeply divided societies, the following forms of walls will be analyzed: physical walls of social separation, symbolic walls of identity separation, and hidden walls of geographical separation.       

Read more about Jim’s research here. 

Dr Waller is Director of the annual Summer Institute for Genocide Studies and Prevention at the Department of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College.

This year the Summer Institute will take place on 5-9 June at Keene College, New Hampshire.

The Summer Institute is primarily open to full-time college or university teachers interested, or already teaching, in the field of genocide studies.

Drawing on a global range of historical case studies, and current crisis spots, the 2023 Summer Institute will focus on the study, research and teaching of genocide prevention across all phases of the conflict cycle: 

• preventing genocide from ever taking place (upstream prevention or the “before” analysis of risk factors and warning signs),
• preventing further atrocities once genocide has begun (midstream prevention or the immediate, real-time response tools available during crisis), and
• preventing future atrocities once a society has begun to rebuild after genocide (downstream prevention or the “after” efforts to foster resiliency in a post-atrocity society).

The deadline for applications is 10 March 2023.

Read more about the Summer Institute here.