The 2008-09 Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series, hosted by the Department of History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will take as its theme “Measuring the Value of Human Life,” which will engage scholarship in history, bioethics, legal studies, the arts, and other realms to explore how value has been ascribed to human lives in courtrooms, labs, archives, boardrooms, and universities. Public lectures, panels, and film screenings will consider subjects ranging from the role of war and sacrifice in ancient societies to contemporary reparations movements. Events will examine efforts to compensate individuals and families for lives and limbs lost on the battlefield and in the workplace. We will consider attempts (from the religious to the technological) to purchase eternal life, and reflect on ways in which historians have measured and valued life stories. In sum, this exciting series investigates the many and varied approaches to the questions, what is life worth?

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Next Event:

Portraits on the Other Shore:
The International ‘Reminders’ Photojournalism Project

August 5th, 2008 by Editor

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The series is grounded in the work of University of Massachusetts Amherst alumnus Kenneth R. Feinberg, Special Master of the Federal September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 and author of the book What is Life Worth? The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9/11. Mr. Feinberg’s distinguished and wide-ranging career in mediation has included cases involving Agent Orange and the Dalkon Shield; most recently he oversaw Virginia Tech’s Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund.

This program is affiliated with The Feinberg Institute, a center for research and scholarship that will guide policymakers, the legal community, decision-makers and others as they grapple with the question, “How Much is a Life Worth?” To learn more about this initiative, see: www.umass.edu/feinberginstitute

UPDATE 9/14/08: See Hampshire Gazette.com Sean Sullivan’s Coverage of Ken Feinberg’s Keynote Address on the anniversary of September 11.

UPDATE 9/12/08: “Losses lend purpose to UMass institute” By Sean Sullivan Gazette Contributing Writer

UPDATE 9/12/08: “New Feinberg Distinguished Scholar in Residence to examine value of human life”

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KENNETH R. FEINBERG, Special Master, September 11th Victim Compensation Fund“The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund: Private Pain and Public Compensation”From the Provost’s Office: “Mr. Feinberg will address the circumstances surrounding Congressional enactment of this Fund, unique in American history. Mr. Feinberg will also address why the Fund succeeded in its mission but also why it is unlikely that the Fund will ever again be replicated or used as a precedent. It was a unique response to an unprecedented historical tragedy. In providing eligibility for the victims of the 9/11 tragedy, but no others, the statute creating the Fund raises important philosophical and political issues about the appropriate role of government in compensating innocent victims of life’s misfortunes.”This year’s Keynote Speaker is University of Massachusetts Amherst alumnus Kenneth R. Feinberg, Special Master of the Federal September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 and author of the book What is Life Worth? The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9/11. Mr. Feinberg’s distinguished and wide-ranging career in mediation has included cases involving Agent Orange and the Dalkon Shield; most recently he oversaw Virginia Tech’s Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund.

Listen to Kenneth Feinberg on NPR’s This I Believe

UPDATE 9/16/08 Ken Feinberg ’67 Speaks on the Value of a Human Life. Feinberg directed the $7 billion fund to assist the families of those killed or injured in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Watch video of his lecture.

UPDATE 9/14/08: See Hampshire Gazette.com Sean Sullivan’s Coverage of Ken Feinberg’s Keynote Address on the anniversary of September 11.

UPDATE 9/12/08: “New Feinberg Distinguished Scholar in Residence to examine value of human life”

UPDATE 9/12/08: “Losses lend purpose to UMass institute” By Sean Sullivan Gazette Contributing Writer

Please read featured respondent Margo Shea’s comments on Ken Feinberg’s Keynote Address. Please share your comments as well by clicking the comment button below.

“On September 11, 2008, Chancellor Robert C. Holub welcomed Kenneth Feinberg to campus and introduced his keynote address, a talk that kicked off a year-long series of events and lectures centered around the theme Measuring the Value of Human Life? Holub lauded Feinberg as “the country’s best known mediator,” and said that the 1967 UMass graduate is an example of “how far someone with a degree” from the university could go.Feinberg opened his remarks by reflecting that the seventh anniversary of 9/11 was a somber day, but also a glorious one, because it gave him an opportunity to give one day back to UMass, an institution that has meant so much to his personal and professional growth. He thanked UMass faculty, including Milton Cantor, Mario DePillis and Shelly Goldman, who taught him to think as an historian and to grapple with some of the most problematic and thorny issues facing a democracy by looking through an historical lens…”
Read More

Margo Shea is a Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst

Read the rest of featured respondent Margo Shea and other’s takes on Ken Feinberg’s Keynote by clicking on Comments below!

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Thursday, September 18, 4 p.m., Lincoln Campus Center, Rm. 917

DANIEL BOYARIN, Hermann P. and Sophia Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture, Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric, University of California at Berkeley; author, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism
CARLIN BARTON, Professor of History, UMass Amherst; author, Roman Honor: The Fire in the Bones

Please read featured respondent Michael Shapiro’s comments on this panel. Please share your comments as well by clicking the comment button below.

“Martyrdom and Sacrifice in Ancient Worlds was a spirited joint-paper delivered by Daniel Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic Culture at the University of California at Berkeley, and Carlin Barton, a professor of Ancient History at UMass Amherst. Centering their discussion on the mass suicide of Jewish rebels at Masada while under siege by Roman troops in the first century, Drs. Boyarin and Barton described how the story was interpreted in ancient Jewish and Roman cultures respectively. They did not focus on the suicide, however, as many historians have done, but on the massacre/sacrifice of the women and children by the Jewish men before they killed themselves. The question they posed was why did Josephus, the Roman historian responsible for telling the story of Masada, portray the murder of these women and children as noble? The professors argued that Josephus’s Roman and Jewish audiences would have agreed that the acts were noble, but for very different reasons.” Read More

Michael Shapiro is a Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

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Wednesday, September 24, 4 p.m., The Commons, 2nd floor, Studio Arts Building

CYNTHIA E. ROSENWEIG, Senior Research Scientist, Columbia University and NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
JAMES K. BOYCE, Professor of Economics; Director, Program on Development, Peace-building and the Environment, Political Economy Research Institute, UMass Amherst
DAVID GLASSBERG, Professor of History, UMass Amherst

UPDATE: Read Respondent Michael Shapiro’s comments on the event:  “Cynthia E. Rosenzweig, a biophysical scientist working on global climate change, opened her talk at the Feinberg Family Series panel, Sustainability: Measuring the Impact of Climate Change on Future Generations, by stating, “Anthropological warming is ‘unequivocal.”  Luckily for me, she explained what she meant.  Climate change is happening now and it is affecting people all over the world.  James K. Boyce, a professor of economics, began his presentation by asking three questions about climate change: Who benefits from the economic activities that cause the problem? Who bears the cost? And why can the “winners” impose these costs on the “losers”?  Rosenzweig and Boyce are both scientists, and their presentations focused on the science and economics of climate change, but they both stressed that morality needs to be interjected into discussions of the issue.  Decisions about how to mitigate and adapt to climate change go the heart of the question, what is the value of human life?…”  Read More

Michael Shapiro is a Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst

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September 25 – October 25, Central Gallery (Located in Wheeler dormitory in the Central residential living area. Please see the campus map link located in the “Links” sidebar for more information.)

UPDATE: Read Margo Shea’s comments on this exhibition that ends soon. Be sure to check it out!

“The “Nuestras Abuelas/Our Grandmothers” exhibition is a celebration of the legacy of Latina and Puerto Rican grandmothers’ struggles, responsibility, work, and love through the eyes of their granddaughters. By their focusing on their experiences as women, as workers and immigrants and survivors, as wives, mothers and grandmothers, the exhibition endeavors to offer a glimpse of the world and times in which they lived, the stories of which continue to inspire and motivate.

Installed at the Wheeler Residence Hall’s Central Gallery until October 26, 2008, Nuestras Abuelas is designed to honor relationships and what they teach us; the exhibition explores and celebrates the connections between generations of Latina women and between the past and present. As associate curator Waleska Santiago explains, the exhibition endeavors to preserve history by telling stories in a new historical language, a unique form of expression born out of the experiences and sensibilities of the women who participated in the project by sharing memories and photographs. What began as a conversation among friends became a creative testimony to family and identity. At the same time, it is an intervention that disrupts traditional histories that ignore women’s contributions and stories as the fabric of our lives.” READ MORE

Thursday, September 25, 7:30 p.m., in Herter Hall 227.

Shown in commemoration of the bicentennial of U.S. abolition of the slave trade.

UPDATE: Holly Fulton and her husband Bill Peebles will be in attendance to introduce and discuss the film!

Please click here for more information on Holly Fulton.

From the filmmakers: “In Traces of the Trade, Producer/Director Katrina Browne tells the story of her forefathers, the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. Given the myth that the South is solely responsible for slavery, viewers will be surprised to learn that Browne’s ancestors were Northerners. The film follows Browne and nine fellow family members on a remarkable journey which brings them face-to-face with the history and legacy of New England’s hidden enterprise.”

Please click here for more information on Traces of the Trade.

UPDATE: Read Mike King’s comments on the recent screening and discussion: “The imperfect process of recording history has a tendency to develop a selective memory and ignore the darkest little secrets – though some are not so little. Descriptions of the early years of the American republic noted in textbooks and classrooms tend to focus on the United States’ gradual development into a world power. Yet one of the primary drivers of its contemporary economic and social circumstances is categorically ignored: slavery and the international slave trade. The film, “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North,” directly attacks such historical inaccuracies. The pursuant discussion, conducted by Holly Fulton (one of the film’s participants) and her husband Bill Peebles, after the documentary’s viewing broached a series of wide-ranging historical and social topics…”  READ MORE

Mike King is BA candidate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst

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Saturday, September 27, 1-5 p.m., Herter Hall 601

ROBIN DIGIAMMARINO, President and Founder, Lodestar Mediation
Free, but pre-registration is required.
Email: publichistory@history.umass.edu

From the Lodestar Mediation website: “Lodestar Mediation works with individuals, groups and organizations to resolve difficult issues and problems impacting the workplace and the board room. By creating opportunities to discuss concerns in a confidential and impartial environment, Lodestar Mediation provides a setting and a process for clients to identify problems, explore options and create outcomes satisfactory to all involved parties.”

UPDATE: Read Margo Shea’s comments on the Mediation Workshop for Historians!

“On Saturday, September 27th, Robin DiGiammarino led a useful and interesting workshop for fifteen public historians and graduate students with the aim of developing participants’ understanding of conflict, mediation and negotiation and providing opportunities to practice some skills that are crucial to effective negotiation and mediation. DiGiammarino, an alumna of the UMass BDIC (Bachelor’s Degree with Individual Concentration) program, was introduced by Marla Miller, Public History program director. Miller explained that she had long thought mediation should be a part of graduate education in public history since practitioners are often confronted with projects that highlight competing aims and motivations of people who have a stake in the interpretation of the past. As public historians become more involved in controversial issues, it’s only going to become more important that we become adept at mediating between groups with competing agendas, at enabling all parties to a project to be heard and at navigating successfully through the murky political waters of presenting the past. Miller saw the History Department’s Feinberg lecture series as the perfect opportunity to introduce mediation to public historians…” READ MORE

Margo Shea is a Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

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JENNIFER HEUER, Assistant Professor of History, UMass Amherst
BRIAN OGILVIE, Associate Professor of History, UMass Amherst
ANNA TAYLOR, Assistant Professor of History, UMass Amherst
MELISSA MUELLER, Assistant Professor of Classics, UMass Amherst

(Left to Right) Jennifer Heuer, Brian Ogilvie, Anna Taylor, and Melissa Mueller

How do you pay for eternal life? Men and women have long sought the means that would allow them to acquire immortality, from heroic deeds to religious indulgences, or from the sorcerers’ stones to frozen heads. But how people in the past thought about the price of immortality is often very different from what we might expect in the twentieth-century. Drawing particularly on stories of ancient Greece, the medieval undead, and Renaissance alchemists, we will look at some of the ways people have imagined eternal life and will look at some of the ways people have imagined eternal life and its costs — both for those who obtain immortality and for those who help pay for its acquisition, whether willingly or unwillingly.

UPDATE: Read commentator Michael Shapiro’s analysis of this very well attended and lively discussion! “The bulk of the Feinberg Family Lecture Series panels and films consider the value of life on earth. How much should a family be paid when a breadwinner dies? When is it worth sacrificing one’s life? How much are slaves worth and what emotional prices do the decedents of slaves and slave traders pay? How much are societies willing to pay to keep the effects of global warming from killing millions of people around the world? These are important and provocative questions. On Thursday, October 2, three UMass historians and Melissa Mueller from the Classics department asked a different question, “What Price Immortality?” They examined the prices people have paid to get to heaven; what sacrifices people have made to be written about and discussed generations after their deaths; and what lengths people have gone to to prolong life on earth…” READ MORE

Michael Shapiro is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History.

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RICHARD LEWONTIN, Alexander Agassiz Research Professor, Harvard University
DIANE PAUL, Associate of Zoology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
LAURA LOVETT, Associate Professor of History, UMass Amherst

This panel will consider attempts by eugenicists in this country and elsewhere to place value on biological or supposed biological differences.  Early twentieth-century programs to sterilize the “unfit” in this country are now the subjects of official apologies in several states.  Yet the spread of genetic testing, new reproductive technologies,  and inexpensive DNA sequencing threatens to allow a resurgence of “selective” reproduction in many countries. This panel would address the history of eugenics, its intersections with scientific racism, and its possible resurgence today with the Human Genome Projects.

UPDATE: Read Michael Shapiro’s comments on the recent packed-house event!  “Richard Lewontin, a Harvard biologist and geneticist, ended his presentation by saying, “Buyer beware.”  As the final speaker in the Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series panel “Unnatural Selection: Eugenics, Race, and Ideas of Biological Value,” he was arguing that people have been led to believe that genes determine our traits, and that simply is not true.  He conceded that genes do influence some traits, but cautioned that there are many other factors, like environment and randomness, to consider.  Keeping with the theme of the panel, he was arguing that genetics is the eugenics of today.  To this day, many people believe that our bloodlines make us who we are and eugenics was the “scientization” of that idea in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and genetics is the “scientization” of that idea today. But science tends to simplify complex phenomena in sometimes dangerous ways.  Fortunately, for those at the panel, eugenics had already been explained.  For that we had the first two presenters.”  READ MORE

Michael Shapiro is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History.

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October 16, 7:30 p.m., in Herter Hall 227.

Please join us for a screening and discussion hosted by Laura Lovett, Associate Professor of History, UMass Amherst, and director of the Five College Women’s Research Center.

UPDATE: Read Mike King’s comments on the recent screening of Gattaca and post-film discussion!

“Though much of the Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series focuses on human life valuation by examining the past, the recent screening of the film Gattaca and the accompanying discussion delved into how the value of human life could be determined in the future. The event, hosted by Laura Lovett, Associate Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, remained grounded in historical precedent to evaluate future possibilities.”READ MORE

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