Director Steven Spielberg has announced his next project: a research center that will be used to figure out why genocide occurs and what steps can be taken to prevent violence around the world.
The Center for Advanced Genocide Research will be completed in partnership with USC Shoah Foundation, which has collected testimonials of witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides over the last two decades, according to the website Westside Today.
Spielberg founded the Shoah foundation some 20 years ago after releasing his Oscar-winning film "Schindler's List." He recently said its work is "far from finished."
"Now comes the next significant chapter, one that establishes the institute as one of the leading academic centers of excellence for the study of the Holocaust and genocides," said Spielberg, according to the website. "The potential is there for groundbreaking research."
The Genocide Research center will be located at the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
The center will focus on three areas according to the website, including:
-Resistance to Genocide and Mass Violence, focusing on acts of resistance and elements of defiance that can stop or slow a genocide
- Violence, Emotion and Behavioral Change, studying the nature of genocide and mass violence and how they impact "emotional, social, psychological, historical and physical behavior;" and
- Digital Genocide Studies, examining how data and testimonials from the Shoah Foundation can identify patterns of mass violence and resistance to it.
The Oscar-winning director said it seems like the work of the foundation is "yet to begin" in a recent statement.
"The world now has a beacon of hope in breaking the cycle that leads to mass violence," Spielberg said.
The said the center hopes to preserve the 52,000 survivor testimonies in the archives, while continuing to search for a way to end mass violence.
They have over 106,000 hours of testimony, which USC President C.L. Max Nikias believes gives a "voice to the voiceless and life to the lifeless," according to WestsideToday.com
"They provide us with the tools to transform hatred and bigotry into tolerance and understanding," Nikias said.
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