Monthly Archives: September 2009

Israeli Teenagers on Military Service

shmin-yellow-500

Israeli Teenagers Speak About the Israeli Occupation.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

4:00 p.m.

Science Center 101

The “Why We Refuse” Tour is a national tour of two Israeli women who are visiting the United States to speak about their experiences as conscientious objectors in the Israeli army. Maya Wind and Netta Mishly are part of an Israeli group called Shministim, Israeli high school students who have been imprisoned for refusing to serve in an army that occupies the Palestinian Territories.

Hosted by: Swarthmore Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Peace Collection, and the Peace and Conflict Studies Program

For more information, go to: www.WhyWeRefuse.org

Sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace and CODEPINK Women for Peace

Making Memories and Reconstructing Icons through the American Vernacular

The Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict

presents a lecture by

Jonathan Hyman

Documentary Photographer

9/11 Murals and Tattoos:

Making Memories and Reconstructing Icons through the?American Vernacular

Hyman’s photographs of public expressions in response to 9/11 have been exhibited at Ground Zero by the National September 11 Memorial Museum, at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, and was featured in Time Magazine.? In 2008 he toured Europe as a Cultural Envoy, sponsored by the American Embassy in Vienna, and the University of Graz, in Austria.

Hyman is Associate Director for Visual Culture and Conflict at the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict.

Monday, 14 September, 2009

Benham Gateway Conference Room (Admissions Building)

Bryn Mawr College

Reception on Terrace to follow

Poster Link: http://www.brynmawr.edu/aschcenter/asch908/2009-2010events/hyman91409.pdf

Directions: http://www.brynmawr.edu/campus/visiting.shtml

Visit the Asch website, www.aschcenter.org for Asch news and information on upcoming events.

Redefining Heritage in Multi-Cultural Societies: The next generation as primary stake holders in conflict resolution

Redefining Heritage in Multi-Cultural Societies: The next generation as primary stake holders in conflict resolution

A lecture by Sudarshan Seneviratne

2010-2011 Cornell Visiting Professor

Directior, Central Cultural Fund (UNESCO)

Professor of Archaeology, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

Monday, September 14

7:00 p.m.

Scheuer Room

Training for Change workshops Spring 2010: Accepting applications now.

ORGANIZING SKILLS INSTITUTE – Spring 2010

[information from Training for Change. For more information on all workshops, please visit http://www.trainingforchange.org/workshops]

This new joint project with Swarthmore College is a semester-long institute to teach core organizing skills. It is for activists looking for more than a 101 intro to organizing. It includes three weekend workshops plus one-on-one mentorship. Accepting applications now.

TO REGISTER OR FOR INFORMATION

Contact us at (215) 776-8444 or nico@trainingforchange.org. Additional information is on our website: www.TrainingForChange.org

ACT GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY

For over fifteen years Training for Change has been based in Philadelphia. We have led trainings in dozens of countries and worked with social movements in nearly every corner of the globe ? yet we always love working here at home.

In the past year Training for Change has led trainings locally for Casino-Free Philadelphia, ACT-UP, activists working on gun violence with Heeding God?s Call, Save the Libraries Coalition, Prometheus Radio Project, and more.

Work with an organization that wants to upgrade its facilitation, strategy planning, or training skills? Please contact Daniel Hunter or Nico Amador at peacelearn@igc.org.

TO REGISTER OR FOR INFORMATION

Contact us at (215) 776-8444 or nico@trainingforchange.org. Additional information is on our

website: www.TrainingForChange.org

ACT GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY

For over fifteen years Training for Change has been based in Philadelphia. We have led

trainings in dozens of countries and worked with social movements in nearly every corner of

the globe ? yet we always love working here at home.

In the past year Training for Change has led trainings locally for Casino-Free Philadelphia,

ACT-UP, activists working on gun violence with Heeding God?s Call, Save the Libraries

Coalition, Prometheus Radio Project, and more.

Work with an organization that wants to upgrade its facilitation, strategy planning, or training

skills? Please contact Daniel Hunter or Nico Amador at peacelearn@igc.org.

Please Join Us for A WINDOW ON THE WORK: ZANE BOOKER on Wednesday, September 23, 6 pm

The Department of Music and Dance presents A Window on the Work: Zane Booker on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 6 pm in the Troy Dance Lab, Lang Performing Arts Center. Mr. Booker and his company Smoke, Lilies and Jade Arts Initiative participated in the Swarthmore Project this summer, a two week residency program for professional dance companies and choreographers. Mr. Booker’s work generally focuses on telling the stories of African-Americans living with HIV/AIDS through multi-media dance-theater. During his residency at Swarthmore, he was able to explore a new creative process for his company involving researching the lives of cultural figures who have made significant impacts in the Civil Rights movement, such as James Baldwin and Josephine Baker.

Mr. Booker writes about his work and process:

“The working title of the “work in progress” is Portraits. The most exciting thing about the Swarthmore Project was that we could explore process. My work is not usually linear, but it is always character driven and I usually create movement first. During this process, we used acting techniques and historical research to create a persona before we created movement. The objective was to explore a process that would allow us to address the topics of: racism, classicism, sexism or homophobia.
How did we begin?

1. I asked the dancers to choose a historical person related to one or more of the suggested topics.
2. We researched and discussed the person( i.e. James Baldwin) and recorded our reactions to the discovered information.
How did their (Gloria Steinem, James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, Byron Hurt, E.Lynn Harris) story make you feel? What effect did it have on you emotionally?
3. We used several acting improvisations to become the character meeting the other characters. We kept digging.
4. I asked the dancers to write their reaction to the research. I accepted, a list of words, a poem or prose. From this document we started to create movement. I wanted each solo of movement to be like a monologue.

In the beginning, I directed movement and assigned task oriented improvisation. This was very different then, my normal process. Which often begins with me moving and the dancers following until we have a full phrase of movement to develop.

This time it was different. I moved much later in the process. And the dancers had much more information and personal perspective about the material we were using to create the piece. The improvisations were so rich.

In the last and most interesting task the dancers had to relate the text they had written directly: monologue of movement.

So, I do not want to talk about it as if it is a finished piece. It is a work in process based on historical figures that were/are important to the fight for civil rights for all.”

Mr. Booker will show excerpts from this work and will answer questions from the audience. This event is free and open to the public without advance reservations.

Please Join Us for A WINDOW ON THE WORK: ZANE BOOKER on Wednesday, September 23, 6 pm

The Department of Music and Dance presents A Window on the Work: Zane Booker on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 6 pm in the Troy Dance Lab, Lang Performing Arts Center. Mr. Booker and his company Smoke, Lilies and Jade Arts Initiative participated in the Swarthmore Project this summer, a two week residency program for professional dance companies and choreographers. Mr. Booker’s work generally focuses on telling the stories of African-Americans living with HIV/AIDS through multi-media dance-theater. During his residency at Swarthmore, he was able to explore a new creative process for his company involving researching the lives of cultural figures who have made significant impacts in the Civil Rights movement, such as James Baldwin and Josephine Baker.

Mr. Booker writes about his work and process:

“The working title of the “work in progress” is Portraits. The most exciting thing about the Swarthmore Project was that we could explore process. My work is not usually linear, but it is always character driven and I usually create movement first. During this process, we used acting techniques and historical research to create a persona before we created movement. The objective was to explore a process that would allow us to address the topics of: racism, classicism, sexism or homophobia.
How did we begin?

1. I asked the dancers to choose a historical person related to one or more of the suggested topics.
2. We researched and discussed the person( i.e. James Baldwin) and recorded our reactions to the discovered information.
How did their (Gloria Steinem, James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, Byron Hurt, E.Lynn Harris) story make you feel? What effect did it have on you emotionally?
3. We used several acting improvisations to become the character meeting the other characters. We kept digging.
4. I asked the dancers to write their reaction to the research. I accepted, a list of words, a poem or prose. From this document we started to create movement. I wanted each solo of movement to be like a monologue.

In the beginning, I directed movement and assigned task oriented improvisation. This was very different then, my normal process. Which often begins with me moving and the dancers following until we have a full phrase of movement to develop.

This time it was different. I moved much later in the process. And the dancers had much more information and personal perspective about the material we were using to create the piece. The improvisations were so rich.

In the last and most interesting task the dancers had to relate the text they had written directly: monologue of movement.

So, I do not want to talk about it as if it is a finished piece. It is a work in process based on historical figures that were/are important to the fight for civil rights for all.”

Mr. Booker will show excerpts from this work and will answer questions from the audience. This event is free and open to the public without advance reservations.

NEW Research Seminar: Strategy and Nonviolent Struggle, a global database

NEW COURSE IN PEACE & CONFLICT STUDIES
OFFERED BY GEORGE LAKEY
PEAC 071B Research Seminar:Strategy and Nonviolent Struggle

Mondays 1:15 – 4:00, Lang Center Conference Room

  • WHAT IF activists around the world who want to be more effective could turn to a database of actual cases, to get ideas for creative nonviolent strategies and tactics?
  • WHAT IF scholars and writers who are researching alternatives to violence could turn to a global database with thousands of cases where people used nonviolent action to struggle for justice and democracy?
Such a database is being built at Swarthmore College, and you can help.

This is a one-credit research seminar whose product will be a database to be mounted on a website for access by activists and scholars worldwide. The Global Nonviolent Action Database being built at Swarthmore College already has cases of “people power” drawn from dozens of countries. The database has crucial information on campaigns for human rights, democracy, environmental sustainability, economic justice, national/ethnic identity, and peace.

The course will be taught by the director of the database project, George Lakey, former Lang Visiting Professor for Issues in Social Change and an internationally-known authority on nonviolent action. The seminar is limited to 12 participants.

Students will be expected to research a series of research cases and write them up in two ways: within a template of fields (the database proper) and also as a 2-3 page narrative that describes the unfolding struggle. The seminar will include not only research/writing methods but also theories in the field. Of interest will be strategic implications for today drawn from theory and from what the group is learning from the documented cases of wins and losses experienced by people’s struggles.

“Working on the database project is the most empowering single thing I did during my college years.? It contradicted my cynicism about whether change is really possible, and showed me that people like myself can organize campaigns that matter.” – Shandra Bernath-Plaisted,’09.

 

If you want to join this course, use your Drop/Add form to register.For more information, email: glakey1@swarthmore.edu

If you want to join this course, use your Drop/Add form to register.

You are Invited to the first Cooper Event of the Year: The Theaters of Witold Gombrowicz and Michal Zadara

The William J. Cooper Foundation and the Department of Theater present a panel discussion of “The Theaters of Witold Gombrowicz and Michal Zadara” on Monday, September 7, 2009 at 4:30 pm in LPAC Cinema. For more information about this event, performances in the Live Arts Festival, and Acting Workshops click here. Hope to see you at one of these events or more!