Monthly Archives: February 2013

Quaker Rhetoric and the Birth of American Antislavery, 1657-1761

We would like to share this exciting announcement from our friends in the Department of Religion and the Friends Historical Library. Visit the Quakers and Slavery exhibit online in Triptych.

From Peace to Freedom

Quaker Rhetoric and the Birth of American Antislavery, 1657-1761

Lecture by Brycchan Carey

Wednesday, March 6, 7:00 pm, Friends Meeting House, Swarthmore College

In his book “From Peace to Freedom,” Carey shows how the Quakers turned against slavery in the first half of the eighteenth century and became the first organization to take a stand against the slave trade. Through meticulous examination of the earliest writings of the Friends, including journals and letters, Carey reveals the society’s gradual transition from expressing doubt about slavery to adamant opposition.

Brycchan Carey is Reader in English literature, Kingston University, London.

Sponsored by The Department of Religion and Friends Historical Library

Maps and directions 

Download a flyer.

 

The picture and transcription below are posted with the permission of the Friends Historical Library from the Tri-college online archive of documents and photos, Triptych. John Woolman published the second part of his book, Considerations on keeping Negroes, in 1762. The first part was printed in 1754.

Press and Woolmans book

From the Overseers of the Press Concerning Jn. Woolmans Negro Book

To the Quarterly and Monthly Meetings of Friends belonging to the Yearly Meeting which is held for Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  Our Friend John Woolman having wrote some Considerations on keeping Negroes Part the second, the same hath been inspected by the Friends appointed to oversee the Press, and are now printed containing fifty two Pages, and are to be sold by David Hall at the New Printing Office near the Jersey Market in Philadelphia at [sevenpence] per Piece. A considerable Number of them are lodged with our Friend James Pemberton, and with our Friend William Wilson at his Store in Market Street, opposite to the London Coffee House between Front and Water Streets, and if such Friends who are inclined to purchase would at the Close of a Monthly Meeting when Time permits give in their Names to some one of their Members the Books are ready to be delivered to the Purchasers by our said Friends at [4/9]. per Dozen that being no more than the Cost of publishing & binding them. Signed in Behalf of the Overseers of the Press aforesaid By Jams. Pemberton. Philad. 28. 3 mo 1762.

Duncan Morrow on 35 Years of Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland

Dr. Duncan MorrowLessons for Peacebuilders:

Northern Ireland and 35 Years of Community Relations Work

Dr. Duncan Morrow

The University of Ulster

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

4:15 – 5:30 p.m.

Science Center 183

Swarthmore College

(Maps and directions) (Download a flyer)

Dr. Duncan Morrow served for a decade as the Executive Director of the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council and is one of the most knowledgeable people in Northern Ireland when it comes to ethnopolitical conflict, peacebuilding, and community relations.

Northern Ireland is in a state of transition; large-scale organized political violence has all but ended, yet it remains a deeply divided society that, by many measures, is becoming increasingly segregated. On March 20, Dr. Morrow will speak at the college and assess almost 35 years of peacebuilding work during “the Troubles” and since the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1998.

Morrow is a co-author of The Equity, Diversity and Interdependence Framework  that has been highly influential in shaping community relations work in Northern Ireland.

He has recently returned to his post as a Lecturer in the Department of Criminology, Politics, and Social Policy at the University of Ulster, where he also serves as the university’s Director of Community Engagement.

This event is open to the public and is sponsored by the Northern Ireland Semester, Peace and Conflict Studies, the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, the Rotary Club of Swarthmore, the Provost’s Office, and Sociology and Anthropology

Duncan Morrow spoke on the subject of creating a shared future at the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland’s Observatory project’s Community Convention.

DANCE MATTERS II: open call for papers

The School of Media, Communication and Culture at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India is inviting papers for a two-day symposium titled Dance Matters II: Frontiers of Performance Research.  The symposium will take place on July 19 and 20, 2013,  at Jadavpur University.   Selected papers from the symposium will be published in a book.  Jadavpur University will provide local hospitality for the speakers at the university guesthouse.  The event is sponsored by UGC University with Potential for Excellence Programme: Studies in Cultural Processes.

Cultures are dynamic. So the question arises: What should be preserved?  How do we know what is worth preserving? This conference will interrogate these fundamental issues with a focus on dance. India, now synonymous with change, was not long ago identified with age-old traditions and socio-economic stagnation. In this fervor for newness and change the culture of dance and performance is experiencing a vibrant revitalization. There is greater awareness of and exposure to dance through new media and the circulation of new and traditional dances from live performances to Bollywood, music videos, youtube and staged performances, as well as through the interconnected networks of artists, presenters, and consumers. These conditions have increased the visibility of Indian dance in global culture. As established categories of high, low, classical, folk, contemporary, and commercial dissolve under the democratizing forces of markets and modernity, questions surrounding cultural preservation, heritage, innovation, and authenticity surface as urgent issues of the twenty first century.  Art, culture, and history (despite contestations) connect communities to their past and help them to forge collective identities. But the rapid pace of culture change has negatively impacted some of the more enduring aspects of India’s performance traditions. Moreover, the Indian state’s lethargic attitude to cultural institutions and cultural policy continues to maintain the same bureaucratic power structures. As old buildings are demolished for new shopping malls, Bollywood item numbers crowd out every aspect of media and culture, and dance/art instrumentally connect to some politically correct social agenda, there is need to rethink and re-frame the place of dance and culture in the new Indian modernity. How can we re-imagine and renegotiate the old categories of performance research and infuse them with critique and analytical insight.

Dance and performance research have grown as an important interdisciplinary field of academic study in the past few decades.  Interestingly, questions on modernity and subjectivities in the humanities and social sciences in recent years have shifted from the predominance of text and textual theories to questions of the body, senses, emotion/affect, and visual culture. Dance scholarship has much to research in these arenas.  The recent scholarship on Indian dance has looked at dance in the context of postcolonial modernity, invention of tradition, national identity, critical history, subaltern historiography, diasporic identity, and gender and politics. Our previous conference titled “Dance Matters” and the anthology by the same name explored some of these key issues surrounding Indian dance and culture with an agenda of democratizing the inherent hierarchy and elitism associated with Indian dance both in theory and practice. This conference will build on the previous attempt at expanding the notion of performance research and deepen its scope by placing Indian dance at the frontlines of intellectual debates on culture, identity, and sociopolitical change as India plunges deeper into the messiness of markets and modernity.  Some of the areas that may be explored are:

  • The role of cultural heritage and preservation within the discourses of innovation and globalization.
  • Dance as art to dance as everyday cultural practice through ethnographic research and questions on subjectivity.
  • The vernacularization of the classical and the reshaping of the performance landscape by market forces and visual culture. What are the new contemporary hybrid performances?  Do they fit in the category of dance? who are the new performers/choreographers and the new audiences
  • The role of new authorities, institutions, and gatekeepers in India and the diaspora.
  • Integration of performance and culture with developmental agendas through community participation.
  • Impact of India’s economic growth and rapid urbanization on the folk dance traditions in villages.
  • Traditional aesthetics reshaped through new sensory experiences in various urban and rural landscapes.
  • Pedagogical shifts and the role of tradition and innovation in the expressions of embodiment, gender, and self identity.
  • New dance narratives impacting on past gender codes and questions of sexuality.  The renewed meaning of femininity and masculinity in contemporary dance culture.
  • Dance as a social medium of communication, spectacle (the recent trend of hundreds of dancers performing together), civic engagement, and political procession.

Please send a brief abstract (350 words) including a title, name, address, email, phone number and institutional affiliation by March 30, 2013. Submit abstracts and direct queries to:

Dr. Nilanjana Gupta, Coordinator,
School of Media Communication and Culture
Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India 700032
Email: nilaguptaju_at_yahoo.com

Dr. Pallabi Chakravorty
Department of Music and Dance
Swarthmore College, Pa 19096, U.S.A
Email: pchakra1_at_swarthmore.edu

DANCE MATTERS II: open call for papers

The School of Media, Communication and Culture at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India is inviting papers for a two-day symposium titled Dance Matters II: Frontiers of Performance Research.  The symposium will take place on July 19 and 20, 2013,  at Jadavpur University.   Selected papers from the symposium will be published in a book.  Jadavpur University will provide local hospitality for the speakers at the university guesthouse.  The event is sponsored by UGC University with Potential for Excellence Programme: Studies in Cultural Processes.

Cultures are dynamic. So the question arises: What should be preserved?  How do we know what is worth preserving? This conference will interrogate these fundamental issues with a focus on dance. India, now synonymous with change, was not long ago identified with age-old traditions and socio-economic stagnation. In this fervor for newness and change the culture of dance and performance is experiencing a vibrant revitalization. There is greater awareness of and exposure to dance through new media and the circulation of new and traditional dances from live performances to Bollywood, music videos, youtube and staged performances, as well as through the interconnected networks of artists, presenters, and consumers. These conditions have increased the visibility of Indian dance in global culture. As established categories of high, low, classical, folk, contemporary, and commercial dissolve under the democratizing forces of markets and modernity, questions surrounding cultural preservation, heritage, innovation, and authenticity surface as urgent issues of the twenty first century.  Art, culture, and history (despite contestations) connect communities to their past and help them to forge collective identities. But the rapid pace of culture change has negatively impacted some of the more enduring aspects of India’s performance traditions. Moreover, the Indian state’s lethargic attitude to cultural institutions and cultural policy continues to maintain the same bureaucratic power structures. As old buildings are demolished for new shopping malls, Bollywood item numbers crowd out every aspect of media and culture, and dance/art instrumentally connect to some politically correct social agenda, there is need to rethink and re-frame the place of dance and culture in the new Indian modernity. How can we re-imagine and renegotiate the old categories of performance research and infuse them with critique and analytical insight.

Dance and performance research have grown as an important interdisciplinary field of academic study in the past few decades.  Interestingly, questions on modernity and subjectivities in the humanities and social sciences in recent years have shifted from the predominance of text and textual theories to questions of the body, senses, emotion/affect, and visual culture. Dance scholarship has much to research in these arenas.  The recent scholarship on Indian dance has looked at dance in the context of postcolonial modernity, invention of tradition, national identity, critical history, subaltern historiography, diasporic identity, and gender and politics. Our previous conference titled “Dance Matters” and the anthology by the same name explored some of these key issues surrounding Indian dance and culture with an agenda of democratizing the inherent hierarchy and elitism associated with Indian dance both in theory and practice. This conference will build on the previous attempt at expanding the notion of performance research and deepen its scope by placing Indian dance at the frontlines of intellectual debates on culture, identity, and sociopolitical change as India plunges deeper into the messiness of markets and modernity.  Some of the areas that may be explored are:

  • The role of cultural heritage and preservation within the discourses of innovation and globalization.
  • Dance as art to dance as everyday cultural practice through ethnographic research and questions on subjectivity.
  • The vernacularization of the classical and the reshaping of the performance landscape by market forces and visual culture. What are the new contemporary hybrid performances?  Do they fit in the category of dance? who are the new performers/choreographers and the new audiences
  • The role of new authorities, institutions, and gatekeepers in India and the diaspora.
  • Integration of performance and culture with developmental agendas through community participation.
  • Impact of India’s economic growth and rapid urbanization on the folk dance traditions in villages.
  • Traditional aesthetics reshaped through new sensory experiences in various urban and rural landscapes.
  • Pedagogical shifts and the role of tradition and innovation in the expressions of embodiment, gender, and self identity.
  • New dance narratives impacting on past gender codes and questions of sexuality.  The renewed meaning of femininity and masculinity in contemporary dance culture.
  • Dance as a social medium of communication, spectacle (the recent trend of hundreds of dancers performing together), civic engagement, and political procession.

Please send a brief abstract (350 words) including a title, name, address, email, phone number and institutional affiliation by March 30, 2013. Submit abstracts and direct queries to:

Dr. Nilanjana Gupta, Coordinator,
School of Media Communication and Culture
Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India 700032
Email: nilaguptaju_at_yahoo.com

Dr. Pallabi Chakravorty
Department of Music and Dance
Swarthmore College, Pa 19096, U.S.A
Email: pchakra1_at_swarthmore.edu

New course on Security and Defense: Nonviolent Strategies

Advising is coming up, and Prof. George Lakey will be offering a new course in Peace and Conflict Studies for Fall 2013!

SECURITY AND DEFENSE:  NONVIOLENT STRATEGIES

PEAC 040 / SOAN 040 H

Prof. George LakeyThreats to security exist on many levels: environment, community, nation, human rights, and others.  People naturally mobilize for defense, but often choose among a very narrow set of options.  This course broadens the framework to focus on modes of nonviolent defense which have had concrete application sometimes involving millions of people, but which remain “off the radar” of most strategic analysis.

The course will learn from cases of successful nonviolent defense of nations, communities, environmental resources, and human rights under threat.  Students will research and write “forgotten cases” for publication in the Global Nonviolent Action Database, giving them experience with the data of civilian resistance.  They will also take an example of threat in today’s world and begin to explore how a nonviolent strategy could be devised given the circumstances.  Through these activities students will gain research skills and broaden their view of the dynamics of struggle.

Green Islam in Indonesia

Green Islam in Indonesia: Lecture by Anna M.Gade’89

Fri., Feb. 22, 4:30 – 6:00 pm, Science Center L26

greenislamMuslim Indonesia is becoming known globally as a leader in faith-based responses to environmental challenges. Based on fieldwork in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, Gade will explain recent trends in this area. She focuses on a new movement in traditional Islamic education, called “eco-pesantren,” that embraces revitalized approaches in teaching, learning, and practice of global Islamic ecology with respect to multiple issues of concern, including deforestation, water management and climate change.

Dr. Gade teaches in the Department of Languages and Cultures of Asia and the Religious Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she is also a faculty member of the Center for Culture, History, and Environment. She is author of the books, “Perfection Makes Practice: Learning, Emotion and the Recited Qur’an in Indonesia” (University of Hawaii Press, 2004), “The Qur’an: An Introduction” (Oneworld Publications, 2010), and revising editor of “The Cham Rebellion: Survivors’ Stories from the Villages” by Ysa Osman (Phnom Penh: Documentation Center of Cambodia, 2006). Short videos on “Green Islam in Indonesia” are available on www.vimeo.com/hijau.

Gade received a B.A. from Swarthmore College in 1989 and a M.A., Ph.D., from the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Sponsored  by   Islamic  Studies ,  Environmental  Studies,   Peace  &  Conflict  Studies,   and  the  Department  of  Religion

Jean Genet’s THE MAIDS (3/1-3/3)

MaidsPoster2noearringThe Department of Theater presents Honors Acting Thesis THE MAIDS by Jean Genet in the LPAC Frear Ensemble Theatre March 1st, 2013 at 8PM, March 2nd at 2PM and 8PM and March 3rd at 2PM. Jean Genet (1910 – 1986) was a noted French author, playwright, and political activist. Genet believed in theater as an incendiary event and his plays reflect themes that ignore traditional plot and character psychology. Many of his works rely on ritual, transformation, illusion and interchangeable identities. Very loosely based on a true story of two maids who brutally murdered their employers, THE MAIDS takes us on a journey where role playing and reality dangerously melt together. The two sisters in the story are too intimate with each other, too close and only survive their lives in service by playing at becoming their mistress. Working for their glamorous and mysterious employer known as Madame, social oppression, sisterhood, enslavement, and sexual deprivation imprison these two minds in a dark game where nobody wins. The elaborate interchange leads the two sisters towards a neverending morbid fantasy and all that remains is the floating red train of Madame’s elegant dress…

Directed by Emmanuelle Delpech with Jeannette Leopold ’13, Sophia Naylor ’13, and Meryl Sands ’13. Costumes by Alexandra Huber-Weiss ’13.

Jobs backstage!

Dear students,
The THEATER DEPARTMENT is looking for help in the following areas: backstage crew, wardrobe or hair/makeup crew, light board operator, sound board operator, and video operator! If you can work the hours, we can pay you.

March 27-April 7: Production Ensemble, THREE SISTERS (All positions needed except Light Board operator)
Commitment:
3/27-3/28: 6-11PM
3/29: 1-11PM
3/30: 11A – 11PM
4/1-4/7: 6-11PM
4/6 + 4/7: 12-5PM

April 13-21: Directing Thesis, Jeannette Leopold, BURN THIS (Light and Sound Board operators needed)
Commitment:
4/13 -4/14: 11A-11PM
4/15-20: 6-11PM
4/20 + 4/21: 12-5PM

April 27-May 5: Directing Thesis, MERYL SANDS (All positions needed)
Commitment:
4/27: 11A-11PM
4/28-5/5: 6-11PM
5/5 + 5/6: 12-5PM

April 7-9: Night of Scenes Directing Workshop (Light and sound board operators needed)
Commitment:
5/6-9: 6-11P

Let us know if you have any questions or if you’re interested in working some, but not all of the hours.

Here’s the formal job description:

Job Title: Student Technician
The LPAC Student Technician will have various duties and responsibilities depending on the needs of each show. These may include but are not limited to operation of lighting and sound systems, maintaining and repairing essential equipment, helping with preshow preparations, cleaning and organizing storage of equipment and supplies and serving as run crew for performances.  If working show calls as a stagehand, black shoes, pants, and shirts are required.

Supervisor: Adam Riggar
Pay Category: 2

Poetic Injustice: Writing on Resistance and Palestine

A poetry reading and discussion by Remi Kanazi, poet, writer and activist.

Remi KanaziMonday, February 25, 2013

9:30 PM

Paces Cafe

Remi Kanazi is a poet, writer, and activist based in New York City. He is the editor of Poets For Palestine and the author of the collection of poetry, Poetic Injustice: Writings on Resistance and Palestine. His political commentary has been featured by news outlets throughout the world, including CNN, Al Jazeera English, GRITtv with Laura Flanders, and BBC Radio. His poetry has taken him across North America and the Middle East, and he recently appeared in the Palestine Festival of Literature as well as Poetry International.

For more information email: sfpatswat@gmail.com

For more information about Remi visit: www.poeticinjustice.net

Download a flyer

Sponsors: Students for Peace and Justice in Palestine (SPJP), Forum for Free Speech (FFS), Peace and Conflict Studies, Political Science, Arabic and French departments.

[Photo credit: DefPoetics, Creative Commons License]

Tarini Kumar ’12 – Corporate Social Responsibility

Tarini Kumar '12 - Corporate Social ResponsibilityAfter graduation, I left Swarthmore for Bombay, India. Shortly after, I started work at a Delhi-based start-up called Sankhya Partners.

The company is an investment, consulting and strategic advisory platform. They offer early-stage social enterprises business and financial advice, and, in some cases, proprietary growth capital. They also provide established firms a sustainable blueprint for their Corporate Social Responsibility programs. Sankhya Partners works with investors, entrepreneurs, companies, educational institutions, government and international organizations and individuals to enable change.

As an Associate and a Sankhya Fellow, I worked with clients on field research, and on putting together databases to expand the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practice. My work was centered around the unorganized labour sector. I worked on identifying and analyzing legislation that would help a social enterprise access funding for programs to up-skill workers. The training programs they run have already increased daily wages for labourers, and they hope to extend their programs for increasing financial inclusion and employability across India.

Recently, I left Sankhya Partners and have started working at Citibank. I’m assigned to the Corporate Affairs team, where I am focused on Citi’s Corporate Citizenship programs – primarily their work with women in rural communities who would not normally have the facility to save money. My responsibilities include communicating with the NGOs and entrepreneurs that Citi partners with to ensure that programs are running well. In addition, I am responsible for putting together their annual Corporate Citizenship Report for India.

In addition to working at Citibank, I am involved with an NGO called Know Your Vote. It’s a non-profit, non-partisan organization focused on raising civic awareness. So far, I’ve been working on our social media and outreach. Currently, we are working on setting up chapters in schools across Bombay, and preparing voter registration drives and other activities in preparation for the 2014 election.