Monthly Archives: April 2014

TODAY: Learn about Joshua Evansc an active Quaker abolitionist

quakers_slavery_BM

Joshua Evans Event at Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College

Wednesday, April 9, 4:30 PM

Ralph Greene of New England Yearly Meeting will present a program on Joshua Evans (1741-1798). Evans was considered “singular” even by the Quakers. He was an early and active abolitionist, traveling as far South Carolina to bear testimony against enslavement, he worked on behalf of the Native Americans in New Jersey, his scruples against any support of slavery led him to wear undyed clothes, because the dyes used at the time were produced by slave labor, and he criticized the worldliness of Quakers of his time, suggesting among other things that the wearing of shoe buckles, where a simple lace would do, was vanity.

The manuscript Joshua Evans Journals at Friends Historical Library are being digitized and transcribed as part of a Digital Humanities Program.

Ralph Greene is very active in New England Yearly Meeting and the Friends Church in South China, Maine.

All are invited to Friends Historical Library, just inside McCabe Library, to hear more about the life and witness of Joshua Evans. Please forward this invitation to anyone who might be interested.

Iraqi cultural production after the invasion and occupation

The William J. Cooper Foundation and the Arabic section of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Swarthmore College invite you to “Debris and Diaspora: On Iraqi Culture”, a lecture by Iraqi writer and filmmaker Sinan Antoon

6:00 pm Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Science Center 101

Swarthmore College

sinan_antoonSinan Antoon, associate professor at the Gallatin School of New York University and fellow of the university’s Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, has authored The Poetics of the Obscene: Ibn al-Hajjaj and Sukhf and many essays on the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish. His translation of Mahmoud Darwish’s last prose book, In the Presence of Absence, was published by Archipelago Books in 2011 and won the 2012 National Translation Award given by the American Literary Translators Association. Antoon is also a poet and a novelist. He has published two collections of poetry in Arabic and one collection in English titled The Baghdad Blues. His novels include I`jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody and The Corpse Washer, nominated for the 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. His essays and creative writing have appeared in major Arab and international journals and publications, including The Nation, Middle East Report, Banipal, Journal of Palestine Studies, World Literature Today, Ploughshares, Washington Square Journal, and the New York Times. He is co-founder/co-editor of Jadaliyya.

In this lecture, Antoon will give a bird’s-eye view of Iraqi culture today. This lecture asks: What has become of Iraqi cultural production since the invasion and occupation? What are the major dynamics or cultural institutions, if any, regulating or influencing cultural production? What sort of cultural hegemonies are in place? Have the cultural practices of the previous era disappeared or re-emerged under a new guise?

Troubled Political Transitions: A Perspective from Egypt

Ann Mosely Lesch ’66, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, American University in Cairo, will present the 2014 Islamic Studies Annual Lecture, “Troubled Political Transitions: A Perspective from Egypt”.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

4:30 pm,

Science Center Room 199

Swarthmore College

Three years ago, Egyptians rose up to remove Hosni Mubarak’s corrupt authoritarian regime. Since then, they have been on an emotional roller-coaster, from the excitement of participating in three elections, to rising anger during the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidency, and then taking back to the streets to remove that president.

Today, they face uncertainty as to whether presidential elections will strengthen democracy or entrench the security state. Given Egypt’s centrality in the Middle East, it is important to examine and assess its troubled transition.

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Sponsored by the Islamic Studies Program, Arabic Section of Modern Languages & Literatures, Department of Political Science, and the Department of Sociology & Anthropology.

Why is the Conflict So Intractable?: 20 Years of Crisis in the DR Congo

Why is the Conflict So Intractable?: 20 Years of Crisis in the DR Congo

A lecture by Prof. Laura Seay, Colby College

Wednesday, April 9th

4:30 PM

Science Center Room 199

Swarthmore College

Laura_Seay_ColbySTAND (formerly known as “Students Taking Action Now: Darfur,”) is bringing Laura Seay to discuss the conflict in the DR Congo. She will explain the dynamics of the conflict, which is the deadliest war since World War II, and propose possible advocacy options. Laura Seay is a professor of Political Science at Colby College and is one of the top American experts on Central Africa. She has written for the New York Times, Foreign Policy, the Atlantic, and other prominent publications. Laura Seay has worked with the World Bank and is currently finishing a book called Substituting for the State.

Sponsored by the Political Science Department, the History Department, and Forum for Free Speech.

David Kennedy ’80 to speak on an applied ethics of crime control

“What if criminal justice had a Hippocratic Oath? Toward an applied ethics of crime control”

justice_oathDavid Kennedy ‘80

Director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City

April 14, 2014

2:00-3:30 p.m.

Science Center 199

Swarthmore College (directions)

Download a flyer (follow the link, and click on the gear icon)

David M. Kennedy (Swarthmore class of 1980 and an honorary degree recipient in 2011) directed the Boston Gun Project, whose “Operation Ceasefire” intervention was responsible for a more than sixty per cent reduction in youth homicide victimization and won the Ford Foundation Innovations in Government award. He is the author of Don’t Shoot, One Man, a Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America. Read more about David Kennedy.

Watch David Kennedy address the senior class of 2011 during the Commencement in which he received an honorary degree from the College:

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Sponsored by the Peace and Conflict Studies Program, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility.