Monthly Archives: October 2014

Holocaust survivor to tell his story

All are welcome to hear David Tuck tell his story about surviving the Holocaust.

November 18, 4:15 PM, Science Center 101

David was born in Poland in 1929. Life drastically changed on September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. David and his family were deported to the Lodz ghetto, and then David was sent to Posen, a labor camp in Poland; after Posen, David was sent to Auschwitz, where he worked in a sub-camp building anti-aircraft guns, and eventually to Güsen II, an underground factory to build German aircraft.

On May 5, 1945 the Americans liberated Güsen II; David weighed 78 pounds. David then spent the next several months recuperating in refugee camps and then immigrated to the United States in 1950, where he has lectured widely about his experience as a Holocaust survivor.

A reception will follow.

Sponsored by the Department of Religion.

Interreligious Dialogue in Israel and the Middle East

“The Other Peace Process: The Role of Interreligious Dialogue in Israel and the Middle East”

Sunday, October 26
4:00 pm
Kohlberg 116, Swarthmore College
Featuring Rabbi Dr. Ron Kronish

Founder and Director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel (ICCI) since 1992, Ron Kronish is also a noted rabbi, educator, author, lecturer and speaker. He has lived in Jerusalem for the past 35 years, serving as Director of the Israel Office of the American Jewish Committee, Director of Staff Development and later Co-Director for the Melitz Centers for Jewish Zionist Education, and lecturer in education at Tel Aviv University and at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Dr. Kronish lectures to a wide variety of groups in Israel, including synagogue groups, Jewish community missions and Jewish, Christian and interreligious groups. In addition, he has been a scholar-in-residence in universities, synagogues and communities across the United States, Canada and Europe and in the Far East.

Educated at Brandeis University (BA), Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in New York (MHL, rabbinic ordination) and the Harvard Graduate School of Education (doctorate in philosophy and history of education), Dr. Kronish has published articles and essays on Jewish politics, faith communities and the peace process, as well as education, culture and contemporary issues in America and Israel. He has represented ICCI at the Vatican and at many international conferences, and is frequently consulted by media representatives for background information and briefings. In addition, he blogs regularly for the Times of Israel and the Huffington Post.

Dr. Kronish is the editor of a new book,: Coexistence and Reconciliation in Israel: Voices for Interreligious Dialogue (2015). In addition, he has edited: Towards the Twenty-first Century: Judaism and the Jewish People in Israel and America, an anthology in memory of his beloved father, Rabbi Leon Kronish, Toward the Third Millennium and Pilgrimage in a New Millennium. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife Amy and is the proud father of 3 wonderful daughters (and 3 wonderful sons-in-law) and the even prouder grandfather of 4 fabulous grandchildren.

Please join us for a lecture followed by refreshments and a question-and-answer session.

Hosted by J Street U and the Israeli Cultural Society. Funded by the Forum for Free Speech and Peace and Conflict Studies.

Militant Buddhism, Nationalism, Ethnic Identity, and Politics in Sri Lanka

A Talk on Militant Buddhism, Nationalism, Ethnic Identity, and Politics in Sri Lanka

“The Politics and the Anti-politics of the Bodu Bala Sena in Sri Lanka”

A Talk by Tudor Silva
Senior Professor of Sociology
University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

4:30 Thursday October 30 2014
Bond Memorial Hall
Swarthmore College

Professor Silva’s talk will focus on a group of Colombo-based militant Buddhist monks the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), evolved in the aftermath of the military victory of the Government of Sri Lanka over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009. In the backdrop of the resulting Sinhala Buddhist nationalist triumph and the tendency of the ruling elite to by and large ignore minority concerns and demands, the BBS articulates a populist Sinhala-Buddhist majoritarian position vis-à-vis ethnic and religious minorities in the country, including certain Muslim and Christian groups who the BBS claims are all out to destabilize the “Sinhala-Buddhist nation.” The demographic clustering of ethnic minorities in urban Sri Lanka and their apparent economic domination and visible presence in trade and commerce as well as in the religious and cultural landscape have enabled BBS to target them in their various propaganda campaigns. The movement presents itself as free of and opposed to party politics in is effort to represent Sinhala-Buddhist interests but seeks to expose whatever it identifies as harmful to the cultural integrity and wellbeing the majority community. Employing a range of propaganda techniques including public rallies, mass media, face book and rumor, BBS has managed to influence a section of the Sinhala public, including youth, business lobbies and public sector employees, shaping their opinions, perceptions and sentiments. The mistrust so generated has been instrumental in some recent outbreaks of ethnic riots in small towns in the Western coastal belt in Sri Lanka. While the BBS shares a lot with earlier Sinhala Buddhist campaigns, the direct involvement of militant Buddhist monks as cultural border guards publicly inclined to take the law into their own hands represents a new development in post-war Sri Lanka. The presentation will explore the implications of BBS for social harmony, multicultural heritage, ethnic reconciliation and political developments in the country.

Kalinga Tudor Silva is a Senior Professor of Sociology at University of Peradeniya. He has regularly served as a member of the Intercollegiate Sri Lanka Education (ISLE) Program teaching faculty in Sri Lanka for over twenty-five years. Professor Silva has published more than a dozen books and over fifty articles and book chapters. His research interests include ethnicity, caste, economic development, and social aspects of health. His latest book Decolonization, Development and Disease: A Social History of Malaria in Sri Lanka was published by Orient Blackswan in March 2014.

Daniel Hirschel-Burns ’14 awarded PJSA thesis award

Last week, the annual meeting of the Peace and Justice Studies Association was held at the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego.

At the closing banquet, Daniel Hirschel Burns ’14 was awarded the undergraduate thesis award. As Danny was unable to attend, Professor Smithey had the honor of accepting the award on his behalf.

We offer our congratulations again to Danny for his outstanding and now internationally-recognized work.

Prof. Lee Smithey received the 2014 Undergraduate Thesis Award from Randall Amster, Executive Director of the PJSA,, on behalf of Danny Hirschel-Burns ’14.

Daniel Hirschel-Burns, class of 2014

Another Philadelphian, Nico Amador, Co-Director of Training for Change, received the Peace Educator of the Year Award.

Nico Amador, Co-Director of Training for Change, received the Peace Educator of the Year Award

Sluiter to speak on theories of conflict resolution

From our friends in the Classics Department:

Please join us for the Annual Martin Ostwald Lecture

October 24th, 4:30 pm, Science Center 199, Swarthmore College

TOUGH WORDS, SOFT HEARTS
Ineke Sluiter, Leiden University

Sluiter will use theories of conflict resolution to examine ancient and modern debates on the right course of action and how they invoke arguments and rhetorical strategies derived from morality and self-interest. Examples will include Thucydides and the modern debate about the financial crisis in Greece.

100th anniversary of the start of World War I

Recognition of the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I-the Great War

Swarthmore College Peace Collection

Anti-conscription demonstration 1916

Wendy Chmielewski, Curator of the Peace Collection attended the “Resistance to War” conference at the University of Hull (UK), September 7-9, 2014 . The conference included presentations historians and other scholars from the UK and other countries focused on resistance to war from the mid nineteenth century through World War I. Chmielewski presented a paper on the role of women in fundraising efforts that financed the peace movement in Great Britain in the 1850s.

On September 30th, Anne Yoder, Peace Collection Archivist, spoke on World War I conscientious objection at the Kate Furness Public Library in Wallingford, Pennsylvania. This presentation was part of the Furness Library’s program recognizing the centenary of the Great War.

Yoder and Chmielewski will both be attending the “World War I: Dissent, Activism, and Transformation” conference at Georgian Court University (NJ), and co-sponsored by the Peace History Society, in mid October. Yoder will be speaking about WWI conscientious objectors, David and Julius Eichel. Chmielewski will present on the war and anti-rhetoric in the suffrage speeches and writings of movement leaders Carrie Chapman Catt and Jane Addams. Both papers will use resources housed in the Peace Collection.

Peace Collection staff have contributed articles on resistance to World War I as part of the new web site “Home Before the Leaves Fall, Digital Resources in the Delaware Valley on the Great War”. The web site <http://wwionline.org/> contains information about resources in the Peace Collection and Friends Historical Library on peace congresses leading up to the war, women efforts for peace from 1914 onward, conscientious objectors, the varieties of opposition to the war, and the work of British and American Quaker relief organizations.

Opportunities Beyond Swarthmore: Mellon Seminar 2015

MELLON DANCE STUDIES SEMINAR 2015

Applications from advanced graduate students, recent Ph.D.s, and junior faculty are invited for an intensive summer seminar on interdisciplinary research and teaching in dance studies. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, the seminar will be held June 21-27, 2015 at Northwestern University. Participants will engage with each other’s work as well as with the work of invited senior scholars. Accepted applicants will have their costs covered for tuition, room and board and, in addition, receive up to $500 to cover travel expenses. International applicants are welcome, as are applicants from all fields in the humanities and humanistic social sciences that border dance studies.

Please send a cover letter stating your research and teaching interests, curriculum vitae, writing sample, and two letters of recommendation to Dance Studies Seminar Committee, Northwestern University, University Hall 215, 1897 Sheridan Road, Evanston IL 60208-2240. Electronic applications (in Word or pdf) may be emailed to project assistant Jennifer Britton (j-britton@northwestern.edu) with the subject line “Dance Studies Seminar.” Deadline for applications is January 16, 2015.

The 2015 summer seminar is part of a multi-year initiative titled Dance Studies in/and the Humanities. A Mellon-funded partnership between three universities—Brown, Northwestern and Stanford—Dance Studies in/and the Humanities invests in emerging scholars in a growing field.