Author Archives: eyankel1

Peace and Conflict Studies Senior Jasmine Rashid Launches Third Edition of VISIBILITY Magazine

Read the full article here

Congratulations to Peace and Conflict Studies student Jasmine Rashid ’18 on the successful printing of the third edition of VISIBILITY Magazine.

“I couldn’t be happier and I can’t wait to see the direction that VISIBILITY goes in the future,” says Rashid, who will graduate this spring.

“A Peace and Conflict Studies special major from Oyster Bay, N.Y., Rashid started the e-zine and magazine three years ago hoping to build a creative platform for underrepresented communities across campus. ‘Creating and running VISIBILITY has been synonymous with carving out a space for collective creativity,’ she says.”

“Available for free online, VISIBILITY is supported through the Swarthmore Intercultural Center (IC) and the President’s Office’s Andrew Mellon grant, which also contributed to printing 415 free copies.”

“‘What’s most important to me is that I think the content of this issue is really reflective of the moment, which is what we aim to curate—especially in terms of centering the voices, creations, and experiences of people whose identities are traditionally marginalized in media,’ says Rashid.”

Article credit: Kate Campbell, Swarthmore College Office of Communications

Two Peace and Conflict Studies Majors Named Mellon Mays Fellows

See full article here

The Peace and Conflict Studies Program at Swarthmore College is elated to announce the naming of Ruby Bantariza ’20 and Ariba Naqvi ‘20 to the new class of Mellon Mays Fellows.

The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) program aims to increase the number of minority students and others with a demonstrated commitment to eradicating racial disparities pursuing Ph.D. programs in core fields in the arts and sciences.

The program provides fellows with a faculty mentor, term and summer stipends, access to MMUF programming, including an annual regional conference, and additional benefits if they enter a Ph.D. program within 39 months of graduation. The fellowship was established in 1988 by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and initially involved eight charter members, including Swarthmore.

Congratulations!

Article credit: Mark Anskis, Swarthmore College Office of Communications

September 16, 2018 Symposium hosted by Swarthmore College Peace & Conflict Studies — Resisting Anti-Semitism: Past and Present, Local and Global

ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM

“Resisting Anti-Semitism: Past and Present, Local and Global” is a symposium to be held at Swarthmore College’s LPAC Cinema on September 16th, 2018, co-hosted by Dr. Sa’ed Atshan of Peace and Conflict Studies and Rabbi Michael Ramberg of the Interfaith Center and the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life. The subject of anti-Semitism has sparked heated debate in colleges and universities and we hope to model productive dialogue and engagement on this important issue.

Modern anti-Semitism, invented in 19th century Europe drawing on millenia of anti-Judaism, has caused incalculable harm to Jews. The harm it has caused is not limited to Jews, though. Modern anti-Semitism has also indirectly harmed other vulnerable groups, by misdirecting these groups’ anger towards Jews when in fact others bear responsibility for these groups’ oppression. After the Holocaust many people and institutions committed to oppose anti-Semitism and the cynical misuse of it, but in recent years anti-Semitism has experienced a public revival and committed anti-Semites and opportunists willing to exploit anti-Semitism have come to hold positions of power around the world. While it has proven frustratingly resilient, wherever it has arisen, anti-Semitism has encountered resistance and its opponents have found effective means of opposing it.

“Resisting Anti-Semitism: Past and Present, Local and Global” aims to seriously engage with the topic of anti-Semitism – the forms it has taken in the past and the forms it takes now, the ways it has been successfully opposed in the past and the ways it is being successfully opposed now. We will bring together academics, rabbis, activists, and artists, among others, with expertise in three regions – North America, Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa – and engage them in conversation with each other and the Swarthmore community. Enriched by diverse perspectives of our distinguished panelists, symposium participants will gain a deeper understanding of the form of prejudice and violence, an enhanced commitment to opposing it, and a strengthened ability to do so.

Sponsored by Swarthmore College Peace and Conflict Studies Program; Andrew Mellon Foundation; Swarthmore College Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility; and Swarthmore College Office for Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Development.

SCHEDULE

A summary of the schedule is posted first, followed by a more detailed schedule.

Schedule Summary:

9:00 – 9:30: Registration and Opening Remarks

9:30 – 11:00: United States Panel

11:00 – 11:30: Break

11:30 – 1:00: Europe Panel

1:00 – 2:30: Break

2:30 – 4:00: Middle East/North Africa Panel

4:00 – 4:30: Break

4:30 – 5:45: Keynote

5:45 – 6:00: Closing Remarks

Detailed Schedule:

9:00 – 9:30: Registration and Opening Remarks by Rabbi Michael Ramberg, Jewish Advisor, Swarthmore College

9:30 – 11:00: United States Panel Moderated by Dr. Gwynn Kessler, Associate Professor of Religion, Swarthmore College

United States Panelists:

M. Dove Kent, Executive Director, Jews for Racial & Economic Justice

Dr. Laura Levitt, Professor of Religion, Jewish Studies and Gender, Temple University

Eric Ward, Executive Director, Western States Center

11:00 – 11:30: Break

11:30 – 1:00: Europe Panel Moderated by Dr. Robert (Bob) Weinberg, Isaac H. Clothier Professor of History and International Relations, Swarthmore College

Europe Panelists:

Dr. Jonathan Judaken, Spence L. Wilson Chair in Humanities, Professor of History, Rhodes College

Rabbi Rebecca Lillian, Project Manager, Open Skåne Social Cohesion Initiative; Teacher, Lund University (Malmö, Sweden)

Dr. Laurie Marhoefer, Assistant Professor of History, University of Washington

1:00 – 2:30: Break

2:30 – 4:00: Middle East/North Africa Panel Moderated by Rabbi Helen Plotkin, Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion and Director, Beit Midrash, Swarthmore College

Middle East/North Africa Panelists:

Dr. André Aciman, Distinguished Professor, Graduate Center, City University of New York, and Author of Call Me by Your Name

Dr. Orit Bashkin, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of Chicago

Dr. Israel Gershoni, Professor of Middle Eastern and African History, Tel Aviv University

4:00 – 4:30: Break

4:30 – 5:45: Keynote by Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, Senior Rabbi, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah

5:45 – 6:00: Closing Remarks by Dr. Sa’ed Atshan, Assistant Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, Swarthmore College

HOW TO ARRIVE

The symposium will be held at Swarthmore College’s Lang Performing Arts Center Cinema on September 16th, 2018 and will be open to the public.

Swarthmore College is located at 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, PA, 19081. Free visitor parking is available in the Benjamin West Parking Lot on Chester Road (#5 on the Swarthmore Campus Map). The symposium will be held in Lang Performing Arts Center Cinema (#34 on the campus map).

From the Benjamin West Parking Lot, walk towards campus until you reach the large, tree-lined path (Magill Walk). Continue up the path until you reach the end of the path, then turn left and turn right at the end of the large building. The symposium location will be straight ahead.

Congratulations to Peace & Conflict Studies Student Taylor Morgan, Recipient of Truman Scholarship for Graduate School

The Swarthmore College Program in Peace and Conflict Studies extends a big congratulations to PCS student Taylor Morgan ’19:

By Vanessa Levy 21

Taylor found out this week that she is a recipient of the prestigious Truman Scholarship.

Thank you to the Swarthmore College Office of Communications for covering Taylor’s story and major accomplishment!

Link to article

Existence is Resistance: A Performance by Palestinian Drag Queen Madam Tayoush

Existence is Resistance: Palestinian Drag Queen Madam Tayoush

WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 2018, 7 – 9PM
SCHEUER ROOM

Photograph by Joni Sternbach

Download a flyer here: Madam Tayoush Poster

Performance Artist Elias Wakeem, also known as Madam Tayoush, is a queer Arab Palestinian artist living and working in Palestine. Through performance they/she examines the reaction of the audience to their/her personal story of the place they/she grew up in with its geographical, historical and political situations. Madam Tayoush has created a series of monthly radical queer drag ball parties in Jerusalem called “Jerusalem is Burning”.

Sponsored by Peace & Conflict Studies, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Sociology & Anthropology, the Lang Center, and the Sager Fund.

The Sager Fund of Swarthmore College was established in 1988 by alumnus Richard Sager ’74, a leader in San Diego’s gay community.

The fund sponsors Events focused on concerns of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities.

Open to the public.

Migration Stories: A Reading and Conversation – Mikhail Shishkin

Peace and Conflict Studies is proud to cosponsor:

Migration Stories: A Reading and Conversation with Mikhail Shishkin

Wednesday, April 25, 2018, 4:30-6 p.m.

McCabe Library Atrium

Refreshments provided

Free copies of Maidenhair will be available for students!

After working as an interpreter for Russian-speaking refugees seeking asylum at the Swiss border, emigre-dissident Mikhail Shishkin incorporated this experience into his novel Maidenhair. The stories he presents offer a more human(e) perspective that encourages empathy, that transcends statistics by delving deep into the stories of the displaced, and that emphasizes the power of storytelling as a means of preservation. Join us for a reading and discussion with one of Russia’s best living writers as we consider how art can help us understand the global refugee crisis. In addition to his reading, Shishkin, who is the only writer to have won all three of Russia’s top literary prizes, will speak about his work in Switzerland and take questions from the audience for a wide-ranging discussion.

Facebook event page

For more information, please contact José Vergara (jvergar1@swarthmore.edu).

Co-sponsored by the President’s Office Andrew W. Mellon Grant, the Global Affairs Program at the Lang Center for Civic & Social Responsibility, the Intercultural Center, Swarthmore Libraries, Russian Studies, German Studies, Peace & Conflict Studies, the History Department, and the Bryn Mawr Russian Department.

The World that Created Boko Haram: Gender and the Islamic Revolution in Northern Nigeria

Thursday, April 26, 2018 at 4:30 PM — Scheuer Room, Kohlberg Hall

The World that Created Boko Haram: Gender and the Islamic Revolution in Northern Nigeria

Starting in 1999, twelve northern Nigerian states began the process of reimplementing full shari’ia penal codes in response to massive grassroots demand. A few years later, the process was widely considered a failure and attention was turned to battling the ascendancy of Boko Haram. In 2002, a peasant woman named Amina Lawal was sentenced to death by stoning for committing the crime of zinā, or illegal sexual activity. A year later she was acquitted before attentive eyes worldwide. This lecture examines the historical and cultural factors at work in the call to reimplement sharia penal codes in Northern Nigeria, examines the stoning punishment in the Islamic tradition, and analyzes the questions of gender and the western reaction to Amina Lawal’s case.

Dr. Sarah Eltantawi is a scholar of Islam. She is Member of the Faculty in Comparative Religion and Islamic Studies at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA (Associate Professor), and a Research Scholar at the Middle East Center of the University of Washington . She earned her PhD in the Study of Religion in 2012 from Harvard University, where she was the Jennifer W. Oppenheimer Fellow and Fellow at the Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. She has academic fellowships at Brandeis University, UC Berkeley, and at the Forum Transregionalle at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin as well as the Freie Universität in Berlin. She obtained an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University and a BA in Rhetoric and English literature from UC Berkeley.

Her recently released book Sharia on Trial: Northern Nigeria’s Islamic Revolution (University of California, 2017), examines why Northern Nigerians took to the streets starting in 1999 to demand the reimplimentation sharia law. She uses the stoning punishment and the trial of Amina Lawal for committing adultery as her primary lens of inquiry.

Dr. Eltantawi is currently at work on a new book that takes up the rise of the of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt from 1928 – the present, focusing on the question of the group’s “political theology” and its place in traditions of political theory. Dr. Eltantawi has also published on issues ranging from early Shi’ite jurisprudence to perceptions of “post-modernity” in Nigeria to the revolution in Egypt.

She is also a political analyst, writer, and radio show host. Before taking up scholarship she had a career as policy and communications director of two American Muslim civil rights organizations in Los Angeles, Washington DC and New York City. She has been published in the New York Times, Reuters, Newsweek and more, and has appeared on the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and is a regular news commentator for Al Jazeera English. From 2011-2015 she published a regular column in Die Tageszeitung, Germany’s fourth largest newspaper, and she hosts the radio show Contemporary Islam Considered for Marginalia Review of Books, a channel of the Los Angeles Times Review of Books. She has also been selected for the 2016-2018 speaker’s bureau of Humanities Washington, a National Endowment of the Humanities sponsored public program dedicated to sparking conversation and critical thinking in the state of Washington.

This event is open to the public.

Sponsored by Peace & Conflict Studies, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Islamic Studies, the Lang Center for Civic & Social Responsibility, and the Department of Sociology & Anthropology.

Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr. on the 50th Anniversary of his Death

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Join the Swarthmore College community as we remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy on the anniversary of his death through reflection, conversation, and education.

Ballin’ During the Global War on Terror: South Asian American Sporting Cultures and the Politics of Masculinity

Date: Thursday, April 12, 2018

Time: 4:30-6:00 PM

Location: Kohlberg 228

Ballin’ During the Global War on Terror: South Asian American Sporting Cultures and the Politics of Masculinity

Stanley Thangaraj, City University of New York

Instead of universalizing masculinity (Kimmel 2005; Connell 1995), this talk theorizes the politics of masculinity through the taken for granted realm of sport (basketball) and the strange racial figure of the South Asian in the U.S. South. In particular, Thangaraj theorizes how South Asian American men, Muslim Pakistani American men in particular, stake claims through their American-ness through their sporting practices of the quintessential American sport of basketball. Through their basketball practices of “cool,” “swag,” and “manning up,” the young South Asian American men challenge their shifting racializations as “terrorists” and “model minorities” during this time of the global war on terror. Thus, South Asian American men manage the politics of basketball masculinity in relation to the black- white logic, in relation to the Hindu-Muslim binary, and in relation to the foreigner-American binary. Sport offers a space for these young men to offer their own renditions of American masculinity while also using the same logic of their exclusion as the compass for national belonging. As a result, these young men exclude various “Others” at the moment they insert themselves into American masculinity.

Bio

Stan Thangaraj is a Socio-cultural Anthropologist with interests in race, gender, sexuality, class, and ethnicity in Asian America in particular and in immigrant America in general. He is a former high school and collegiate athlete and coach who considers sport a key site to understand immigrant enculturation, racialization, and cultural citizenship. He is contracted with New York University Press for his monograph Brown Out, Man Up! Basketball, Leisure, and Making Desi Masculinity. His key communities of study are South Asian Americans. He also has a contract with New York University Press for the co-edited collection Asian American Sporting Cultures. In May 2014, his other co-edited collection Sport and South Asian Diasporas will be out from Routledge. He looks at the relationship between citizenship, gender, race, and sexuality as critical to understanding diasporic nationalism. Prof. Thangaraj has two new projects. His first project examines how Kurdish American communities embody, negotiate, challenge, and manage U.S. Empire. Instead of juxtaposing Muslim Kurdish women as victim of Islamic patriarchy, he is interested in how women assert agency and form identities on the ground while challenging mainstream U.S. racializations of them. The second project explores the spatialization of race, class, and sexuality in the construction of the Civil Rights narrative at the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. In this project, he looks at the relationship between celebrating Civil Rights history, the propping up of heterosexual black nationalism and social movements, and the gentrification that follows this discourse. Stan Thangaraj takes his intellectual inspiration from Women of Color Feminism and Queer Theory. Professor Thangaraj was awarded the “Comparative Ethnic Studies Award” from the American Studies Association.

This event is open to the public.

Sponsored by Sociology & Anthropology, Peace & Conflict Studies, Asian Studies, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Islamic Studies, and the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility

An Evening With Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg

Time: 7:00 PM

Date: Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Location: Science Center 101

Daniel Ellsberg‘s Ph.D. thesis at Harvard- published as Risk, Ambiguity and Decision- dealt with decision-making under extreme uncertainty, when evidence is “ambiguous,” scarce or contradictory. As an official in the Defense and State Departments and a participant in the study of US decision-making of Vietnam known as the Pentagon papers, he revealed the findings to the Senate and then to the press in 1971. For his unauthorized disclosures he was put on trial facing 115 years in prison. Charges were dismissed in 1973 because of presidential criminal misconduct against him which figured in the resignation of President Nixon facing impeachment.

Sponsored by the Center for Innovation and Leadership, History Department, Lang Center, Peace & Conflict Studies, Political Science Department, The President’s Office, and the Department of Sociology & Anthropology