Author Archives: Lee Smithey

Panel Discussion on Homelessness in Philadelphia

From our friends at the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship at Haverford. http://www.haverford.edu/cpgc

Panel Discussion on Homelessness in Philadelphia

Thursday, November 1st at 7:00pm, KINSC Hilles 109 at Haverford College

Free and Open to the Public

Dr. James Baumohl, professor of social work at Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research, and editor of the book Homelessness in America, will moderate a panel discussion featuring Reverend Brian Jenkins (executive director of Chosen 300 Ministries), Dr. Dennis Culhane (professor at the UPenn School of Social Policy), Jannie Blackwell (Philadelphia Councilwoman), and Liam O’Donnell (Arts Marshall at Broad Street Ministries).

The discussion will center around how local and national policy affect the population of people who are homeless in Philadelphia. Specific talking points will include how homelessness is affected by the persistent level of unemployment and sub-employment, the continuing foreclosures of homes, the impact of shrinkage in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program and, in Pennsylvania, the demise of General Assistance, and the demobilization of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. We will also discuss what programs which may be implemented to help those who are currently homeless in Philadelphia as well as those which could prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place. The panel will include ample time for conversation with the audience.

The event is organized by Elizabeth Wingfield ’12, Haverford House Fellow (www.haverfordhouse.org) and is sponsored by the Haverford College Center for Peace and Global Citizenship.

Contact: Stephanie Zukerman

Haverford College, Center for Peace and Global Citizenship

610-795-6492 (phone)

Dr. Jonathan Kuttab on Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

“Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”

Dr. Jonathan Kuttab

Thursday, November 1, 2012

4:30 p.m.

Science Center 101

Swarthmore College

Students for Peace and Justice in Palestine are hosting Dr. Jonathan Kuttab, a leading human rights lawyer in Israel and Palestine, who co-founded the Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence, Al-Haq, and the Mandela Institute for Political Prisoners. He also co-founded the Human Rights Information and Documentation Systems. He is the Chairman of the Board of Bethlehem Bible College and of Holy Land Trust.

The lecture will discuss the use of law as an instrument of policy by Israel to continue the occupation, whether the situation in Israel/Palestine defines a state of apartheid, and how international law and the International Criminal Court (ICC) can be used to find a just resolution.

Sponsored by Students for Peace and Justice in Palestine and the Forum for Free Speech

Graphic novels, memory, and war in Lebanon

“Remembering a past that has hardly passed”

Carla Calargé

November 5th, 4:30-5:30pm

Keith Room (Lang Center)

While the war that ravaged Lebanon between 1975 and 1990 can be described as a microcosm of the conflicts plaguing the Middle East, persistent socio-historical factors have, until recently, suppressed its discussion and effectively silenced its memory. Recent emerging accounts have started to unearth this past, whether to understand it, heal its wounds, or extract lessons for the future.

This talk discusses two graphic novels by Lebanese women who grew up during the war: Je me souviens. Beyrouth published by Zeina AbiRached in 2009, and Lamia Ziadé’s Beyrouth 1975-1990 published in 2010. A close examination of these works will reveal the tension between the need to remember, and the limitations of remembering in a context largely defined by collective and state-sponsored amnesia.

Carla Calargé is Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Florida Atlantic University. Her work focuses on the Francophone Arab novels and comics.

Debating for Democracy on the Road

From our friends at the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility:

Debating for Democracy (D4D) on the Road

Saturday, November 3 @ Widener University in Chester, PA10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

D4D on the Road is a one-day training workshop held at Project Pericles campuses around the country. The program is designed to provide novice and seasoned political activists with the tools and tactics they need to get their message across to community leaders, elected officials, the media, and other influential people and organizations. Workshop participants will learn how to analyze federal and state legislation, contact their elected officials and the news media and get involved in elections.

The workshop will be led by Soapbox Consulting, a Washington DC based organization headed by Christopher Kush, the author of The One-Hour Activist. Soapbox is a leading provider of training seminars, workshops, and lobby days for many national associations. The One-Hour Activist, provides advice from elected officials, professional organizers, lobbyists, and journalists on political advocacy.

Quaker Public Policy Institute and Lobby Day

Any Peace and Conflict Studies folks interested in an opportunity to “lobby your member of Congress for a more moral federal budget”?

The Friends Committee on National Legislation’s Quaker Public Policy Institute and Lobby Day is coming up November 15-16, 2012. Find more information at http://fcnl.org/events/annual_meeting/Lobby2012

UPDATE 10/31/12: Young Adult Friends who are members of a Philadelphia Yearly Meeting could receive some financial assistance to come to QPPI.

Contact:

Rachel Kent

Program Assistant for Nuclear Disarmament

Friends Committee on National Legislation

202-903-2518 / rachel@fcnl.org

Honors PCS alum Reina Chano ’09 returns to speak on campus

Reina Chano ’09, Honors Peace and Conflict Studies minor and recipient of the 2010 Elise Boulding Award, will return to campus on November 5 to speak at an event organized by the Department of History. Welcome back, Reina!

HISTORY WITH A FUTURE

Conversation with Reina Chano ’09

November 5, 2012; Trotter 303; 4:30pm

Come hear Reina Chano ’09 speak about her experience working in international development for non-profit organization OIC International as well as her recent school relaunch at the University of Pennsylvania as a student in the Masters of Science, Historic Preservation Planning program.

Light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP to history@swarthmore.edu if you plan to attend.

Lee Smithey to speak during Garnet Weekend

Culture and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland

Lee Smithey

Associate professor

Department of Sociology and Anthropology

Coordinator, Peace and Conflict Studies Program

Saturday, October 27, 2012

3:00-4:00 p.m.

Science Center 199

As part of Garnet Weekend 2012, Lee Smithey will offer a faculty talk based on his recent book, Unionists, Loyalists, and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland (Oxford 2011)

Many organizations and communities in Northern Ireland have used public ritual and symbols, such as parades, bonfires, murals, and commemorations to build and sustain collective identities during the region’s longstanding conflict. However, Northern Ireland is now in an important phase of conflict transformation. What role, if any, can symbolic rituals play in dealing with the past and improving community relations? Emphasis will be placed on Protestant unionists, and loyalists.

POSTPONED Roth ’84 Lecture on Human Rights and International Law

[This event has been postponed. Stay tuned to this blog for updates.]

COMING TO TERMS WITH RUTHLESSNESS: Human Rights Violations, Moral Outrage, and the Role of International Law

Brad Roth ‘84

Professor of Law, Wayne State University

Monday, October 29, 2012

4:30 PM

Trotter 301

Professor Brad Roth, Swarthmore Class of 1984, teaches political theory and international law at Wayne State University. His recent book, Sovereign Equality and Moral Disagreement (Oxford University Press, 2011), applies principles of political morality to the relationship between international and domestic legal authority.

Sponsored by Departments of Political Science, Peace and Conflict Studies, and History

Prof. Denise Crossan lecture on social entrepreneurship

The Creative Destruction of Capitalism and the Rise of Social Entrepreneurship

A lecture by

Dr. Denise Crossan

Assistant Professor in Social Entrepreneurship

School of Business

Trinity College Dublin

Regional Director of the Swarthmore College Northern Ireland Semester Programme

Monday, November 5, 2012

4:15 p.m.

Science Center 101

Maps and directions to Swarthmore College

An influential 2011 Harvard Business Review article hailed the re-construction of capitalism and the development of a “shared value” approach to business practice. In this talk, drawing on public policy initiatives around the world, Dr. Denise Crossan will explore the complexity of the concept of social entrepreneurship and review how the private sector and international governments are supporting and growing new organisational forms that strive to deliver an equally weighted social and economic return value for their stakeholders.

Dr. Denise Crossan was appointed to Trinity College Dublin’s School of Business in January 2009 as Assistant Professor in Social Entrepreneurship; the first post of it’s kind in Ireland. She currently teaches at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and her research interests include mapping social entrepreneurship in an international context; the measurement of social value and ethical practice in social entrepreneurship; international public sector policies to grow social entrepreneurship and understanding corporate social responsibility and blurring sector boundaries.

In 2012 she received the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence, Highly Commended Award Winner, for her paper entitled “The Hologram Effect in Entrepreneurial Social Commercial Enterprises: Triggers and Tipping Points” published in the Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development (Vol. 18, No. 4, 2011). Dr. Crossan’s in-field experience includes working as Community Business Advisor under the European Union’s Special Programme for Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland from 1996 to 2002, and Dr Crossan acts as the Regional Director of the Swarthmore College Northern Ireland Semester Programme.

Sponsored by Swarthmore’s Study Abroad Office, Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, Peace and Conflict Studies, and Sociology and Anthropology

Prof. Krista Thomason on human rights and service learning

Prof. Krista Thomason will be giving a talk entitled “Philosophy and Human Rights: Scholarship and Activism” at the Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association in March 2013. The talk uses PHIL 051 Human Rights and Atrocity as a model for incorporating service learning into philosophy courses. It will feature examples of some of the final projects her students designed in Spring 2012. The talk also examines the ways in which scholarship can inform activism as well as the ways in which scholarship can be a form of activism.