November 2, 2009

7:00 pm

Science Center 199

Valentino Achak Deng is the co-author (with David Eggers) of the 2006 National Book Critic’s Circle Award for Fiction Finalist book “What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng”. Mr. Deng is a Sudanese Lost Boy, who survived the Sudanese Civil War in southern Sudan in the 1980s, and eventually came to be settled in America, where, with David Eggers he wrote about his life-story in “What is the What.” Mr. Deng will discuss his life in Sudan and as a refugee, his collaboration with Dave Eggers on “What is the What”, and his foundation’s work building schools, health clinics, and community centers in southern Sudan.

See the listing in the College Calendar.

Sponsored by Peace and Conflict Studies Department, Sam Green, Swat STAND, English Department, President’s Office, FFS, History Department, Political Science Department

[The Daily Gazette reported on the event.]

Our own George Lakey has published a chapter titled “A Worried Activist’s Guide to Imperialism and Nonviolent Struggle” in a new book by Howard Clark: People Power: Unarmed Resistance and Global Solidarity

More information is available via this link.

Oct. 29 James Field Lecture: “Sojourner Truth: Writing the Life of a Legend”

by Margaret Washington, Professor of History at Cornell University, and author of Sojourner Truth’s America (2009), and A Peculiar People: Slave Religion and Community-Culture Among the Gullahs (1988).

4:30 PM Scheuer Room, Kohlberg Hall

Food Not Bombs co-founder, Keith McHenry, will visit Swarthmore on Thursday, October 22 and talk about his 30 years of cooking for peace and working to end hunger, poverty and war. Food Not Bombs shares vegan and vegetarian meals with the hungry in over 1,000 cities around the world each week. McHenry collects, cooks, and shares vegan meals with Food Not Bombs groups in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East.

October 22, 2009

Swarthmore College – Hicks Room: Hicks Mural Room 312

4:30 PM

Event Sponsors

Earthlust

Peace and Conflict Studies

Peace and Conflict Studies minor Samia Abbass ’11 (on the left) arrived in Derry/Londonderry in September to participate in the college’s Northern Ireland Semester. Michael Duffy ’11 and Sarah Brajtbord ’11 are also studying along with Samia.

Samia is participating in the college’s Northern Ireland Semester in Derry / Londonderry this fall. Students in the program are enrolled at the University of Ulster and Samia is taking classes on international politics, and the government and politics of Northern Ireland. In addition to attending lectures and trips organized by the program’s field directors, she is also interning with Swarthmore professor Teya Sepinuck on the Theatre of Witness production that will premier in October at the Playhouse. Developed by Teya, Theatre of Witness is an innovative style of multimedia dramatic production that bridges theatre and social justice by giving the victims of conflict and trauma a voice, and allowing them to bear witness to their suffering. An avid photographer, Samia is also working on a research project with Prof. Lee Smithey and Prof. Gregory Maney (Hofstra University) to map and analyze changing themes and placement of murals in West Belfast.

Democracy and Political Culture: Some Aspects of the Experience of Sri Lanka

A Talk by Yodage Ranjith Amarasinghe

Emeritus Professor of Political Science and former Dean of the Arts Faculty

University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

Tuesday, October 20 4:30

Scheuer Room

Swarthmore College

Political culture, understood as patterns of orientations to political objects among members of a nation, influences shaping the political system of a given society. The third world democracy of Sri Lanka, once hailed as a model worthy of being emulated, stands seriously challenged today. There is no doubt that the two insurrections in the south and separatism in the north have significantly contributed to this current situation. In his talk Professor Amarasinghe will look at the impact of political culture in the whole process of building of democratic institutions and their practice, most particularly in the wake of the civil war. He will try to understand this by selecting a few major political themes such as power, power devolution, dissent and opposition, representation, among others, and examine how orientations to them impeded the shaping of democracy in the country.

Professor Amarasinghe, along with being Senior Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science and former Dean of the Arts Faculty at Peradeniya University, is author of monographs and articles on politics in contemporary Sri Lanka in Sinhala and English, including Peace by Agreement: Recent International Experience (in press); Political Culture and Democracy in Sri Lanka (2003); and Revolutionary Ideology and Parliamentary Politics: A Study of Trotskyism in Sri Lanka (200). He received his Ph.D in Political Science at the University of London in 1974, his B.Phil in Political Science at York, England in 1970, and has taught contemporary politics in the Intercollegiate Sri Lankan Education (ISLE) Program for the past 15 years.

For more information, please contact Steve Hopkins at shopkin1.

Organizing Skills Institute

Even the best ideas fail when leaders do not have the skills to organize — to pull together a group, develop a healthy organization, cultivate new leaders, and understand how to plan strategically.? The Organizing Skills Institute — offered by the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility and Training for Change — will teach you organizing skills to help your group succeed. … read more on the Lang Center website.

Read coverage in The Phoenix and the Daily Gazette of Wednesday’s presentation by Maya Wind and Netta Mishly, teenagers who have refused to serve in the Israeli military. The event was co-sponsored by Students for Democratic Society, the Peace Collection, and the Peace and Conflict Studies program.

The Intercultural Center, Latin American Studies, and The Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility Presents:

“The Day that Changed my Life Forever”

The Guatemala Human Rights Commission hosts Gladys Monterroso, a Guatemalan lawyer, university professor, secretary general of a political party, and wife of the Guatemalan Human Rights Ombudsman who was kidnapped and tortured in March 2009.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

4:30 pm

Science Center 104

Swarthmore College