As part of the College’s Friends, Peace, and Sanctuary project, supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, the Peace and Conflict Studies program will sponsor a related half-credit course in the spring.

• In what ways can engaging with art inspire conversations, change perspectives, or increase empathy?

• How might sharing personal experiences through the process of making art about migration, displacement or refuge increase our senses of belonging?

• How might historic stories of displacement impact understandings of our current moment?

In this half-credit engaged scholarship course,  taught by College Librarian Peggy Seiden and Dr. Katie Price (Lang Center), students will (a) conduct primary and secondary research related to resettled individuals (refugees) living in Philadelphia, (b) conduct archival research related to questions of displacement, empathy, and belonging, and (c) conduct primary and secondary research on artists’ books. Additionally, students will be required to volunteer for at least one book artist workshop (taking place on Sundays in Philadelphia, exact dates and times TBD) during the term. This course is tied to Friends, Peace, and Sanctuary, a two-year project funded by The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage that brings renowned book artists into conversation with Syrian and Iraqi individuals who have resettled to Philadelphia. Students will be working with and learning directly from project collaborators, and their work will be shared publicly on the Friends, Peace, and Sanctuary website and may also be published or exhibited in Spring 2019.

Seats are limited. If you are interested in taking this course, please email a short paragraph about why you are interested to kprice1 and pseiden1.