Documentary Film Screening and Q&A Repairing the World: Stories from the Tree of Life Wednesday, March 29, at 7:30pm in Science Center 101
The film’s director Patrice O’Neill (Not in Our Town, https://www.niot.org/) will screen the film and answer questions. Please come join us.
Repairing the World: Stories from the Tree of Lifedocuments a community’s response to hate in the aftermath of the shootings at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA. Eleven congregants lost their lives on October 27, 2018 in the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. Through the voices of survivors, family members, and members of diverse communities, the film shows unity in a moment of crisis, the resilience of a vibrant city, and a community working together to understand what it means to be “stronger than hate.” Repairing the World shows how a traumatized city works to heal and confront the threat of antisemitism, racism, hate speech, and gun violence.
A man holds a ‘Disarm Hate’ placard at a rally in Pittsburgh.
Contact Bob Weinberg (rweinbe1 at swarthmore . edu) for additional information.
To wrap up this spring’s Peace and Conflict Studies film series, we will screen The Art of Un-Warfollowed by a discussion with the film’s director, Maria Niro.
Pizza, salad, and beverages will be provided! This event is open to the public.
“The Art of Un-War is an in-depth exploration of the life and work of renowned artist Krzysztof Wodiczko. The film features Wodiczko’s artistic interventions that he creates as powerful responses to the inequities and horrors of war and injustice. Throughout the film, the artist’s powerful interventions become examples of how art can be used for social change and for healing.”
The Art of Un-War With Director Maria Niro March 22 (Wed), 4:30 PM Singer Hall Room 033 Swarthmore College
Trailer: The Art of Un-War
Come watch the film (with pizza, salad, and drinks) and stay for the special discussion with Director Maria Niro.
Co-sponsors: Peace and Conflict Studies, Art, Film and Media Studies, Lang Center, Music, Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology, Spanish
The Peace and Conflict Studies Film Series features five films that explore the evolution of militarism; the role of art and personal narratives in overcoming violence, trauma, and conflict; and the potential for building justice through different means.
It is with great pleasure and anticipation that we share that Dr. Sa’ed Atshan will return to the faculty of Swarthmore College and that he will serve as Chair of the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies in the fall semester. We are so excited that future generations of students will benefit from his exceptional teaching and mentoring.
Dr. Atshan (Swarthmore ’06), a renowned anthropologist and peace and conflict studies scholar, has extensive teaching experience at institutions including Birzeit, Brown, Emory, MIT, Swarthmore, Tufts, and UC Berkeley.
He joined our program in 2015 and contributed mightily to its development as a department. His popular classes included the introductory course; Crisis Resolution in the Middle East; Gender, Sexuality, and Social Change; Humanitarianism; and more. The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict course included five consecutive and transformational embedded study trips to Israel/Palestine, not to mention a related and well-attended annual film series. He also co-organized a large conference on resisting anti-Semitism with Rabbi Michael Ramberg, Swarthmore’s Jewish Advisor.
A widely sought public intellectual with a Ph.D. in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies, MA in Social Anthropology, and Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard University, Dr. Atshan’s areas of focus include peace and conflict, anthropology, Palestine/Israel, and gender and sexuality. He is author, co-author, or editor of award-winning books, Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique (2020 Stanford University Press), The Moral Triangle: Germans, Israelis, Palestinians (2020 Duke University Press; with Katharina Galor), and Reel Gender: Palestinian and Israeli Cinema(2022 Bloomsbury; with Katharina Galor).
In October, Dr. Atshan was inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Collegium of Scholars at Morehouse College.
Dr. Atshan returns to us from the Anthropology Department at Emory University, where he is a tenured professor and the department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies. His reputation as a beloved mentor precedes him. While at Swarthmore, he not only supported prospective students, current students, and alums in their academic and vocational pursuits, he also served as the Director of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) Program. He himself, as an undergraduate at Swarthmore, was both a Lang Scholar and the first Arab-American in the nation to receive a MMUF scholarship.
Dr. Atshan brings deep roots in Quaker life, having been educated at Ramallah Friends School (RFS), and with service now as an advisor to RFS, on the Corporation of Haverford College, and on the Board of the American Friends Service Committee. He has also served on the Board of Pendle Hill, the Multicultural Board of Westtown School, and as a spiritual nurturer for the Quaker Voluntary Service. Moreover, as he returns to the College, Dr. Atshan will lean into a new research project on African-American and Palestinian Quakers that will involve Swarthmore’s Peace Collection and Friends Historical Library.
We hope you can tell why we are excited about Dr. Atshan’s rejoining our department. He brings outstanding experience in so many respects that fit seamlessly with Swarthmore’s and our department’s missions.
Fifty-eight years ago, a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, was destroyed by white supremacists in an act of terrrorism on a Sunday morning in September.
Saturday, September 17, 2022 at 2:00 p.m. Sproul/Intercultural Center Dome Room Swarthmore College (map)
Join us for a screening and community-wide discussion of the academy-award nominated documentary by Spike Lee, 4 Little Girls, this Saturday.
The film commemorates the church bombing that claimed the lives of four African American girls during a profound period of upheaval in the struggle for social justice. The documentary revisits the moment that catalyzed civil rights in the US and traces the lives of those who would become some of the youngest martyrs in the emerging global peace movement for racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual equality: Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, and Carole Rosamond Robertson.
Come watch the film and stay for discussion. #SayTheirNames
Israel/Palestine Film Series Fall 2019 Please join us next week for the annual Israel/Palestine Film Series at Swarthmore. There will be screenings for the first six Wednesdays of the semester, and all are free and open to the public (including pizza and refreshments).
All screenings at 4:15PM in the Lang Performing Arts Center Cinema. Organized by Peace and Conflict Studies and Sponsored by the Provost’s Office and the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility
Please join us next month for the annual Israel/Palestine Film Series at Swarthmore. There will be screenings for the first six Wednesdays of the semester, and all are free and open to the public (including pizza and refreshments).
All screenings at 4:15PM in the Lang Performing Arts Center Cinema.
Organized by Peace and Conflict Studies and Sponsored by the Provost’s Office and the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility
Please join us next month for the annual Israel/Palestine Film Series at Swarthmore. There will be screenings for the first six Wednesdays of the semester, and all are free and open to the public (including pizza and refreshments).
All screenings at at 4:15PM in the Lang Performing Arts Center Cinema.
September 6: The Wanted 18
Palestinian stop-motion artist collaborates with filmmakers and activists to document one of the strangest chapters in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
https://youtu.be/hlKZ8daLtOo
September 13: Disturbing the Peace
This film reveals the transformational journeys from combatants (both Palestinian and Israeli) committed to armed battle to nonviolent peace activists.
September 20: The Settlers
Israeli filmmaker explores the controversial communities of Israeli settlers occupying the West Bank through a series of interviews.
September 27: Out In The Dark
Israeli filmmaker creates a gay love story between a Palestinian man and his Israeli partner.
October 4: Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
Israeli filmmaker produces this emotional drama of an Israeli woman fighting for her independence from religious-based marriage laws.
October 11: Speed Sisters
Canadian director and producer illuminates the world of the Palestinian women who comprise the first all-women race car driving team in the Middle East.
We are thrilled to announce three upcoming events in “Reflections From The Field”, a new speaker series at Swarthmore College, which brings people working on the front lines of conflict and social change to campus to reflect upon *what* they do, *why* they do it and how *they* came to do it.
1. “These Birds Walk”, a film screening and conversation with director and cinematographer Omar Mullick.
Monday, March 13th @ 7:30PM Science Center 101
In Karachi, Pakistan, a runaway boy’s life hangs on one critical question: where is home? The streets, an orphanage, or with the family he fled in the first place? Simultaneously heart- wrenching and life-affirming, THESE BIRDS WALK documents the struggles of these wayward street children and the humanitarians looking out for them in an ethereal and inspirational story of resilience. Listed by The New Yorker as one of the best foreign films of the 21st century, this is a must see!
Omar Mullick is a film director and cinematographer known for his work on the 2013 feature film THESE BIRDS WALK. A 2016 Sundance Institute fellow, his most recent work can be seen on VICE’s HBO series, Black Markets, and the Gloria Steinem hosted show Woman on VICELAND. Current clients as a director and cinematographer include CNN, PBS, HBO, VICE, Discovery and The Gates Foundation. Trained as a photographer, his work has been published in The New York Times, Foreign Policy Magazine, National Geographic and TIME. He has received awards from the Doris Duke Foundation, the Western Knight Center for Journalism, Annenberg and Kodak.
2. “Closing the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want”, a virtual conversation with Ricken Patel, Founding President and Executive Director of Avaaz.org, the world’s largest online activist community.
Monday, March 27th @ 4:30 PM Science Center 199
Ricken is the founding President and Executive Director of Avaaz, the world’s largest online activist community with 44 million subscribers in every country of the world.
Ricken has been voted the “ultimate game changer in politics” (Huffington Post), listed in the world’s top 100 thinkers (Foreign Policy magazine) and described as “the global leader of online protest” with a “vaunting sense of optimism” (The Guardian). Prior to starting Avaaz.org, Ricken was the founding Executive Director of ResPublica, a global public entrepreneurship group that worked to end genocide in Darfur and build progressive globalism in US politics, among other projects. Ricken has also lived and worked in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan and Afghanistan, consulting for organizations including the International Crisis Group, the United Nations, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Gates Foundation, Harvard University, CARE International and the International Center for Transitional Justice. Born in Canada, Ricken has a B.A. from Oxford University and a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard.
3. “From the streets of Kabul to the streets of New York: Reflections on covering war and crime”, a conversation with New York Times reporter, Joseph Goldstein.
Friday, April 7th @ 4:30 PM Science Center 105
Joseph Goldstein’s first newspaper job was at the 6,000-circulation Daily Citizen in Searcy, Ark, where he wrote, among other things, a feature story about how meth-fueled treasure hunters in rural Arkansas were creating an underground economy for arrowheads and other Native American artifacts.
He soon moved to New York City, where he worked at The New York Sun, until its demise, and later at The New York Post. He joined The New York Times in 2011 and writes mainly about the criminal justice system in New York. He has reported on the N.Y.P.D.’s over-reliance on stop-and-frisk tactics and about a secretive police unit that combs the city’s jails for Muslim prisoners in the hopes of pressuring them into becoming informants. He has covered Ferguson, the emergence of the alt-right, and Afghanistan, where he was based for a year.
Sponsored by the Department of Political Science, Global Affairs Program at the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, Media Studies, Career Services, and Peace and Conflict Studies.
The Peace and Conflict Studies program will be organizing another Israel/Palestine Film Series this semester. Screenings are open to the entire community, and we hope you will join us.
Israel/Palestine Film Series
Sponsored by Swarthmore Peace and Conflict Studies
All screenings are on Wednesdays at 4:15pm in the Lang Performing Arts Cinema
September 7: Promises
Israeli filmmaker documents a group of Israeli and Palestinian children meeting for the first time in and around Jerusalem.
September 14: Walk on Water
Israeli filmmaker produces this psychological thriller focusing on the life of one Israeli intelligence officer.
September 21: The Gatekeepers
Israeli filmmaker interviews all six living heads of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service.
September 28: The War Around Us
American filmmaker follows the only two international journalists who covered the 2009 Israel-Hamas War in Gaza.
October 5: Paradise Now
Palestinian filmmaker produces this Academy Award-nominated fiction film examining the final hours before two Palestinian friends prepare to commit acts of violence in Tel Aviv.
October 19: Eyes Wide Open
Israeli filmmaker produces this breathtaking fiction film examining a love affair between two Orthodox Jewish men in Jerusalem.
We would like to share the following announcement. Prof. Elliot Ratzman, who has taught in Swarthmore’s Religious Studies Department and the Peace and Conflict Studies program, will interview Dr. Albie Sachs and the film’s Director after the screening on Saturday Nov. 21, 2015.
CLOSING NIGHT!
Date: Saturday, November 21 Time: 7:30 pm Location: Kimmel Center for The Performing Arts – TICKETS
We close out this year’s Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival – Fall Fest with the 2015 Peabody Award-Winner, SOFT VENGEANCE: ALBIE SACHS AND THE NEW SOUTH AFRICA.
In this powerful documentary about the fall of apartheid and the rise of a free South Africa, Director Abby Ginzberg takes a different, but no less rewarding, route than most who have tackled the subject. A great many apartheid-related documentaries tend to focus on the larger-than-life Nelson Mandela, while simultaneously simplifying the conflict into a “blacks are good; whites are bad” scenario. Ginzberg moves this film in a more compelling direction, introducing us to the incredible true story of Albie Sachs.
Sachs, a Jew of Lithuanian descent, was born in South Africa and as a young man used his law degree to help those suffering under South Africa’s harsh racial laws. This made him a marked man to authorities, which directly led to his imprisonment, exile, and a brutal near-death experience. But this was only the beginning of Sachs’ life-affirming journey, which is told by Sachs himself, along with other notables, including Desmond Tutu and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Official Selection of the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, Australia Jewish International Film Festival, DocNYC, International Women’s Film Forum, Movies That Matter Film Festival, Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival, Reframe Film Festival, South African Jewish Museum – Cape Town, Toronto Jewish Film Festival
Special Guests: Film followed by Tikkun Olam Award Presentation and discussion with Albie Sachs and Director Abby Ginzberg. All guests are invited to attend PJFF’s Closing Night Party at Hamilton Hall, The University of the Arts.
Sponsors: The Carole Landis Foundation for Social Action, David and Helen Pudlin, Pam and Tony Schneider, Sterling Trustees LLC
