Peace and Conflict Studies special major Maria Castaneda ’18 and Peace and Conflict Studies minor Michael Nafziger ’18 were recently featured in the news.
Read Maria’s story related to President Trump’s order ending the DACA program here.
“From Mexico to Swarthmore, a dream now in danger”
Follow Michael’s involvement in our community in the wake of the alt-right controversy in Charlottesville, VA here.
“Swarthmore Community Reflects on Charlottesville at Collection”
Peace and Conflict Studies at Swarthmore is proud to welcome Dr. Zachary Moon for a public lecture on Tuesday, October 31, 2017.
Zachary Moon, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Practical Theology at Chicago Theological Seminary. He has served as a military chaplain since 2011. He is the author of Coming Home: Ministry That Matters with Veterans and Military Families (Chalice Press, 2015) and numerous articles on trauma, moral injury, the impact of military service, and the role of civilian communities in the post-deployment reintegration process.
His lecture, titled Moral Dimensions of Trauma: Reflections on Military Chaplaincy, touches on the impact of traumatic experiences on the whole person. Whether in the context of military service, sexual assault, or domestic violence, traumatic experiences can shatter social-relational moral covenants that inform who we are and the meaningfulness of the worlds around us. This lecture will explore the concept of moral injury and pathways of healing.
The lecture begins at 5:00PM and will be held in the Scheuer Room of Kohlberg Hall.
Last year, two Stanford students, Cole Manley and Jocelyn Lee interviewed members of the Peace and Conflict Studies Committee at Swarthmore as well as faculty at many other college and universities. They produced this video as part of their campaign to start a peace studies program at their university.
This summer, we announced on our blog that we are celebrating 125 years since the first peace studies course in higher education, “Elements of International Law with special attention to the important subjects of Peace and Arbitration,” was taught at Swarthmore by Professor William Penn Holcomb in 1888. Read more.
Today, we are unveiling a commemorative logo to celebrate this historical achievement and the College’s commitment to the field through its Program in Peace and Conflict Studies.
In recent months, a document was discovered in the Swarthmore College Archives revealing that the first known Peace and Conflict Studies course in higher education, “Elements of International Law with special attention to the important subjects of Peace and Arbitration” was offered by Professor William Penn Holcomb in 1888 at Swarthmore College. Thus, this year, we are celebrating 125 of the origins of peace and conflict studies in higher education!
The Swarthmore College Bulletin has published an article on this exciting finding.
Pioneering Peace Studies
By Sherri Kimmel
Swarthmore College Bulletin, July 2013
That Swarthmore College was an early proponent of peace and conflict studies should come as no surprise to those familiar with the College’s dedication to Quaker values. However, the recent discovery of an article published 125 years ago indicates the College was the first college or university to offer an actual peace-studies course.
Lee Smithey, associate professor of sociology and peace and conflict studies coordinator, announced the distinction at a gathering this spring, reading from an 1888 article that was republished from The Peacemaker (the organ of the Universal Peace Union) in The Friends Intelligencer. Christopher Densmore, curator of the Friends Historical Library, discovered the article and shared it with Smithey.
The article praised the College’s new course in peace and arbitration as “an eventful era in the peace movement of the 19th century. To thus drill, as it were, for peace is to hasten the abolition of war and the military system. All credit to Swarthmore! This example will go round the world.”[Parrish Hall in 1890 (photo courtesy of Friends’ Historical Library)]
Though Swarthmore launched the first course, peace and conflict studies as a discipline “didn’t take off for another 60 years,” says Smithey. Manchester College, founded in Indiana by another historic peace church, the Church of the Brethren, formed the first program in 1948.
According to Smithey, peace and conflict studies programs have gained momentum in waves—after the World Wars and the Vietnam War, and in the 1980s and ’90s, when concern over the proliferation of nuclear arms grew. Now, there are peace and conflict studies programs at about 400 institutions. Swarthmore’s program began in 1991–92 and has 30 students enrolled as minors, honors, or special majors, Smithey says.
The program draws courses from a range of social science and humanities departments at Swarthmore and the other campuses of the Tri-College consortium and explores the causes, practice, and consequences of collective violence as well as peaceful or nonviolent methods of dealing with conflict.
Says Smithey of the College’s new distinction, “Swarthmore College was ahead of its time, and 125 years later, we still hold these values as we seek to advance our knowledge about constructive conflict and just and peaceful relations.”
January 31, 2013
Professor Lee Smithey’s class, Peace Studies and Action, is partnering this semester with GunCrisis.org, which aims to provide a hard look at the gun violence situation in Philadelphia and innovative solutions to it.
“I think the College as a Philly neighbor, so to speak, can be a voice in raising concern about the epidemic of gun violence,” said Smithey, who teaches sociology and coordinates the Peace and Conflict Studies Program.
According to Smithey, the Peace Studies and Action course is designed to use peace building to bridge the gap between academic peace research and peace action.
Taught each spring semester, the course is meant to provide a service to a local organization focused on solving a social problem.
“It’s also a peace and violence problem in our backyard and in many ways we’re isolated from the gun violence in North and West Philadelphia,” he added.
Smithey said the objectives for the course would be to learn more about the program as well as understand the range of initiatives addressing gun violence in Philadelphia while situating it within peace and conflict studies literature.
Aaron Moser ’12, who interned with GunCrisis.org last summer, hopes that the class will educate students about what goes on in Philadelphia concerning gun violence.
“I hope the extra mind power and writing power of these students will allow the organization to have a wider reach to continue building a network in the city and around the country as well as to bring more attention to the gun violence in America’s urban settings and look for solutions,” he said.
The students will be writing journalistic style pieces that GunCrisis.org can post as content for its blog.
Jim MacMillan, co-founder of GunCrisis.org and Manager for Media and Social Responsibility in the Lang Center, hopes that the class will help him build a peace-oriented vertical on the site.
He hopes to encourage use of a “‘#phillypeaceplan’ hashtag to every communication on social media, so we can gather information and get an idea of what the community thinks we should do,” he said.
“There is an opportunity now to embrace the momentum across the nation to reduce gun violence and the human suffering in Philadelphia. The sooner we can expedite the process of ending this violence the fewer people will die, if somebody wants to stop the shooting we would love to work with them,” MacMillan said.
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.
Interested in conflict and peacebuilding? Social entrepreneurship and sustainable organizing?
Come learn about the Northern Ireland Semester, a study abroad program of Swarthmore College. We will hold an orientation session on Thursday, September 20th at 3:30 in SC145. Dr. Denise Crossan (Trinity College Dublin), our in-country supervisor and instructor, will join us via Skype.
The program provides students a unique opportunity to study conflict, ongoing peacebuilding efforts, and social entrepreneurship in local communities in Northern Ireland, a region in a critical transition after 30 years of violent political and ethnic struggle. Students work (for supervised credit) within local community organizations while studying conflict, peace, and reconciliation at the Irish School for Ecumenics of Trinity College at its Belfast campus. Community placements can be tailored to fit your particular academic interests (e.g. theatre as peacebuilding, culture and conflict, transitional politics, segregated education, cross-border economics, etc.)
The Northern Ireland Semester is based in two geographic locations, Derry / Londonderry or Belfast, but student involvement with community groups may take place elsewhere in Northern Ireland. Students may register for one semester or two, and further possibilities for summer research and /or service work may arise.
Visit the Northern Ireland Semester website where you can read more about the program, including student contributions to the program’s blog.
All students are welcome to participate in the program. For Peace and Conflict Studies students, all four credits may be applied toward the minor.
Download, print, and hang a flyer, and invite your friends!
Information for this and other programs is available in the Off-Campus Study Office Visit the OCSO web site.
Contact: Lee Smithey at lsmithe1 or Rosa Bernard at rbernar1
Bonfires and national flags, such as this Union Jack and the Tricolour on the hill, assert political claims and identities in Northern Ireland
Ted Herman, an important figure in the development of Peace Studies, recently passed away. Prof. Herman lived not far from Swarthmore and was well known in the area. We would like to share this tribute from another major peace studies scholar, Dr. Ian Harris, and express our appreciation and condolences to Prof. Herman’s friends, family, and colleagues.
Ted Herman (1913-2010)
Prof. Lee Smithey, Nobel laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire, and Prof. Ted Herman at a Pendle Hill Peace Forum lecture at Swarthmore in March 2004
Ted Herman was a pioneer in the peace studies community. He was one of many Quaker scholar/midwives who helped nurture the field of peace studies in the 1960s. He founded a peace studies program at Colgate University at the height of the Vietnam war. This program now has both a minor and a major in peace and conflict studies.
Ted Herman grew up in West Philadelphia and was a soccer star in his youth. He did his undergraduate work at Swarthmore (graduating in 1935) and completed a Ph.D. in geography at the University of Washington. In the interim he taught in China. He joined the faculty at Colgate University as a professor of geography in 1955 and founded there in 1971 one of the earliest peace studies programs in the United States. He inspired many students to take seriously the study of nonviolence and to pursue careers devoted to peace. Largely because of Ted the Colgate program has a unique emphasis upon geography and trouble spots in the world–like the Middle East, Central America, Africa, or Central Asia–integrating trans-disciplinary academic approaches to war and peace with the study of particular regional conflicts.
Ted Herman was a fantastic mentor. He mentored me and many other young professors in the nineteen eighties who were attracted to the field of peace studies in response to the growing nuclear threat. I remember well meeting with him at COPRED (Consortium on Peace Research, Education, and Development) and International Peace Research Association (IPRA) conferences. His calm determination and self confidence convinced many of us that we could leave the shelter of our traditional disciplines and walk down the path of peace. Ted Herman understood well how the study of peace could enhance the academy and made it his life’s mission to promote it.
Ted Herman devoted considerable time to bringing together enemies on multiple sides of the Balkan conflict. In his retirement he often visited the Balkans trying to get Serbs to talk to people from Bosnia-Herzegovina. He helped establish a peace studies program in Macedonia. I remember him coming to Milwaukee in 1995 and meeting with an important Serbian bishop in the orthodox church and leaders from the Bosnian community.
Professor Ted Herman ’35
Towards the end of his life Ted Herman became convinced that the best way to promote peace studies was through peace research. He threw his considerable talents behind the International Peace Research Association Foundation (IPRAF) a non-profit, tax-exempt organization founded in 1990 to further the purposes of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) and enhance the processes of peace. With his support IPRAF has carried out peace research projects in the Balkans and the Middle East. It offers women from developing countries scholarships to study peace at the graduate level and provides small peace research grants to further the field of peace research. (For more information see http://www.iprafoundation.org/) Ted Herman reveled in the rich exchanges that took place at IPRA conferences where scholars from around the world shared their insights into ways to generate peace.
Ted Hermann is held in the hearts of hundreds of peace educators and social activists, like myself, who have been inspired by his quiet determination to promote nonviolence. His memorial service will take place Jan 22, 2011 at 1 p.m. at Lancaster Friends Meeting in Lancaster, PA. I would like encourage those of you who live in the area to consider attending this service to honor an important pioneer in the field of peace and conflict studies.
Ian Harris
Professor emeritus
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Ted Herman (1913-2010) Ted Herman was a pioneer in the peace studies community. He was one of many Quaker scholar/midwives who helped nurture the field of peace studies in the 1960s. He founded a peace studies program at Colgate University at the height of the Vietnam war. This program now has both a minor and a major in peace and conflict studies. Ted Herman grew up in West Philadelphia and was a soccer star in his youth. He did his undergraduate work at Swarthmore (graduating in 1935) and completed a Ph.D. in geography at the University of Washington. In the interim he taught in China. He joined the faculty at Colgate University as a professor of geography in 1955 and founded there in 1971 one of the earliest peace studies programs in the United States. He inspired many students to take seriously the study of nonviolence and to pursue careers devoted to peace. Largely because of Ted the Colgate program has a unique emphasis upon geography and trouble spots in the world--like the Middle East, Central America, Africa, or Central Asia--integrating trans-disciplinary academic approaches to war and peace with the study of particular regional conflicts. Ted Herman was a fantastic mentor. He mentored me and many other young professors in the nineteen eighties who were attracted to the field of peace studies in response to the growing nuclear threat. I remember well meeting with him at COPRED (Consortium on Peace Research, Education, and Development) and International Peace Research Association (IPRA) conferences. His calm determination and self confidence convinced many of us that we could leave the shelter of our traditional disciplines and walk down the path of peace. Ted Herman understood well how the study of peace could enhance the academy and made it his life?s mission to promote it. Ted Herman devoted considerable time to bringing together enemies on multiple sides of the Balkan conflict. In his retirement he often visited the Balkans trying to get Serbs to talk to people from Bosnia-Herzegovina. He helped establish a peace studies program in Macedonia. I remember him coming to Milwaukee in 1995 and meeting with an important Serbian bishop in the orthodox church and leaders from the Bosnian community. Towards the end of his life Ted Herman became convinced that the best way to promote peace studies was through peace research. He threw his considerable talents behind the International Peace Research Association Foundation (IPRAF) a non-profit, tax-exempt organization founded in 1990 to further the purposes of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) and enhance the processes of peace. With his support IPRAF has carried out peace research projects in the Balkans and the Middle East. It offers women from developing countries scholarships to study peace at the graduate level and provides small peace research grants to further the field of peace research. (For more information see http://www.iprafoundation.org/) Ted Herman reveled in the rich exchanges that took place at IPRA conferences where scholars from around the world shared their insights into ways to generate peace. Ted Hermann is held in the hearts of hundreds of peace educators and social activists, like myself, who have been inspired by his quiet determination to promote nonviolence. His memorial service will take place Jan 22, 2011 at 1 p.m. at Lancaster Friends Meeting in Lancaster, PA. I would like encourage those of you who live in the area to consider attending this service to honor an important pioneer in the field of peace and conflict studies. Ian Harris
