Tag Archives: refugees

PEACE AND RECONCILIATION IN UKRAINE AND POLAND: Past and Present of the Refugee Crisis

Tuesday, March 29, 4:30 p.m.
Singer Hall Room 033
Swarthmore College

In recent weeks Poland has welcomed a greater number of refugees from Ukraine than any other country, often with striking warmth and generosity, although the relationship between the two nations has been complex over time. Swarthmore College faculty members Allen Kuharski and Barbara Milewski will speak about the cultural, historical, and diplomatic context for the extraordinary outpouring of grassroots support for Ukrainian refugees in Poland over the last month and about the other complexities of these current events.

Bob Weinberg, Isaac H. Clothier Professor of History and International Relations, will host the event; there will be a chance to ask questions after the presentations, in person or via the Zoom “chat.” For more information, contact Sibelan Forrester at sforres1 <at> swarthmore.edu.

Mvs.gov.ua, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

To attend via Zoom, register in advance using this link.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Co-sponsored by the Programs and Departments of Global Studies, History, Modern Languages and Literatures, Music and Dance, Peace and Conflict Studies, and Theater.

Humanitarian Predicaments: Protracted Displacement and Palestinian Refugee Politics

Please join us on Wednesday, February 6th for a lecture by Ilana Feldman (Anthropology, George Washington University), who will be visiting campus as part of the “Contending Visions of the Middle East” series. Ilana’s lecture draws from her recently published book “Life Lived In Relief” (University of California Press, 2018).

February 6

4:30 – 6:00 PM | SCI 101

Humanitarian Predicaments: Protracted Displacement and Palestinian Refugee Politics

Ilana Feldman (George Washington University)

Palestinian refugees’ experience of protracted displacement is among the lengthiest in history. In her breathtaking new book, Ilana Feldman explores this community’s engagement with humanitarian assistance over a seventy-year period and their persistent efforts to alter their present and future conditions. Based on extensive archival and ethnographic field research, Life Lived in Relief offers a comprehensive account of the Palestinian refugee experience living with humanitarian assistance in many spaces and across multiple generations. By exploring the complex world constituted through humanitarianism, and how that world is experienced by the many people who inhabit it, Feldman asks pressing questions about what it means for a temporary status to become chronic. How do people in these conditions assert the value of their lives? What does the Palestinian situation tell us about the world? Life Lived in Relief is essential reading for anyone interested in the history and practice of humanitarianism today.

Sponsored by the President’s Office Andrew W. Mellon Grant, The Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, and the Departments of Political Science, History, Sociology / Anthropology, and Peace and Conflict Studies. For a full schedule of spring events, please consult our website: https://contendingvisions.wixsite.com/mysite

Course Alert: Spots open for PEAC094: Special Topics – Friends, Peace and Sanctuary

Interested in co-creating a graphic novel about migration with a small group of faculty/staff and individuals resettled to Philadelphia from Syria and/or Iraq? Then consider taking PEAC:094 Friends, Peace, and Sanctuary.

In addition to the course, which will meet at McCabe Library on Wednesdays 1:15-4:00 for the first half of the semester, students will participate in workshops facilitated by local community artist Josh Graupera to create a narrative that will then be illustrated by Eric Battle, who has done work with such companies as Marvel Comics. Students must be able to participate in all three workshops, which will take place at the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility on the afternoons of 9/9, 9/23, and 10/7.

Enrollment is by permission only. Interested students should send a short paragraph to Katie Price (kprice1) and Peggy Seiden (pseiden1) about why they are interested in the course.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

PEAC 094: Friends, Peace, and Sanctuary
Instructors: Peggy Seiden & Katie Price
Wednesdays 1:15-4:00 PM | Ends before Fall Break

In this half-credit engaged scholarship course, students will learn about historical and contemporary refugees through a variety of methods, including readings, archival research, and co-creation. As part of the course, students will participate with resettled Iraqis and Syrians and Swarthmore faculty and staff in a series of artist-led workshops in which participants will co-create a graphic novella. The course will include discussions and written reflections based on the readings and workshops. 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 may be shared publicly on the Friends, Peace, and Sanctuary website and may also be published or exhibited in Spring 2019.

Limited to five students, by permission of instructors. Course will be taught CR/NC unless otherwise requested. The course will run for the first half of the fall semester.

Migration Stories: A Reading and Conversation – Mikhail Shishkin

Peace and Conflict Studies is proud to cosponsor:

Migration Stories: A Reading and Conversation with Mikhail Shishkin

Wednesday, April 25, 2018, 4:30-6 p.m.

McCabe Library Atrium

Refreshments provided

Free copies of Maidenhair will be available for students!

After working as an interpreter for Russian-speaking refugees seeking asylum at the Swiss border, emigre-dissident Mikhail Shishkin incorporated this experience into his novel Maidenhair. The stories he presents offer a more human(e) perspective that encourages empathy, that transcends statistics by delving deep into the stories of the displaced, and that emphasizes the power of storytelling as a means of preservation. Join us for a reading and discussion with one of Russia’s best living writers as we consider how art can help us understand the global refugee crisis. In addition to his reading, Shishkin, who is the only writer to have won all three of Russia’s top literary prizes, will speak about his work in Switzerland and take questions from the audience for a wide-ranging discussion.

Facebook event page

For more information, please contact José Vergara (jvergar1@swarthmore.edu).

Co-sponsored by the President’s Office Andrew W. Mellon Grant, the Global Affairs Program at the Lang Center for Civic & Social Responsibility, the Intercultural Center, Swarthmore Libraries, Russian Studies, German Studies, Peace & Conflict Studies, the History Department, and the Bryn Mawr Russian Department.

NEW Friends, Peace, and Sanctuary course on refugees and art

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.

Challenges to immigrant communities under Trump

President Donald Trump campaigned on aggressively curtailing immigration to the US and ‘securing’ US boarders by stopping the flow of immigrants. In the weeks since taking office, the new administration rapidly moved through a series of executive orders, which left the nation’s airports in chaos, spurred national protests, and brought broad, although not universal, rebuke from the judiciary. This talk will explore the legal underpinnings of the executive orders, how they violate the Constitution or federal statutes, and, most importantly, how future orders may survive legal challenge.

Jonah Eaton (’02), an attorney and specialist in refugee and asylum law at Philadelphia’s Nationalities Services Center, will draw on how anti-discrimination laws and Constitutional protections clash with longstanding judicial deference to the executive on matters of national security and immigration. Finally, Jonah will discuss how these orders effected immigrants and refugees attempting to come to the United States.

Confronting War Crimes in the Middle East and Africa

Confronting War Crimes in the Middle East and Africa

A conversation with Sofia Candeias, international lawyer and member of the United Nations Team of Experts on Sexual Violence and the Rule of Law

Friday, February 17th, 2017
4:30 pm Kohlberg 115

Come listen to intimate reflections of those working on the front lines of today’s conflict and post-conflict contexts. In “Reflections from the Field”, a new speaker series at Swarthmore, diplomats, journalists,
activists, and humanitarians will discuss what they do, why they do it and how they came to do it.

An international lawyer and member of the UN Team of Experts on Sexual Violence and the Rule of Law, Sofia Candeias’ work focuses on the promotion
of accountability for sexual violence crimes. In her current role, she covers the global refugee crisis, with a special focus on Iraq and Syria, as well as the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo and
Mali.

Prior to joining the UN Team of Experts, Sofia was the Criminal Justice Coordinator at the International Center for Transitional Justice where she focused on supporting national efforts on the investigation and prosecution of international crimes in Colombia, Congo, Ivory Coast, Tunisia and Uganda. She has held posts with the UN in Congo, was a member of the Legal Advisory Section of the War Crimes Chamber in Sarajevo, and served as a Legal Officer with the Serious Crimes Unit in UNMISET in East Timor. Sofia began her career in 2003 at the newly established International Criminal Court.

Sponsored by the Department of Political Science, Global Affairs Program at the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, and Peace and Conflict
Studies.