Tag Archives: Swarthmore College

Peace and Conflict Studies Senior Jasmine Rashid Launches Third Edition of VISIBILITY Magazine

Read the full article here

Congratulations to Peace and Conflict Studies student Jasmine Rashid ’18 on the successful printing of the third edition of VISIBILITY Magazine.

“I couldn’t be happier and I can’t wait to see the direction that VISIBILITY goes in the future,” says Rashid, who will graduate this spring.

“A Peace and Conflict Studies special major from Oyster Bay, N.Y., Rashid started the e-zine and magazine three years ago hoping to build a creative platform for underrepresented communities across campus. ‘Creating and running VISIBILITY has been synonymous with carving out a space for collective creativity,’ she says.”

“Available for free online, VISIBILITY is supported through the Swarthmore Intercultural Center (IC) and the President’s Office’s Andrew Mellon grant, which also contributed to printing 415 free copies.”

“‘What’s most important to me is that I think the content of this issue is really reflective of the moment, which is what we aim to curate—especially in terms of centering the voices, creations, and experiences of people whose identities are traditionally marginalized in media,’ says Rashid.”

Article credit: Kate Campbell, Swarthmore College Office of Communications

September 16, 2018 Symposium hosted by Swarthmore College Peace & Conflict Studies — Resisting Anti-Semitism: Past and Present, Local and Global

ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM

“Resisting Anti-Semitism: Past and Present, Local and Global” is a symposium to be held at Swarthmore College’s LPAC Cinema on September 16th, 2018, co-hosted by Dr. Sa’ed Atshan of Peace and Conflict Studies and Rabbi Michael Ramberg of the Interfaith Center and the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life. The subject of anti-Semitism has sparked heated debate in colleges and universities and we hope to model productive dialogue and engagement on this important issue.

Modern anti-Semitism, invented in 19th century Europe drawing on millenia of anti-Judaism, has caused incalculable harm to Jews. The harm it has caused is not limited to Jews, though. Modern anti-Semitism has also indirectly harmed other vulnerable groups, by misdirecting these groups’ anger towards Jews when in fact others bear responsibility for these groups’ oppression. After the Holocaust many people and institutions committed to oppose anti-Semitism and the cynical misuse of it, but in recent years anti-Semitism has experienced a public revival and committed anti-Semites and opportunists willing to exploit anti-Semitism have come to hold positions of power around the world. While it has proven frustratingly resilient, wherever it has arisen, anti-Semitism has encountered resistance and its opponents have found effective means of opposing it.

“Resisting Anti-Semitism: Past and Present, Local and Global” aims to seriously engage with the topic of anti-Semitism – the forms it has taken in the past and the forms it takes now, the ways it has been successfully opposed in the past and the ways it is being successfully opposed now. We will bring together academics, rabbis, activists, and artists, among others, with expertise in three regions – North America, Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa – and engage them in conversation with each other and the Swarthmore community. Enriched by diverse perspectives of our distinguished panelists, symposium participants will gain a deeper understanding of the form of prejudice and violence, an enhanced commitment to opposing it, and a strengthened ability to do so.

Sponsored by Swarthmore College Peace and Conflict Studies Program; Andrew Mellon Foundation; Swarthmore College Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility; and Swarthmore College Office for Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Development.

SCHEDULE

A summary of the schedule is posted first, followed by a more detailed schedule.

Schedule Summary:

9:00 – 9:30: Registration and Opening Remarks

9:30 – 11:00: United States Panel

11:00 – 11:30: Break

11:30 – 1:00: Europe Panel

1:00 – 2:30: Break

2:30 – 4:00: Middle East/North Africa Panel

4:00 – 4:30: Break

4:30 – 5:45: Keynote

5:45 – 6:00: Closing Remarks

Detailed Schedule:

9:00 – 9:30: Registration and Opening Remarks by Rabbi Michael Ramberg, Jewish Advisor, Swarthmore College

9:30 – 11:00: United States Panel Moderated by Dr. Gwynn Kessler, Associate Professor of Religion, Swarthmore College

United States Panelists:

M. Dove Kent, Executive Director, Jews for Racial & Economic Justice

Dr. Laura Levitt, Professor of Religion, Jewish Studies and Gender, Temple University

Eric Ward, Executive Director, Western States Center

11:00 – 11:30: Break

11:30 – 1:00: Europe Panel Moderated by Dr. Robert (Bob) Weinberg, Isaac H. Clothier Professor of History and International Relations, Swarthmore College

Europe Panelists:

Dr. Jonathan Judaken, Spence L. Wilson Chair in Humanities, Professor of History, Rhodes College

Rabbi Rebecca Lillian, Project Manager, Open Skåne Social Cohesion Initiative; Teacher, Lund University (Malmö, Sweden)

Dr. Laurie Marhoefer, Assistant Professor of History, University of Washington

1:00 – 2:30: Break

2:30 – 4:00: Middle East/North Africa Panel Moderated by Rabbi Helen Plotkin, Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion and Director, Beit Midrash, Swarthmore College

Middle East/North Africa Panelists:

Dr. André Aciman, Distinguished Professor, Graduate Center, City University of New York, and Author of Call Me by Your Name

Dr. Orit Bashkin, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of Chicago

Dr. Israel Gershoni, Professor of Middle Eastern and African History, Tel Aviv University

4:00 – 4:30: Break

4:30 – 5:45: Keynote by Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, Senior Rabbi, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah

5:45 – 6:00: Closing Remarks by Dr. Sa’ed Atshan, Assistant Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, Swarthmore College

HOW TO ARRIVE

The symposium will be held at Swarthmore College’s Lang Performing Arts Center Cinema on September 16th, 2018 and will be open to the public.

Swarthmore College is located at 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, PA, 19081. Free visitor parking is available in the Benjamin West Parking Lot on Chester Road (#5 on the Swarthmore Campus Map). The symposium will be held in Lang Performing Arts Center Cinema (#34 on the campus map).

From the Benjamin West Parking Lot, walk towards campus until you reach the large, tree-lined path (Magill Walk). Continue up the path until you reach the end of the path, then turn left and turn right at the end of the large building. The symposium location will be straight ahead.

Beshara Doumani, Director of Middle East Studies at Brown University, to visit Swarthmore PCS on Monday, March 26, 2018

Join the Progam in Peace & Conflict Studies at Swarthmore College for a lecture presented by Prof. Beshara Doumani.

Date: Monday, March 26, 2018

Time: 4:30-6:00 PM

Location: Kohlberg 228

Between House and Orchard: Family, Shariʿa and the Making of the Modern Middle East

In writings about Islam, women, and modernity in the Middle East, family and religion are frequently invoked but rarely historicized. Based on a wide range of local sources, Beshara Doumani argues that there is no such thing as the Muslim or Arab family type that is so central to Orientalist, nationalist, and Islamist narratives. Rather, one finds dramatic regional differences, even within the same cultural zone, in the ways that family was understood, organized, and reproduced. In his comparative examination of the property devolution strategies and gender regimes in the context of local political economies, Doumani offers a groundbreaking examination of ordinary people and how they shaped the modern Middle East.

Beshara Doumani is the Joukowsky Family Professor of Modern Middle East History and Director of Middle East Studies at Brown University. His research focuses on groups, places, and time periods marginalized by mainstream scholarship on the early modern and modern Middle East. He also writes on the topics of displacement, academic freedom, politics of knowledge production, and the Palestinian condition. His books include Family Life in the Ottoman Mediterranean: A Social History, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, Academic Freedom After September 11 (editor), and Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property and Gender (editor). He is the editor of a book series, New Directions in Palestinian Studies, with the University of California Press.

This event is sponsored by Peace & Conflict Studies, Arabic, Gender & Sexuality Studies, History, Islamic Studies, Sociology & Anthropology, and the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility.

Pádraig Ó Tuama Visits Swarthmore: The Art And Soul Of Peace – Poetry, Story and Complications from Northern Ireland’s Peace Process

Video of Padraig Ó Tuama’s poetry reading is now available:

The Peace and Conflict Studies Program at Swarthmore College is thrilled to announce the visit of Pádraig Ó Tuama to campus.

Friday, April 6, 2018 at 2:30 PM
McCabe Library Atrium at Swarthmore College
Maps and Directions
Download a flyer

The Art And Soul Of Peace – Poetry, Story and Complications from Northern Ireland’s Peace Process

Poet, theologian and group worker, Pádraig Ó Tuama has worked with groups in Ireland, Britain, the US and Australia and currently serves as the Community Leader of the Corrymeela Community, an historic ecumenical center on the north coast of Northern Ireland. With interests in storytelling, groupwork, theology and conflict, Pádraig lectures, leads retreats and writes both poetry and prose. We are thrilled that he will join us for a poetry reading and discussion about Northern Ireland’s peace process. This event comes at a tenuous time for Northern Ireland as plans for Brexit (the divorce of the UK from the EU) collide with the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement. Padraig’s ability to perceive and articulate the humanity and spirituality of peacemaking is rich and not to be missed.

Sponsored by Peace & Conflict Studies, English Literature, the Interfaith Center, and the Lang Center for Civic & Social Responsibility.

Prof. Krista Thomason: Faculty Lecture Tomorrow

Krista Thomason, Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Member, Peace and Conflict Studies Faculty Committee

Tuesday, Feb. 13th, 4:15PM

McCabe Library Atrium

Child Soldiers and Moral Responsibility

“It is common to think that child soldiers cannot be morally responsible for the violence they commit: not only are they underage, they typically are forced to join paramilitary units, they suffer psychological and physical abuse, and they participate in combat only under threat of harm or death. Yet when we examine the first-person accounts of former child soldiers, we find that they see themselves as responsible for their actions. It is tempting to think that their feelings are simply misguided or a result of their trauma. I argue instead that child soldiers, like adult ex-combat soldiers, suffer moral injury and their feelings of responsibility are part of the process of redrawing the boundaries of their moral selves.”

Spring 2018 Course Offerings

The Peace and Conflict Studies program at Swarthmore College is happy to share its course offerings for the Spring 2018 semester.

21 courses are eligible for program credit, including 4 courses taught within the Peace and Conflict Studies program and 17 cross-listed courses.

Click here to download the list of eligible courses.

More information on Peace and Conflict Studies Courses:

PEAC 003: Crisis Resolution in the Middle East

PEAC 043: Gender, Sexuality, and Social Change

PEAC 049: Be the Change! Social Entrepreneurship in Principle and Practice

PEAC 135/SOCI 135: Social Movements & Nonviolent Power

Provost of Brown University, Dr. Richard Locke, Will Visit Swarthmore on November 3, 2017

Richard M. Locke is provost of Brown University and professor of political science and public and international affairs. At the time of his appointment as provost in July 2015, Locke served as the Howard R. Swearer Director of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown.

Locke is an internationally respected scholar and authority on international labor relations and worker rights, comparative political economy, and corporate responsibility. He has published five books and numerous articles on economic development, labor relations, and corporate responsibility. For his ongoing research on fair and safe working conditions in global supply chains, Locke was named the 2005 Faculty Pioneer in Academic Leadership by The Aspen Institute. He is a member of the ILO-IFC Better Work Program Advisory Committee, and from 2013-2016, he served as chair of the Apple Academic Advisory Board, a group of independent academics who worked with Apple to improve labor conditions among the company’s suppliers.

This lecture, titled Making Globalization Work For All, is sponsored by Peace and Conflict Studies, the President’s Office, and the Provost’s Office.

Faculty Votes Unanimously to Approve Regular Major in Peace and Conflict Studies

Following the unanimous vote of the faculty, the College has now formally approved a Regular Major in Peace and Conflict Studies here at Swarthmore. Toward the end of the 19th century (1888 to be exact), the first course in peace studies anywhere in the world was taught here at Swarthmore, and our program was established in 1991. The Peace Collection and Friends Historical Library have been supporting peace research since 1930 and 1871 respectively. Now, the study of peace and conflict has been formally incorporated into the College’s curriculum!

Congratulations!

Human Rights Hummus: A Podcast Produced by Peace and Conflict Studies Alumni

Swarthmore Peace and Conflict Studies recent graduates Lily Tyson and Marissa Cohen have already produced three episodes of their new podcast, “Human Rights Hummus: Voices of the Holy Land.”

Lily and Marissa interview Israelis and Palestinians and record their stories, teaching listeners “what their lives are like and about what is going on with this occupation today, as they experience it.”

Swarthmore College, the Lang Center for Civic & Social Responsibility, and Prof. Sa’ed Atshan of the Peace and Conflict Studies program all proudly support Lily and Marissa on this project!

Check out their website here.

Mark your calendars: Alice Paul ’05, Mabel Vernon ’06, and the Battle for the Ballot

Mark your calendars for the College’s first sesquicentennial celebration event, a talk by author Mary Walton:

A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul ’05, Mabel Vernon ’06, and the Battle for the Ballot

Mary Walton

September 19, 2013; 4:15 p.m.

Scheuer Room, Kohlberg Hall, Swarthmore College

Maps and directions

Download a flyer

Mary Walton

On September 19th, Peace and Conflict Studies and co-sponsors will celebrate the International Day of Peace, 125 years of peace and conflict studies at Swarthmore College, and the start of the College’s Sesquicentennial with a talk by Mary Walton, author of A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot. The focus of Walton’s talk will be Alice Paul (Class of 1905) and her friend and fellow Swarthmore alum, Mabel Vernon (Class of 1906).

A New Jersey Quaker, Alice Paul was the leader of the militant wing of the suffrage movement from 1913 to 1920. Hers was a David-and-Goliath struggle to convince a reluctant congress and a stubborn president to give women the vote. Paul and her followers were the first people to picket the White House. They were arrested, thrown in jail, brutalized and force fed when they went on hunger strikes. A pioneer in non-violent resistance, she was to suffrage what Gandhi was to Indian independence, what Martin Luther King Jr. was to civil rights.

In 1913, Mabel Vernon gladly gave up teaching to join her college friend, Alice Paul, in working full time for the Congressional Union. From that day on, she devoted her life to suffrage and other causes. Mabel Vernon was among the most militant suffragists. In 1916, she stood up in a full auditorium and heckled President Wilson as he spoke about democracy. Vernon picketed the White House and was among the first suffragists to go to jail.

Mary Walton is the author of four previous works of nonfiction. She was a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer for many years where she wrote more than a hundred magazine stories as a staff writer for the Sunday Inquirer Magazine. She has also written for the New York Times, Washingtonian, theWashington Monthly, and the American Journalism Review. After graduation from Harvard University, and a turn at social work and community organizing, Walton began her journalism career in 1969 as a reporter for the Charleston (WV) Gazette.

International Day of Peace 2013

Sponsors: Peace and Conflict Studies, the President’s Office, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Friends Historical Library, History Department, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Women’s Resource Center, Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, English Literature Department, and Political Science Department.

Bibliographic links for photographs.