Thanks to Mary Walton for her lecture on Alice Paul ’05 and Mabel Vernon ’06

We would like to thank author Mary Walton for her lecture this afternoon on the courageous work of Swarthmore alums Alice Paul ’05 and Mabel Vernon ’06 in their organizing and nonviolent campaigns to secure the vote for women in the United States.

A standing-room only crowd of people from the Swarthmore community and the local community gathered in the Scheuer Room to celebrate the International Day of Peace, the College’s sesquicentennial, and 125 years since the first peace studies course in higher education was taught at Swarthmore. The audience expressed their appreciation for Ms. Walton’s presentation with extended applause.

We would like to thank all of our co-sponsors who made this event a success, including Peace Day Philly for including our event in the city-wide celebration of the International Day of Peace.

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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.

How death penalty defense lawyers cope with stress and trauma

Fighting for Their Lives — A Talk by Susannah Sheffer ‘86

Friday, Sept. 27, 2013, 3:00 – 4:30 p.m.

Lang Center, Keith Room, Swarthmore College

Download a flyer.

Directions to Swarthmore College

Sheffer_86How do attorneys who represent clients facing the death penalty cope with the stress and trauma of their work? What is it like to work so hard and lose so often?

Through conversations with twenty of the most experienced and dedicated post-conviction capital defenders in the United States, Susannah Sheffer explores this emotional territory for the first time in her new book, “Fighting for Their Lives: Inside the Experiences of Capital Defense Attorneys.”

From these capital defenders we can learn not only about the deep and long-term effects of the death penalty but also about broader human questions of hope, effectiveness, success, failure, strength, fragility, and perseverance.

“I am grateful to Susannah Sheffer for bringing these stories to light.” – Sister Helen Prejean, author of “Dead Man Walking.”

Susannah Sheffer (Swarthmore ’86) is Project Director and Staff Writer at Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights, a non-profit organization of families of murder victims and families of people who have been executed. In addition to “Fighting for Their Lives” (Vanderbilt University Press), her poetry collection “This Kind of Knowing” was also published this year by Cooper Dillon Books.

Sponsored by Lang Center for Social & Policy Studies, Philosophy Department, Religion Department, and Pre-Law Advising Office.

 

WOTW: Cardell Dance Theater (October 6, 2013 @ 4PM, Boyer Studio)

The Swarthmore Project and the Department of Music and Dance presents

SUPPERSUPPER, people on the move

(work in progress)

Supper is a site specific performance that poses semantic questions on the experience of displacement and migration in the current social and financial climate.

Supper consists of layers of images and actions inspired in real stories of a group of recent migrants that the dancers and I interviewed during the research process. Papers, pictures, small personal items, table sets were collected and selected throughout the rehearsal period that are part of the narrative of shared stories creating the performance.

Director/Choreographer: Silvana Cardell

Visual Artist: Jennifer Baker

Prologue: Allan Irving and Pablo Meninato

Performers: Bethany Formica, Leanne Grieger, William Robinson, Adrian Pascencia, Maria Urrutia

Company Intern: Jazmine Brooks

 

WOTW: Cardell Dance Theater (October 6, 2013 @ 4PM, Boyer Studio)

The Swarthmore Project and the Department of Music and Dance presents

SUPPERSUPPER, people on the move

(work in progress)

Supper is a site specific performance that poses semantic questions on the experience of displacement and migration in the current social and financial climate.

Supper consists of layers of images and actions inspired in real stories of a group of recent migrants that the dancers and I interviewed during the research process. Papers, pictures, small personal items, table sets were collected and selected throughout the rehearsal period that are part of the narrative of shared stories creating the performance.

Director/Choreographer: Silvana Cardell

Visual Artist: Jennifer Baker

Prologue: Allan Irving and Pablo Meninato

Performers: Bethany Formica, Leanne Grieger, William Robinson, Adrian Pascencia, Maria Urrutia

Company Intern: Jazmine Brooks

 

Nimesh Ghimire wins image competition for Peace Innovation Lab

Just spotted this on the facebook page for the Peace Innovation lab in Nepal, co-founded by Nimesh Ghimere ’15:

peace_innov_lab_logoPeace Innovation Lab’s Nimesh Ghimire was adjudged one of the winners of a regional image competition organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) – Bangkok.

Nimesh’s work (a photograph taken while on his way to our Lab in Lamjung) will be displayed – alongside other top submissions from the Asia-Pacific region – in the “Learning to Live Together” Asia-Pacific Exhibition, to be held in Bangkok, Thailand between 17-22 September at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center.

nimesh

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.

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PCS 125 year logo

Peace Day Philly

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.

 

David Kairys to deliver Constitution Day Lecture on Supreme Court speech law

Peace and Conflict Studies is pleased to be a co-sponsor of this year’s Constitution Day Lecture featuring Prof. David Kairys (Temple University)

Kairys is a leading constitutional scholar and civil rights lawyer. He is widely known for his creative and regularly successful strategies and legal theories on civil rights and liberties, police abuse, criminal defense, and government and corporate misconduct. His latest book is Philadelphia Freedom, Memoir of a Civil Rights Lawyer. 

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New peace and conflict studies logo celebrating 125 years since first course taught

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.

 PCS 125 year logo

Gamelan Semara Santi is looking for dancers!

Swarthmore’s classical Indonesian percussion orchestra (Gamelan Semara Santi) is looking for new student dancers this year!   No prior experience with Balinese dance is assumed, but students should have some prior dance training.  We’ve got some unusual stuff in the works!  We will be performing Kecak – the so-called Balinese ‘Monkey Chant’.  This is a performance genre in which musicians accompany the dancers by chanting interlocking rhythms.  We will also perform a traditional Balinese greeting dance and the dancers will be accompanied by the usual orchestral percussion.

Balinese dance is taught by Latifah lsegaf and I Nyoman Suadin.

The commitment is:
Sunday October 27th, 2-5 PM, Boyer Studio
Sunday November 10th, 2-5 PM, Boyer Studio
Sunday November 24th, 2-5 PM, Boyer Studio
with a final Fall Concert: Sunday December 8th: 10 AM rehearsal; concert at 3 PM

If you are interested in participating please email Tom Whitman in the Music and Dance Department at twhitma1.