Graphic novels, memory, and war in Lebanon

“Remembering a past that has hardly passed”

Carla Calargé

November 5th, 4:30-5:30pm

Keith Room (Lang Center)

While the war that ravaged Lebanon between 1975 and 1990 can be described as a microcosm of the conflicts plaguing the Middle East, persistent socio-historical factors have, until recently, suppressed its discussion and effectively silenced its memory. Recent emerging accounts have started to unearth this past, whether to understand it, heal its wounds, or extract lessons for the future.

This talk discusses two graphic novels by Lebanese women who grew up during the war: Je me souviens. Beyrouth published by Zeina AbiRached in 2009, and Lamia Ziadé’s Beyrouth 1975-1990 published in 2010. A close examination of these works will reveal the tension between the need to remember, and the limitations of remembering in a context largely defined by collective and state-sponsored amnesia.

Carla Calargé is Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Florida Atlantic University. Her work focuses on the Francophone Arab novels and comics.

Debating for Democracy on the Road

From our friends at the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility:

Debating for Democracy (D4D) on the Road

Saturday, November 3 @ Widener University in Chester, PA10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

D4D on the Road is a one-day training workshop held at Project Pericles campuses around the country. The program is designed to provide novice and seasoned political activists with the tools and tactics they need to get their message across to community leaders, elected officials, the media, and other influential people and organizations. Workshop participants will learn how to analyze federal and state legislation, contact their elected officials and the news media and get involved in elections.

The workshop will be led by Soapbox Consulting, a Washington DC based organization headed by Christopher Kush, the author of The One-Hour Activist.  Soapbox is a leading provider of training seminars, workshops, and lobby days for many national associations. The One-Hour Activist, provides advice from elected officials, professional organizers, lobbyists, and journalists on political advocacy.

Register here: http://widener2012d4d.eventbrite.com

Quaker Public Policy Institute and Lobby Day

Any Peace and Conflict Studies folks interested in an opportunity to “lobby your member of Congress for a more moral federal budget”?

The Friends Committee on National Legislation’s Quaker Public Policy Institute and Lobby Day is coming up November 15-16, 2012. Find more information at http://fcnl.org/events/annual_meeting/Lobby2012

UPDATE 10/31/12:  Young Adult Friends who are members of a Philadelphia Yearly Meeting could receive some financial assistance to come to QPPI.

Contact:

Rachel Kent

Program Assistant for Nuclear Disarmament

Friends Committee on National Legislation

202-903-2518 / rachel@fcnl.org

Honors PCS alum Reina Chano ’09 returns to speak on campus

Reina Chano ’09, Honors Peace and Conflict Studies minor and recipient of the 2010 Elise Boulding Award, will return to campus on November 5 to speak at an event organized by the Department of History. Welcome back, Reina!

Reina Chano '09HISTORY WITH A FUTURE

Conversation with Reina Chano ’09

November 5, 2012; Trotter 303; 4:30pm

Come hear Reina Chano ’09 speak about her experience working in international development for non-profit organization OIC International as well as her recent school relaunch at the University of Pennsylvania as a student in the Masters of Science, Historic Preservation Planning program.

Light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP to history@swarthmore.edu if you plan to attend.

Lee Smithey to speak during Garnet Weekend

Culture and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland

Lee SmitheyLee 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.

POSTPONED Roth ’84 Lecture on Human Rights and International Law

[This event has been postponed. Stay tuned to this blog for updates.]

COMING TO TERMS WITH RUTHLESSNESS: Human Rights Violations, Moral Outrage, and the Role of International Law

Prof. Brad Roth '84Brad Roth ‘84

Professor of Law, Wayne State University

Monday, October 29, 2012

4:30 PM

Trotter 301

Professor Brad Roth, Swarthmore Class of 1984, teaches political theory and international law at Wayne State University. His recent book, Sovereign Equality and Moral Disagreement (Oxford University Press, 2011), applies principles of political morality to the relationship between international and domestic legal authority.

Sponsored by Departments of Political Science, Peace and Conflict Studies, and History

Kari Olmon’s THE INTENSE FRAGILITY in the Frear on 11/9 and 11/10

The Intense Fragility
Adapted from the diary of Vaslav Nijinsky & the theater of Tennessee Williams
by Kari Olmon
Directed by Walter Bilderback

with Katie Goldman ’14, Danica Harvey ’15, Zack Martin ’13, Meryl Sands ’13, Sam Swift Shuker-Haines ’13 & Kassandra Sparks ’15.

In January of 1919, celebrated Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky gives his final ballet performance and begins the diary that will chronicle his descent into madness. In 1936 St. Louis, Rose Williams – beloved sister to renowned playwright Tennessee Williams – discovers Nijinsky’s diary and dreams of escaping into his world. Separated by every possible spatial, temporal, and social barrier, the virtuosic dancer and the secluded sister have one thing in common: both are suspected of a peculiar and precocious dementia that terrifies and repulses their families who will do anything – anything – to contain them. A play about desire, madness, and the legacy of art, The Intense Fragility imagines an encounter outside the slipstream of history that brings two people together in the realm of the subjunctive where anything is possible and fantasy becomes reality.
We welcome you to a staged reading of this piece in the
LPAC Frear Theater
11/9 and 11/10
7PM

Prof. Denise Crossan lecture on social entrepreneurship

Dr. Denise CrossanThe Creative Destruction of Capitalism and the Rise of Social Entrepreneurship

A lecture by

Dr. Denise Crossan

Assistant Professor in Social Entrepreneurship

School of Business

Trinity College Dublin

Regional Director of the Swarthmore College Northern Ireland Semester Programme

Monday, November 5, 2012

4:15 p.m.

Science Center 101

Maps and directions to Swarthmore College

An influential 2011 Harvard Business Review article hailed the re-construction of capitalism and the development of a “shared value” approach to business practice. In this talk, drawing on public policy initiatives around the world, Dr. Denise Crossan will explore the complexity of the concept of social entrepreneurship and review how the private sector and international governments are supporting and growing new organisational forms that strive to deliver an equally weighted social and economic return value for their stakeholders.

Dr. Denise Crossan was appointed to Trinity College Dublin’s School of Business in January 2009 as Assistant Professor in Social Entrepreneurship; the first post of it’s kind in Ireland.  She currently teaches at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and her research interests include mapping social entrepreneurship in an international context; the measurement of social value and ethical practice in social entrepreneurship; international public sector policies to grow social entrepreneurship and understanding corporate social responsibility and blurring sector boundaries.

In 2012 she received the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence, Highly Commended Award Winner, for her paper entitled “The Hologram Effect in Entrepreneurial Social Commercial Enterprises: Triggers and Tipping Points” published in the Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development (Vol. 18, No. 4, 2011).  Dr. Crossan’s in-field experience includes working as Community Business Advisor under the European Union’s Special Programme for Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland from 1996 to 2002, and Dr Crossan acts as the Regional Director of the Swarthmore College Northern Ireland Semester Programme.

Sponsored by Swarthmore’s Study Abroad Office, Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, Peace and Conflict Studies, and Sociology and Anthropology