Peace and Conflict Studies, Uncategorized

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).
life lived in reflief
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
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THE INSTITUTE OF MEMORY: Cooper Series Theater Event

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The Department of Theater and the William J. Cooper Foundation are proud to host a week-long residency focused around performances of THE INSTITUTE OF MEMORY (TIMe), an original work created by director/designer/visual artist Lars Jan ’00 and his Los Angeles-based performance company Early Morning Opera.  A combination of autobiography, investigative journalism, and detective story, THE INSTITUTE OF MEMORY confronts the audience with urgent questions about the larger spiritual consequences of political terror, trauma, and privacy in the digital age–and the temptation of simply ignoring them.  THE INSTITUTE OF MEMORY has toured the country and internationally to critical acclaim since 2016.

LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE has called it “trademark Jan, art of the kind of beautiful originality for which he has come to be known.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES described TIMe as: “Presented with dazzling stagecraft.  As a broader exploration of whether a human being can be altered all the way down to his cells and synapses by the nature of the times he has lived through, the piece is startling and disturbing.”

Jan’s  adaptation of Joan Didion’s THE WHITE ALBUM was recently
premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He is the first person to get permission from the author to adapt the piece for performance.

Lars Jan majored in Theater and English Literature at Swarthmore, and is currently on the theater faculty of the California School of the
Arts (CalArts) outside Los Angeles.  He has been active as a director and integrated media designer in Philadelphia since he graduated from the College in 2000.

Performances of THE INSTITUTE OF MEMORY will take place in the Pearson-Hall Theatre in the Lang Performing Arts Center on Friday, Feb. 1, @ 5 pm, and Saturday, Feb. 2, @ 7 pm.  The performance lasts about 80 minutes, and the opening show on Friday will be followed by a reception in the LPAC lobby.  The Saturday performance will be followed by a post-show discussion with Lars Jan moderated by Prof. Allen Kuharski of the Theater Department.

Both performances are free and open to the public without advance reservation.

Funding support for the residency is also provided by the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA).  TIMe was originally commissioned by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute/CULTURE.PL in Warsaw.  Campus co-sponsors for the residency include the Departments of English Literature, Film & Media Studies, Music & Dance, Modern Languages & Literatures (Russian Section), History, Peace & Conflict Studies.

Peace and Conflict Studies

Touring the Mariner East 2 Pipeline

Twenty-five students from the Peace and Conflict Studies / Environmental Studies course “Climate Disruption, Conflict, and Peacemaking” braved cold temperatures to tour the route of the Mariner East 2 pipeline (ME2) that runs near Swarthmore College.

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The ME2 will carry compressed propane, ethane, and butane from fracking operations in the Marcellus shale fields of western Pennsylvania to the port of Marcus Hook where these byproducts of natural gas production will be shipped mostly to Europe for the production of plastics.

The ME2 pipeline carries highly flammable liquefied gases under pressure through populated suburban neighborhoods, often only feet from homes, schools, residential facilities, detention facilities, and businesses. The pipeline has generated significant and growing local opposition and has raised questions about risk and regulatory processes. The gases are odorless, invisible, and heavier than air, raising concerns about the possibility of evacuation in the event of a leak.

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Our tour took us to Marcus Hook and its refineries, an elementary school near a valve station, and Hershey’s Mill Village, a large retirement community in the potential blast zone of the pipeline. We met with local residents and activists at the latter two sites. We are immensely grateful to our guide, George Alexander, author of the Dragonpipe Diary, where you can find more investigative work on the pipeline and local campaigns to stop or regulate the pipeline.

For information from Sunoco on the pipeline, visit their website.

 

A new film Half-Mile, Upwind, On Foot, about resistance to the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline (that we toured last year) and the Mariner East 2 pipeline, will be released soon.

Half-Mile, Upwind, On Foot trailer from Brian McDermott on Vimeo.

Peace and Conflict Studies

Infographic Session – Climate Disruption course

Please join the students in Climate Disruption, Conflict, and Peacemaking (PEAC 055 / ENVS 031) for an infographic session (similar to a poster session) on Monday morning December 10 at 10:30 a.m. in Shane Student Lounge.

Refreshments provided.  This is a zero waste event.

sustainability poster

 

 

With thanks for support from the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility

Peace and Conflict Studies

Anti-Blackness as Latin American Nationalism

Zahira Kelly-Cabrera

Anti-Blackness as Latin American Nationalism

Time/Location: Monday, December 3rd from 4:30pm-5:30pm in the IC Dome (Sproul 201)

Description: You are all invited to Zahira Kelly-Cabrera’s talk on Anti-Blackness as Latin American Nationalism. Zahira Kelly-Cabrera aka @Bad_Dominicana is an AfroDominicana mami, writer, artist, mujerista, award-winning sociocultural critic, and international speaker. She is known for advocating for LatiNegra visibility and rights on social media, and unfiltered social critique, broken down in accessible language. She also aims to pick apart white supremacist capitalist hetero-patriarchy from an anticolonial AfroLatina perspective. The talk is open to the public.

Sponsors: The President’s Office, The Black Cultural Center, The Women’s Resource Center, The Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Community Development, Spanish Department, The Intercultural Center, Sociology & Anthropology Department, ENLACE, SASS, SOCA, Peace & Conflict Studies Department, Black Studies Program, Latin American & Latino Studies Program, The Interfaith Center, Educational Studies Program, and Religion Department.

Peace and Conflict Studies

CIL@SF trip to meet Swarthmore alums in Silicon Valley

CIL@SFCIL@SF 2.0 = CIL@SF trip + supplemental course to  
Please note that this supplemental course is open to all students.  While students enrolled in “PEAC049: Be the change! Principles in Practice” are encouraged to apply, it is not compulsory as part of the PEAC049 requirement, nor will places be reserved.
 
Check out how to apply below! 
INFO SESSION: Tuesday, November 27th, 12:30pm in Shane Lounge
APPLICATIONS DUE: Friday, November 30th by 11:59pm via Google Form below

Since 2015, the CIL has organized CIL@ SF, a trip for approximately 10 students to meet Swarthmore alums and tour tech related companies in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley areas. Students have had the opportunity to meet with entrepreneurial alumni who live and work in the region, to learn about their work and their workplaces, and engage with start-up, venture capital, and tech communities. In January 2018, CIL@ SF visited parents, alumni, and colleagues at Google HQ, Ancestry.com, Title Nine, DFJ Ventures, Stitch Fix, OpenTable, and Stanford University’s d.school.

This year the CIL@ SF trip has been redesigned to align more closely with current classes being taught in Swarthmore, and in 2019 will be delivered as a supplement course to PEAC049: Be the Change! Social Entrepreneurship Principles in Practice, delivered by Denise Crossan, Lang Visiting Professor for Issues of Social Change. 

The CIL@ SF trip and supplement course is delivered as an engaged scholarship class.  Preparatory classes and in-depth learning experiences combine to give students the opportunity to explore, examine and reflect on theory in practice.  The required class preparation will consist of 4 classes of 2 hours duration delivered prior to Spring Break 2019. Students will be required to work in teams and individually to write short reflective reports on the learning experience throughout the course.  PEAC049A is for zero credit as it is a supplement to PEAC049 for Spring Semester 2019. 

CIL@ SF 2019 Learning Goals:

  • Through case studies, examine a number of society’s “wicked problems”.  Explore the range of contributing issues to wicked problems and the methods employed to find solutions to seemly intractable issues.
  • Understand and explore the principles of social innovation as applied in a number of different scenarios.
  • Examine the knowledge base, experience and career paths of individuals who are social innovators across the public to private spectrum.

Who: 10 Swarthmore students
Where: Start-up, venture capital, and tech communities with a social entrepreneurship or innovation focus + more in San Francisco and Silicon Valley
When: March 10-16, 2019
Cost: $0. All travel, food, and accommodations are covered by the CIL

How to Apply

Registration for this supplemental class will be through a written online application and a short interview. Please note that this supplemental course is open to all students. While students enrolled in “PEAC049: Be the change! Principles in Practice” are encouraged to apply, it is not compulsory as part of the PEAC049 requirement, nor will places be reserved. To apply, students will be asked to submit:

  • A current resume (PDF)
  • An essay, no longer than 1,000 words, (PDF) answering the following questions
    • What do you think you’ll gain from the CIL@ SF Trip?
    • What would you most like to ask or learn from alumni working in social innovation and social entrepreneurship?  

Applications will be reviewed by a CIL panel, and on first round selection based on the essay, students will be asked to attend a short interview. Only 10 students can go on the trip and must confirm that they are available and committed to travel on dates between March10-16, 2019 (Spring Break week). Please note that this supplemental course is open to all students. While students enrolled in “PEAC049: Be the change! Principles in Practice” are encouraged to apply, it is not compulsory as part of the PEAC049 requirement, nor will places be reserved.

 Important Dates!

  • An Information Session on CIL@ SF will be held:  Tuesday, November 27th, 12:30pm in Shane Lounge  
  • Online applications should be submitted by:  Friday November 30th by 11:59pm via Google Form above
  • Interviews will take place: the weeks of December 3rd/10th, Social Innovation Lab
  • Notification by: No later than December 17th

 

Please contact Katie Clark at kclark2 if you have any questions!

Uncategorized

No Empires, No Dust Bowls: Lessons from the first Global Environmental Crisis with Dr. Hannah Holleman

Announcing an Upcoming Lecture!

Download and share a flyer.

No Empires, No Dust Bowls: Lessons from the First Global Environmental Crisis

Dr. Hannah Holleman
Assistant Professor of Sociology at Amherst College

Monday, December 3, 2018 from 4:15 pm – 5:30 pm in the Scheuer Room, Kohlberg Hall, Swarthmore College
This event is free and open to the public. (Campus map)

The 1930s Dust Bowl has become one of the most prominent historical referents of the climate change era amongst scientists and writers. This lecture offers a significant reinterpretation of the disaster with implications for our understanding of contemporary environmental problems and politics. Based on award-winning research and theoretical development, Prof. Holleman reinterprets the Dust Bowl on the U.S. southern Plains as one dramatic and foreseeable regional manifestation of a global socio-ecological crisis generated by the political economy and ecology of settler colonialism and the new imperialism.

She establishes key antecedents to present-day ecological developments and brings the narrative forward to today, explaining the persistent consequences and important lessons of this era for our current struggles to address the planetary challenges of climate change, environmental injustice, and new threats of dust-bowlification.

Hosted by Peace and Conflict Studies with Co-Sponsorship from the Lang Center for Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility, Environmental Studies, and Sociology and Anthropology

Contact: Molly Lawrence at mlawren1@swarthmore.edu, 610-328-7750

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Can the Two Koreas Come Together and Change the World? A Talk with John Feffer

Can the Two Koreas Come Together and Change the World
“Can the Two Koreas Come Together and Change the World?”
A talk by John Feffer, Director of Foreign Policy In Focus, Institute for Policy Studies (Washington, DC)
Thursday, November 15, 2018
4:15 pm
Kohlberg 115
North and South Korea have embarked on their most ambitious efforts yet to end the Cold War on the Korean peninsula. The two sides have begun to dismantle structures at the DMZ. They are discussing wide-ranging economic cooperation and even co-hosting a future Olympics. Reunification remains a challenging task, however, given the enormous political, economic, and cultural divide between the two Koreas. Also, inter-Korean rapprochement depends at least in part on the success of nuclear negotiations between the United States and North Korea. Still, if successful, the current detente on the Korean peninsula promises not only to defuse one of the world’s most dangerous faultlines but also bring together a fractious region. It could even provide an example for the world of how to overcome ideological divisions to address common problems.

John Feffer is the author of several books, including North Korea, South Korea: U.S. Policy at a Time of Crisis. His most recent book is the forthcoming novel, Frostlands. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Salon, Fortune, and many other periodicals. He served as the East Asia International Affairs Representative for the American Friends Service Committee from 1998 to 2001. He is a graduate of Haverford College.
Sponsored by Asian Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, the Department of History, and HAN (Korean Student Organization)
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“For the Love of Humanity: the World Tribunal on Iraq” with Dr. Ayça Çubukçu

Please join us for a lecture by Ayça Çubukçu (LSE) on November 8th at 5 pm in Kohlberg 115. Ayça’s lecture will draw on her recently published book with UPenn Press.

For the love of Humanity
“For the Love of Humanity: the World Tribunal on Iraq”
Dr. Ayça Çubukçu
Associate Professor in Human Rights & Co-Director of LSE Human Rights
London School of Economics and Political Science

The global anti-war movement against the invasion and occupation of Iraq crystalized on February 15, 2003, when millions of people simultaneously demonstrated in six hundred cities around the world. The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) emerged from this global anti-war movement in order “to tell and disseminate the truth about the Iraq war.” Between 2003 and 2005, in the absence of official institutions of justice willing or able to perform the task, the WTI established a globally networked platform where the reasons and consequences of the war could be investigated, and those responsible for the destruction of Iraq could be publicly judged. Based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork with WTI activists around the globe, this lecture will examine the transnational praxis of the World Tribunal on Iraq to address challenges of forging global solidarity through an anti-imperialist politics of human rights and international law.

This event is part of the “Contending Visions of the Middle East” series, which is supported by the President’s Office Andrew W. Mellon Grant and the departments of History, Peace and Conflict Studies, Political Science and Sociology / Anthropology.