The Passing of Elise Boulding

It is with fondness and sadness that we join with many others in the Peace Studies community in grieving the passing of Prof. Elise Boulding.

The loss of Prof. Boulding is perhaps especially poignant for us this year, since we just recently learned that Reina Chano ’09 is to be awarded the Elise M. Boulding Undergraduate Student Paper Award by the Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA). Instead, of merely linking to that post, let me restate here some of what was offered about Dr. Boulding’s connection with the college.

Dr. Elise Boulding is a central figure in Peace and Conflict Studies, a sociologist, a Quaker, a founding member of the ASA Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section, and a co-founder of the International Peace Research Association. Dr. Boulding was awarded an honorary degree in Humane Letters by Swarthmore in 1977, and she spent time at the college while her husband, the noted economist and Peace Studies scholar, Kenneth Boulding, served as the first Lang Visiting Professor for Issues of Social Change in 1982-1983.

Jerry Frost, a former coordinator of the PCS program, has written of Dr. Boulding “Modern peace theorists, including Quaker Elise Boulding, remind us that peace is the condition of most of humanity most of the time. Even belligerent powers, and there is a strong correlation with being a great power and the frequency of war, remain at peace most of the time. That is, if peace is defined solely as the absence of war. So it may be that not peace, but war needs to be seen as the abnormality and explained.”  Students regularly read Boulding’s work in Peace and Conflict Studies courses at the college.

This obituary was prepared by Prof. Boulding’s biographer Mary Lee Morrison:

Elise Boulding died at 4:40 pm, June 24, 2010 in Needham, MA. Hailed as a “matriarch” of the twentieth century peace research movement, she was sociologist emeritus from Dartmouth College and from the University of Colorado and in on the ground floor in the movements of peace, women’s studies and futures and played pivotal roles in each. Her writings on the role of the family, women, spirituality and international non-governmental organizations have offered activists and educators new ways of conceiving the tasks inherent in making peace. Beginning in tandem with her late husband, economist and Quaker poet Kenneth Boulding and later on her own, she went on to build a life that encompassed research, writing and teaching, networking and building communities of learning. Dr. Boulding is the author of over 300 publications and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. Her theoretical work on the role of the family in educating toward social change, and the role women have played in peacemaking, together with her ideas on transnational networks and their relationship to global understanding are considered seminal contributions to twentieth century peace education thought. Prior to her scholarly career, which formally began for her at age fifty after receiving her doctorate from the University of Michigan, Dr. Boulding was making major contributions in other areas, most notably as a peace educator and prominent Quaker and as a leader in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), rising up to be International Chair.

She was a founder of the International Peace Research Association and later became its International Secretary-General. She was a co-founder the Consortium on Peace, Research, Education and Development. As an active opponent of the Vietnam War, Dr. Boulding ran for Congress in the 1960s on a Peace Platform in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She taught sociology and women’s studies at the University of Colorado, where she helped to found the peace studies program. She later taught sociology and helped to found the peace studies program at Dartmouth College. She took key leadership positions in the American and International Sociological Associations, worked on climate change, population, and arms control with the American Association of the Advancement of Science, was engaged with the American Futures Society, the World Policy Institute, the United Nations University in Tokyo, consultative work with UNESCO, and was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as the only woman to sit on the Commission to establish the U.S. Institute of Peace. She was on the boards of the National Peace Institute Foundation, the Boulder Parenting Center, the Exploratory Project on Conditions for a Just World Peace, the International Peace Research Association Foundation, the Committee for the Quaker United Nations Office, and Honorary Chair of the National Peace Academy Advisory Board. Prior to her retirement from Dartmouth College, she was a Senior Fellow of the Dickey Center for International Understanding at that university. In 1993 Dr. Boulding represented Quakers at the inaugural gathering of the global Interfaith Peace Council.

Born in 1920 in Oslo, Norway, her status as an immigrant profoundly affected her life and work. A graduate of Douglas College (now part of Rutgers University), Dr. Boulding joined the Religious Society of Friends at age 21, Her sense of herself as a Quaker and her deep spirituality informed all of her subsequent work. Blessed with a very high energy level, at times she also sought out Catholic monasteries for times of retreat from her very heavily scheduled life as an academic, activist, author and speaker. In 1973 she spent a year in retreat in a mountain cabin outside Boulder, CO, where she began writing her seminal work on women, The Underside of History, a View of Women Through Time. Her last book, Cultures of Peace: the Hidden Side of History, is a celebration of the many ways peace is made in everyday places and hidden spaces and its writing was a culmination of her life’s work. Retiring from Dartmouth College in 1985 she returned to Boulder, Colorado. In 1996 she relocated to Wayland, MA and in 2000 she moved to a retirement home in Needham, MA.

Pre-deceased by her husband, Dr. Kenneth Boulding and her two sisters Sylvia Griffith and Vera Larson, she is survived by her five children and their spouses: Russell and Bonnie Boulding of Bloomington, IN, Mark and Pat Boulding of Englewood, CO, Christine Boulding and the late Gregory Graham of Wayland, MA, Philip and Pam Boulding of Olalla, WA and William and Liz Boulding of Durham, NC, 16 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren. Memorial contributions may be made to the National Peace Academy, PO Box 306, Shelburne, VT 05482 (please identify Elise Boulding Scholarship Fund, which was established to honor her life of dedication to peace, on check).  Russell Boulding (4464 N. Robbs Lane, Bloomington, IN, 47408, jrb-eeh@bluemarble.net) is collecting tributes/reminiscences of those touched by her to be complied, shared with the family and placed in the Elise Boulding Collection at the University of Colorado Archives, Boulder.

Elise Boulding died on Thursday, June 24, 2010 in Needham, MA. Born in Oslo, Norway in 1920, she was sociologist Emeritus from Dartmouth College and the University of Colorado. Dr. Boulding was a preeminent peace scholar and was a co-founder of the International Peace Research Association. Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, she was an early pioneer in both womens studies and futures studies. A Quaker, Dr. Boulding was a prolific speaker and writer, authoring over 300 publications including 21 books. Her work on the role of the family in peacemaking is considered seminal. Dr. Boulding was appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 to the Commission which established the United States Institute of Peace. Pre-deceased by her husband, economist and Quaker poet Dr. Kenneth Boulding and her two sisters Sylvia Griffith and Vera Larson, she is survived by her five children and their spouses: Russell and Bonnie Boulding of Bloomington, IN, Mark and Pat Boulding of Englewood, CO, Christine Boulding and the late Gregory Graham of Wayland, MA, Philip and Pam Boulding of Olalla, WA and William and Liz Boulding of Durham, NC, 16 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. A memorial service will be held on Tuesday, July 6, 2010, at 4pm at the Houghton Memorial Chapel, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, under the care of the Wellesley Friends Meeting. Memorial contributions may be made to the National Peace Academy, PO Box 382, San Mateo, CA 94401 (please identify Elise Boulding Scholarship Fund, which was established to honor her life of dedication to peace, on check).

Wein and Kreuzer serve as Honors Examiners

We would like to offer a belated thanks to Barbara Wein (American University) and Marcus Kreuzer (Villanova University) for serving as honors examiners for the program’s class of 2010. Professor Wein is a long-time peace educator and public intellectual who served as Co-Director of Peace Brigades International from 2003 to 2008.  Professor Kreuzer is a political scientist who specializes in European politics, electoral studies, and globalization among his many other interests.

Reina Chano (class of 2009) awarded the Elise M. Boulding Undergraduate Student Paper Award by the Peace War and Social Conflict Section of the American Sociological Association

Reina Chano '09We are happy to announce that Reina Chano ’09, an honors minor in Peace and Conflict Studies (History major), has been awarded the Elise M. Boulding Undergraduate Student Paper Award by the Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA) for a paper, “Youth in Northern Ireland: The Role of Narratives in Promoting Reconciliation,” adapted from her interdisciplinary honors Peace and Conflict Studies thesis: Historical Education as Reconciliation: Teaching History in Northern Ireland.

This is a huge accomplishment for Reina and duly recognizes the effort she put into writing a strong thesis. Much of the work was based on research Reina conducted in Northern Ireland while she studied abroad as part of the college’s Northern Ireland Semester and as she worked with the Verbal Arts Centre in Derry. (Read more about Reina’s experiences.) Reina is the first Swarthmore student to have won this award, and a formal presentation of the award will be made when the section meets during the annual meeting of the ASA in Atlanta in August.

Dr. Elise Boulding is a central figure in Peace and Conflict Studies, a sociologist, a Quaker, a founding member of the ASA Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section, and a co-founder of the International Peace Research Association. Dr. Boulding was awarded an honorary degree in Humane Letters by Swarthmore in 1977, and she spent time at the college while her husband, the noted economist and Peace Studies scholar, Kenneth Boulding, served as the first Lang Visiting Professor for Issues of Social Change in 1982-1983.

Jerry Frost, a former coordinator of the PCS program, has written of Dr. Boulding “Modern peace theorists, including Quaker Elise Boulding, remind us that peace is the condition of most of humanity most of the time. Even belligerent powers, and there is a strong correlation with being a great power and the frequency of war, remain at peace most of the time. That is, if peace is defined solely as the absence of war. So it may be that not peace, but war needs to be seen as the abnormality and explained.”  Students regularly read Boulding’s work in Peace and Conflict Studies courses at the college.

Please join us in congratulating Reina on her accomplishment and thanking her for representing Peace and Conflict Studies at Swarthmore in such a strong interdisciplinary fashion!

To all those involved with Peace and Conflict Studies, the Northern Ireland Semester, the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and the Department of History:

I am happy to announce that Reina Chano ’09 an honors minor in Peace and Conflict Studies (History major) has been awarded the Elise M. Boulding Undergraduate Student Paper Award by the Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA) for her interdisciplinary honors Peace and Conflict Studies thesis: “

Youth in Northern Ireland: The Role of Narratives in Promoting Reconciliation.” This is a huge accomplishment for Reina and duly recognizes the effort she put into writing a strong thesis!

Much of the work was based on research Reina conducted in Northern Ireland while she studied abroad as part of the college’s Northern Ireland semester and as she worked with the Verbal Arts Centre in Derry (read more at http://www.swarthmore.edu/x18662.xml and http://www.swarthmore.edu/x18661.xml). I believe Reina is the first Swarthmore student to have ever won this award, and according to the selection committee chair, it was the most competitive batch of submissions in his fifteen years with the section. A formal presentation of the award will be made when the section meets during the annual meeting of the ASA in Atlanta in August.

Dr. Elise Boulding is a central figure in Peace and Conflict Studies, a sociologist, a Quaker, a founding member of the ASA Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section, and a co-founder of the International Peace Research Association.

Dr. Boulding was awarded an honorary degree in Humane Letters by Swarthmore in 1977, and she spent time at the college while her husband, the noted economist and Peace Studies scholar, Kenneth Boulding, served as the first Lang Visiting Professor for Issues of Social Change in 1982-1983. Jerry Frost, a former coordinator of the PCS program, has written of Dr. Boulding Modern peace theorists, including Quaker Elise Boulding, remind us that peace is the condition of most of humanity most of the time. Even belligerent powers, and there is a strong correlation with being a great power and the frequency of war, remain at peace most of the time. That is, if peace is defined solely as the absence of war. So it may be that not peace, but war needs to be seen as the abnormality and explained.” (http://www.swarthmore.edu/library/friends/religionsfacilitate.htm)  Students regularly read Boulding’s work in Peace and Conflict Studies courses at the college. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elise_M._Boulding)

Please join me in congratulating Reina on her accomplishment and thanking her for representing Peace and Conflict Studies at Swarthmore in such a strong interdisciplinary fashion!

Jared Leiderman (class of 05) writes for Secure Nation

Jared Leiderman ’05 has become a guest contributor on the blog Secure Nation.  Read his first post, “The Military-Civilian Divide – A Civilian’s Perspective (Part 1)”

“For a country at war, it’s odd how little we civilians know about the military. There appears to be a civil-military culture gap that is growing quickly. And that’s not a good thing.” … Read more.

Halliday and Maguire return to Ireland

Halliday Maguire and co. return to Ireland
From left; Derek and Jenny Graham, Fiona Thompson, Denis Halliday and Mairead Maguire, in Dublin Airport today. Photograph: Dara MacDonaill/The Irish Times

Denis Halliday, former UN Assistant Secretary General and 2000-2001 Lang Professor for Issues of Social Change (in Peace and Conflict Studies) and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and founder of the Peace People, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, return to Ireland following the seizure of their humanitarian aid ship in international waters and their forced entry into Israel, from which they were deported.

Denis Halliday former Lang Professor in Peace and Conflict Studies sails for Gaza after Israeli attack on flotilla

Denis HallidayI failed to mention in the previous post about Mairead Corrigan Maguire, that Denis Halliday, former UN Assistant Secretary General and 2000-2001 Lang Professor for Issues of Social Change (in Peace and Conflict Studies) at Swarthmore, is also aboard the MV Rachel Corrie on its way to Gaza. Maguire and Halliday are attempting to deliver humanitarian supplies despite the Israeli Defense Force’s attack on the main flotilla on Sunday.

Like John Braxton (’70) who received an honorary degree from Swarthmore College this past Sunday (only hours before the Free Gaza flotilla was attacked), George Lakey, a recent Lang Professor who continues to teach strategic nonviolent action in the Peace and Conflict Studies program, also sailed through the US Naval Blockade of Vietnam to deliver humanitarian supplies.

Mairead Corrigan Maguire sails toward Gaza after Israeli attack on flotilla

Mairead Corrigan MaguireOnly hours after Swarthmore College awarded an honorary degree to John Braxton (class of 70), in part for his voyage on the Phoenix sailing ship which broke the US blockade of Vietnam in 1967, Israeli commandos attacked a flotilla of peace activists seeking to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.  Information is still slowly leaking out, but nine passengers are reported killed.

Some of you will remember that Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire came to Swarthmore and spoke to a large audience in the Lang Performing Arts Center during the spring semester 2004.  Mairead is now aboard the MV Rachel Corrie, which was forced to abandon the original flotilla due to repairs.  She and other activists have decided to try to enter Gaza, probably by the weekend, despite the Israeli military’s actions on Sunday.

Mairead has already been detained in Israel during a previous sailing of the Free Gaza movement nearly a year ago. She spoke to Democracy Now! from her jail cell.

John Braxton (class of 70) receives honorary degree

On Sunday, at the graduation of the class of 2010, John Braxton (class of 1970) was awarded an honorary degree for his conscientious objection during the Vietnam War and his long peace and justice activism. In her introduction, President Chopp said, “John Braxton, you are a long-time Quaker activist and labor reformer, and founder and co-chair of the Philadelphia Jobs with Justice Coalition. Your long history of advocating for social and economic justice and your tireless efforts to campaign against the proliferation of American military power in the Third World have helped to reshape policies and institutions from the local to the national level.”

Braxton went on to challenge the class of 2010, “We face problems on a scale that we have never faced before – but they are solvable if we don’t ignore them. The solutions require building powerful social and political movements – and people do find a way to do that even in the darkest times.  Today, we have the tools to guide this process more intelligently and nonviolently. The moral arc of the universe does bend towards justice – if we harness ourselves and help it to bend. So I urge you to look straight in the eye of the biggest problems our society faces and then decide which piece of that we can each tackle. If we all do our part, we can preserve this beautiful planet for generations of humanity to come.”

Please view Dr. Braxton’s address or read the full introduction and his remarks on the 2010 Commencement website.