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.
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.
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
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!
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
On November 15, 2018, Prof. Lee Smithey joined his co-editor and colleague, Prof. Lester Kurtz (George Mason University) to talk about their new edited book, The Paradox of Repression and Nonviolent Movements (Syracuse University Press). The webinar was recorded, and you are welcome to view it here. The Communications Office, also published a piece on the College’s website that you may also read below. You can learn more about the book at http://paradox.swarthmore.edu
By Kate Campbell
November 13th, 2018
Peace and Conflict Studies Professor Lee Smithey Explores the Use of Repression—and How It Can Backfire
Associate Professor Lee Smithey
Lee Smithey, associate professor of peace & conflict studies and sociology, is a co-editor and contributor to a new book, The Paradox of Repression and Nonviolent Movements (Syracuse University Press, 2018), that offers an in-depth exploration of the use of repression in political arenas and its unintended effect of sometimes fanning the flames of nonviolent resistance.
“The concept of backfire, or the paradox of repression, is widely understood to be fundamental to strategic nonviolent action, but it has not been fully investigated. It was work that needed to be done,” says Smithey, who in addition to writing and teaching about nonviolent resistance has also participated in peaceful protests. “Power is not only about repression but also about building public support.”
The book, edited by Smithey and Lester Kurtz, a George Mason University sociology professor, is meant as a tool for scholars and activists to understand how repression works, as well as to study significant incidents when nonviolent activists took measures to help make repression a defining moment. For example: “When authorities are seen as attacking or disrespecting widely shared symbols, they may mobilize people in defense of shared collective identities,” write Smithey and Kurtz.
The editors first wrote about the topic in 1999, but organizing for the new book began in 2009—bringing together diverse, global contributors to study how repression can energize nonviolent movements and how nonviolent activists have worked to manage repression in their favor. It includes the grassroots efforts of nonviolent resistance such as Women of Zimbabwe Arise, who bravely joined forces as “mothers of the nation” to stand against dictator Robert Mugabe.
As they planned the book, Smithey and Kurtz organized a two-day writing retreat for the contributors to help build an integrated approach to the project. “It was intellectually exciting,” Smithey says. “We were committed early on to making this book a collaboration between academics and practitioners.”
One practice the book’s authors explore is called repression management—enacted by withstanding or avoiding repression or by creating scenarios in which repression against nonviolent activists would more likely elicit a sense of public outrage (and ultimately support).
One example, Smithey says, is the now-iconic photo of Ieshia Evans, who stood stoically in a flowing dress and faced a line of law enforcement officers in riot gear as she protested the shooting death of Alton Sterling. The photo, taken in downtown Baton Rouge, La., on July 9, 2016, quickly became a cultural touchstone.
The Paradox of Repression and Nonviolent Movements also examines the psychological costs for agents of repression, elites’ attempts to avoid triggering the paradox of repression, repression of online activism, and the work of overcoming fear.
“Repression is an attempt to demobilize nonviolent movements by sowing fear,” Smithey says, “but activists can work together to overcome fear and continue to mobilize.”
The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict will host a webinar by Smithey and Kurtz Nov. 15 from noon to 1 PM. Smithey will also offer an Alumni Council webinar on the book on Nov. 28.
“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)
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: 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.
On Wednesday November 7, Malinda Clatterbuck, a co-founder of Lancaster Against Pipelines and a staff member at the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund will speak in our “Climate Disruption, Conflict, and Peacemaking” course in Science Center room 183 at 10:30-11:20. You are welcome to attend to hear more about the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline and local resistance. (An RSVP to lsmithe1 would be welcome but not necessary.)
Last year, our class toured part of the route of the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline, including property owned by the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, a Catholic order that is fighting the seizure of their land through eminent domain.
After class on November 7, anyone is invited to join us at noon for a brown-bag conversation over lunch in the new Sproul Hall kitchen (Room 205 in the Hormel/Nguyen Intercultural Center). Brown bag means you bring your own lunch. Drop by Essie Mae’s next door to grab some food if you wish, and then come join us. No need to RSVP.
You can read more about Lancaster Against Pipelines and their partners, the Sisters of the order Adorers of the Blood of Christ at http://www.wearelancastercounty.org/
The new documentary film, Half-Mile, Upwind, On Foot, features clips of interviews with Malinda and the sisters. See https://vimeo.com/283257412
Exhibit: The War to End All Wars: Devastation, Resistance, and Relief in World War I
Atrium, McCabe Library
November 5 – December 1, 2018
Open to the public
November 11, 2018 is the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. To commemorate this event the Swarthmore College Libraries is sponsoring an exhibition of materials from the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Friends Historical Library, and the College Archives will on display. See materials on the reaction of Swarthmore College, Quakers, and peace activists to the first global war, 1914-1918.
Opening event, Thursday, November 8, 2018 Atrium, McCabe Library, 4:30 p.m. Open to the public
“Looking Back at the Great War From a Writers’ Point of View”
Mystery writers Charles Todd and Caroline Todd will talk about their books set during World War I and immediately after. Their detectives, front line nurse Bess Crawford, and soldier-turned Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Rutledge face war time battles and the terrible consequences of war. Open to the public
There will be an opportunity to buy some of the authors’ books and light reception to follow the talk.
Win a signed copy of Charles Todd book! Free raffle for a book from the Swarthmore College bookstore
Visit the bookstore for a free raffle ticket
