Fall Semester 2020: Upcoming Events

As we prepare for the upcoming semester, one which will look and feel very different to those past, the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace is looking forward to the events we have planned.

All of our events this semester will be held online only as we continue to operate in a time of uncertainty. We are committed to ensuring the safety of our wider community and holding our events in a virtual format allows us to do this. 

This semester we have six events planned.

On September 3, 2020 at 2pm, Dr. Aurelien Mondon and Dr. Aaron Winter will be discussing Reactionary Democracy in the United States: How Racism and the Populist Far Right Became Mainstream. In this talk, Aurelien Mondon and Aaron Winter will discuss their book Reactionary Democracy: How Racism and the Populist Far Right Became Mainstream. Recent developments and protests in the US, and more widely, have shown the reality of systemic racism and convergence of the mainstream and far right after a long period in which racism was deemed to be unacceptable and our societies ‘post-racial’. In this talk, Mondon and Winter will look at the legitimisation and mainstreaming of racism and the far right through a variety of processes, such as the construction and racialisation of ‘the people’ or demos as white, ‘populist hype’, euphemisation and liberal tropes such as free speech. They argue that this has not only made racism more acceptable, but emboldened racists, including the far right, once seen as the unacceptable face of what Mondon and Winter term ‘illiberal racism’. In addition to examining this process and history, they will also discuss what we need to do as anti-racists to not only fight racism and the far right, but ensure democracy is itself progressive. They will focus the talk on the United States, but also draw from case studies on the UK and France from the book.

You can register to attend here. 

On September 17, 2020 we will host The Baha’i Chair for World Peace Annual Lecture: A Conversation on Science, Policy, and Justice with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. Dr. Johnson is a marine biologist, policy expert, writer, and Brooklyn native. She is founder of Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for the future of coastal cities, and founder and CEO of Ocean Collectiv, a consulting firm for conservation solutions. Recently, she co-created the Blue New Deal, a roadmap for including the ocean in climate policy. Previously, she was executive director of the Waitt Institute, developed policy at the EPA and NOAA, served as a leader of the March for Science, and taught as an adjunct professor at New York University. Dr. Johnson earned a BA from Harvard University in environmental science and public policy, and a Ph.D. from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in marine biology. She publishes widely, including in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and The Guardian, and she blogs on Scientific American. She was named one of Elle’s 27 Women Leading on Climate. Outside Magazine called her “the most influential marine biologist of our time.” Her mission is to build community around solutions to our climate crisis. Find her @ayanaeliza.

The registration link for this event will be provided soon. 

We are delighted to be co-sponsoring the 6th UMD Symposium on Environmental Justice and Health Disparities on September 26th, 2020 from 9am – 5.30pm.  For years, the University of Maryland Symposium on Environmental Justice and Health Disparities has provided a forum for open dialogue between community members and organizations, environmental justice advocacy groups, researchers, scholars, legal professionals, elected officials and many more. This year, in the interest of health and safety, we will be convening online using Zoom Webinar, courtesy of the University of Maryland.

You can register to attend here.

Moving into October, Professor Jeffrey Herf will present a lecture titled From the Powerful and Evil Jew to the Zionist as Racist, Oppressor and Imperialist:  Continuity and Change in Antisemitic Falsehoods from Ancient Times to the Present on October 6, 2020 at 4pm.  Antisemitism is a variety of hatreds that has nothing to do with the central aspect of racism as Americans understand it. Because it does not have its roots in the color of skin or the cultural issues associated with color by racists, it cannot be understood through the conventional lenses that we use to understand the central injustice of American history, that aimed at African-Americans. Rather, antisemitism is rightly called “the longest hatred” because it has its origins in the Christian accusation of deicide in the story of the crucifixion of Jesus. In modern times, antisemites gave this originally religiously rooted hatred a secular form of conspiracy theories of a powerful and evil “international Jewry.” Since the middle of the twentieth century, Jew-hatred has been expressed by the extreme right, the far left, and by radical Islamists. This lecture examines the broad contours of the history of a hatred that became a form of racism not based on skin color but whose genocidal consequences flowed directly from very old beliefs, deeply embedded in Western culture of the alleged power and evil of “the Jew.” The fight against this longest hatred is central to all efforts to combat all forms of racism and intolerance.

You can register to attend here. 

This will be followed on October 29, at 3pm by Dr. Hollie Nyseth Brehm and her lecture on Reintegration and Reintegration of People Convicted of Genocide in Rwanda. One hundred and fifty-two countries have outlawed genocide since it became a crime of international law. While some people who commit genocide evade conviction, hundreds of thousands of people—from Cambodia to Rwanda to Bosnia-Herzegovina—have consequently been found guilty of genocide, served prison sentences, and returned home. This talk is based on a project that follows 200 people who spent time in prison for committing genocide in Rwanda and who returned to their communities. Drawing upon intensive fieldwork—including interviews with each participant before they left prison, 6 months after their release, and 1-year after their release, as well as focus groups with survivors and other community members—I ask: What obstacles do people convicted of genocide face as they reenter society, and what are the individual, family, community, and state-level factors that are associated with successful reintegration? How do community members view the return of people who committed genocide, and how does their return impact peace-building processes? In the talk, I will focus on the factors associated with who is welcomed home, as well as the reasons behind variation in successful reintegration into communities.  

You can register to attend here. 

The final event of the semester is the rescheduled lecture of Professor Joseph Richardson on Life After the Gunshot: A Digital Storytelling Project on the Impact of Structural and Interpersonal Violence and the Healing Process for Young Black Men The lecture will be held on November 24 at 2pm.  Each year approximately 100,000 Americans are victims of nonfatal firearm injury at least 75% of this population are survivors of intentional firearm violence. Homicide, specifically via gun violence, is the leading cause of death and disability in the US among young Black males (ages 15-34). Structural violence, specifically, the impact of mass incarceration, mass probation and its collateral consequences on young Black men amounts to a social death for thousands disfranchised by the mark of a felony record many for non-violent offenses. Approximately 2.3 Americans are incarcerated in US prisons and jails and 40% of the incarcerated population are Black despite representing only 13% of the US residents. Additionally, 4.5 million US residents are on probation and parole. It is expected that one out of three young Black men will be incarcerated at some point in their lifetimes. Gun violence and mass incarceration not only contribute to early mortality and social death among this population, they also impose significant physiological and mental health trauma across the life-course. My talk will discuss the intersection of the gun violence, mass incarceration and trauma among violently injured young Black men and the ways structural and interpersonal affects their lives. The presentation will use digital storytelling narratives taken from my digital storytelling project Life After the Gunshot to humanize and illuminate structural and interpersonal violence in the lives of 10 young Black male survivors of gun violence and mass incarceration in Maryland and the District of Columbia. The conclusion of my talk will propose viable solutions to address the epidemic of structural and interpersonal violence in the US.

You can register to attend here. 

Further details, login information and updates will be available on our website and on our social media accounts. 

We hope to ‘see’ you at our events in the fall.

About the Author: 

Kate Seaman is the Assistant Director to the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace where she supports the research activities of the Chair. Kate is interested in understanding normative changes at the global level and how these changes impact on the creation of peace.

You can find out more about the Bahá’í Chair by watching our video here.

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