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Genocide Awareness & Action Week 2017
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The Baker Institute for Peace & Conflict Studies joins the offices of the Provost and Dean of Students, the departments of International Studies, History, and Politics, and PAX-O to sponsor the 2017 Genocide Awareness & Action Week.
Check out the full schedule of guest speakers, meals, and activities to raise awareness about genocide worldwide:
SUN 4/2 3 PM: Kick off GAAW with a ping-pong tournament comprised of 10-15 doubles teams (light snacks and winners' prize provided!), Sunderland
MON 4/3 12-1 PM: Rwanda study abroad students' lunch talk (pizza provided!), Ellis Ballroom
MON 4/3 7-8 PM: Guest speaker Consolee Nishimwe, Rwanda genocide survivor, Neff
TUES 4/4 7-8 PM: Open mic poetry and music night, Standing Stone Coffee Company, 1229 Mifflin
WED 4/5 5-7 PM: Freedom Seder dinner by Hillel, Stone Church
WED 4/5 7-10 PM: Performance Art Mural Project, Von Liebig downstairs lobby
THURS 4/6 7-8 PM: Guest speaker Lissa Skitolsky, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Susquehanna University, on "Incarceration as a form of genocide," Neff.
FRI 4/7 6-8 PM: FEAST dinner, Native American-themed meal with guest speaker and Baker Institute Director Polly Walker, Stone Church (donations accepted; please
RSVP here)
FRI 4/7 8-8:30 PM: Procession from Stone Church to Founders for candlelight vigil and closing ceremony with Dave Witkosvky
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ALSO IN APRIL: David Radcliff 4/12
On April 12 at 7 PM,
David Radcliff will give a lecture called "When Worlds Collide: Native vs. Capitalist." This talk will explore how native groups from the Great Plains, the Southwest, the Amazon, and the Arctic protect the earth and promote a different worldview. Mark your calendars!
Thanks in advance to Eco House for coordinating Radcliff's visit to Juniata!
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Above: A slide from Magak's 3/22 presentation in Neff presents Kenyan street art.
Right: Magak and Walker visited the Peace Chapel for an early spring walk in between Magak's many campus activities March 13-24.
Kenyan peacebuilder Kitche Magak recently completed a 10-day residency as part of The Baker Institute’s Scholars-Artists-Activists in Residence program.
Magak and Dr. Walker worked extensively to plan a peacebuilding training workshop for Kenyan scholars, leaders of peacebuilding organizations, artists, and activists. This training will be held June 26-30, 2017, at Juniata. The intent is for Kenyan peacebuilders to return to Kenya with action research projects and begin to build a network of scholars and practitioners skilled in effective and sustainable peacebuilding through the arts.
The collaboration between Walker and Magak took root during the 2016 Acting Together conference sponsored by The Baker Institute. For a portion of Magak’s residency, they were joined by fellow Acting Together participant Dr. Cynthia Cohen, director of Peacebuilding in the Arts at Brandeis University. Walker, Magak, and Cohen created a proposal for an international infrastructure for arts, culture, and social transformation.
Kitche’s other activities while on campus included speaking with students about individual research projects, guest lecturing in Matthew Damschroder’s Transitions course and Walker’s Nonviolence course, meeting with a number of PACS affiliated faculty and Juniata administrators, and lecturing to 40-50 attendees on March 22 about the role of the arts in decreasing “otherization” in Kenya.
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"The arts have the power to awaken the empathy in us." -Dr. Kitche Magak
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Kaylie Penner (PACS '19) reflects on Magak's residency: Meeting Kitche Magak was an absolute privilege. When Kitche visited our Nonviolence class, he spoke about indigenous knowledge bases in Kenya. It was really good to hear about indigenous methods of conflict resolution, and how those have been largely neglected post-Kenyan independence. Listening to Kitche's experiences called me, as a student of Peacebuilding and the Arts, to reflect upon what my role in culture is, as we deal with conflicts which stem from our views of the other. Kitche spoke about how he has seen the arts being used for peacebuilding in Kenya. He gave several examples of visual art pieces which have shaped conflict transformation, including pigs with the names of corrupt officials running loose and pieces of street art that re-humanize those who have been marginalized.
Going forward, I'm more compelled to look for instances of otherization and artworks which aim to remedy this. I'm also more urged to be a part of this action to remedy conflict through arts, committing to act, and creating the art which rehumanizes our others.
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More March speaker recaps
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SASHA ABRAMSKY 3/16
Sasha Abramsky visited Dr. Walker's Nonviolence class on Thursday, March 16, before speaking at a PACS salon, enjoying dinner with a small group of faculty and students, and giving a talk to a crowd of 60-70
in Neff about his book, "The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives."
Abramsky's lecture was a part of the Calvert Ellis Memorial Lectureship and funded through that endowment, The Provost's Office and The President's Office.
Thanks to
Savannah Parson, Bekah Ford, and Alison Fletcher for coordinating Abramsky's visit!
TIMOTHY EATMAN 3/28
The Baker Institute, in collaboration with Sarah Worley in Communications, hosted Timothy Eatman for a dinner and talk with a group of 10 invited faculty and students on March 28.
Polly Walker and Eatman engaged with the group in a lively and informal capacity about the role of the arts in social transformation.
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The Baker Institute for Peace & Conflict Studies | 814-641-3464| bakerins@juniata.edu
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