2015-2016 Past Events
The Ruse of Reconciliation? Discursive Contours, Impossibilities and Modes of Resistance in the South African ‘Reconciliation Project’
Wednesday, August 19
12:00-2:00PM
Campion 139 (Faculty Lounge)
A light lunch will be served.
and
Methodological Workshop on Strategies for Analyzing Qualitative and Visual Data
3:00-6:00PM
Campion 139 (Faculty Lounge)
With Professor Gillian Eagle; Professor Garth Stevens; Professor Associate Brett Bowman; and Associate Professor Kevin Whitehead, Department of Psychology, all from the School of Human & Community Development, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
WomenCrossDMZ: A Report Back from a Historic Walk in the Koreas for Peace and Reunification
Wednesday, September 16
12:00-1:30PM
Campion 139 (Faculty Lounge)
With Center Associate Director Brinton Lykes and BC Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Center Affiliated Faculty Member Ramsay Liem.
M. Brinton Lykes, community-cultural psychologist at the Lynch School of Education and Associate Director of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice joined 29 other women from 15 different countries to cross the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas on May 24, 2015, International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament. This year also marks the 70th anniversary of the separation of the two Koreas that set the stage for the world's longest un-ended war and six decades of family separation for millions of Koreans more than 100,000 of whom live in the United States. Ramsay Liem, Professor Emeritus of Boston College, psychologist, filmmaker and long-time Korea activist will join Brinton to share clips of an earlier film about the war and new work about the women's historic walk across the DMZ.
Co-Sponsored by the Lynch School of Education and the Center for Human Rights & International Justice, Boston College
The Syrian Refugees: Are They Just a European Crisis?
Wednesday, September 23
12:00PM
McGuinn 521
With Center Research Professor, and Associate Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service Australia. Maryanne Loughry, RSM; BC Professor of Social Work Westy Egmont; and BC School of Theology and Ministry student Daniel Corrou SJ.
As the crisis of refugees pouring out of Syria making often desperate and lethal trips to seek asylum in Europe grows ever more urgent, our panel will draw from their experiences and expertise with refugees to analyze what can be done to address the crisis and look at who across the globe should bear a responsibility in responding to it.
Cuba & the U.S.: Tides of Change
Tuesday, October 13
7:00PM
Gasson 305
With Ariel Dacal Díaz, Popular Educator, Cuba
Ariel Dacal Díaz, a popular educator from Cuba, will speak on U.S.-Cuban relations, past and present, and the gains of the Revolution that Cubans are committed to preserving.
Since 2008, Ariel has been part of the Popular Education team at El Centro Memorial Martin Luther King, Jr. in Havana, Cuba. He designs, coordinates and systematizes training spaces for social actors in Cuba and abroad. He works specifically training in participation, politics and power, community work, communications, gender, group work, and group coordination. He has conducted research and facilitated popular education workshops in 22 countries, and has written extensively on popular education and social movements. Born in Camagüey, Cuba, he obtained a Master's in Contemporary History, and a doctorate in Historical Sciences from the University of Havana, Cuba.
Tour organized by Witness for Peace New England.
Event co-sponsored by the International Studies Dept., The Teacher Education/Special Education, Curriculum & Instruction Dept. at the Lynch School of Education, and the BC Organization for Latin American Affairs (OLAA).
Mass Incarceration: Missing in America
A Spoken Word Event
Tuesday, October 20
7:00PM
Eagle's Nest, Boston College
Other samples of work by the artists scheduled to perform: Harlym 1two5 | Tell ‘em You Belong, Guillermo Caballero | Spare Change
A Gabelli Presidential Scholars Program event co-sponsored by the Center for Human Rights and International Justice.
Alta Gracia Speakers Tour
Wednesday, October 28
7:15PM
Higgins 310
Come and hear from workers from this fair trade apparel company paying a living wage to its employees. For more about Alta Gracia Apparel see their website here.
A BC Campus Ministry event co-sponsored by the Center.
CONVERSATIONS ON "RACE" AND RACISM
Tough Choices: Teaching about Race, Gender and Class Oppression on a Predominantly White Campus
Friday, October 30
12:00PM
Campion 139
With BC Prof. of History Lynn Johnson and BC Associate Prof. of Sociology and African & African Diaspora Studies C. Shawn McGuffey
Part 1 of the Center's "Conversations on 'Race'and Racism" this fall. Co-sponsored by African and African Diaspora Studies; the Department of Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology at the Lynch School of Education; and Psychology and the Other.
Screening of Doctors of the Dark Side
Monday, November 2
7:00PM
Devlin 010
Discussants: Prof. M. Brinton Lykes, Dr. Nadine Weidman and Sriya Bhattacharyya
Doctors of the Dark Side exposes the scandal behind the torture scandal – how psychologists and physicians implemented and covered up the torture of detainees in US controlled military prisons. The stories of four detainees and the doctors involved in their abuse show how essential doctors have been to the torture program.
A Dept. of Counseling, Developmental & Educational Psychology in the Lynch School event co-sponsored by the Center.
Additional co-sponsors: Dept. of Psychology in the Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences; Ignacio Martín Baró Fund for Mental Health and Human Rights; and ADEP Committee for the Integration of Social Justice in Psychology
CONVERSATIONS ON "RACE" AND RACISM
Fighting Racism by Modeling Inclusion: Reflections of an African-American Dean
Thursday, November 5
12:00PM
New location!: Stuart 315 (changed from 410)
BC Newton campus
With Vincent Rougeau, Dean of Boston College Law School
Part 2 of the Center's Conversations on "Race" and Racism series this fall.
Co-sponsored by African and African Diaspora Studies; the Department of Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology at the Lynch School of Education; and Psychology and the Other.
CONVERSATIONS ON "RACE" AND RACISM SERIES
Critically Engaging White Privilege Towards Institutional Change
Friday, December 4
12:00PM
Devlin 026
With M. Brinton Lykes, Center Associate Director and BC Professor of Community-Cultural Psychology; and Alice McIntyre, Hellenic College Prof. of Elementary Education, and BC alumna
Part 3 of the Center's Conversations on "Race" and Racism series this fall.
Co-sponsored by African and African Diaspora Studies; the Department of Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology at the Lynch School of Education; and Psychology and the Other.
Books Launch & Discussion:
The New Bostonians: How Immigrants Have Transformed the Metro Area since the 1960s
The New Deportations Delirium: Interdisciplinary Responses
Monday, November 16
7:00PM
Devlin 101
With Marilynn Johnson, BC Professor of History and author of The New Bostonians, and;
Center Associate Directors Brinton Lykes, BC Professor of Community-Cultural Psychology; and Daniel Kanstroom, BC Professor of Law, co-editors of The New Deportations Delirium
Come out for this special event launching two new books exploring different facets of the life of the immigrant in the US and in the Boston area!
About The New Bostonians:
Among the most consequential pieces of Great Society legislation, the Immigration Act of 1965 opened the nation’s doors to large-scale immigration from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. A half century later, the impact of the “new immigration” is evident in the transformation of the country’s demographics, economy, politics, and culture, particularly in urban America.
In The New Bostonians, Marilynn S. Johnson examines the historical confluence of recent immigration and urban transformation in greater Boston, a region that underwent dramatic decline after World War II. Since the 1980s, the Boston area has experienced an astounding renaissance—a development, she argues, to which immigrants have contributed in numerous ways. From 1970 to 2010, the percentage of foreign-born residents of the city more than doubled, representing far more diversity than earlier waves of immigration. Like the older Irish, Italian, and other European immigrant groups whose labor once powered the region’s industrial economy, these newer migrants have been crucial in re-building the population, labor force, and metropolitan landscape of the New Boston, although the fruits of the new prosperity have not been equally shared. - See more at: http://www.umass.edu/umpress/title/new-bostonians#sthash.mJwGT7nt.dpuf
About The New Deportations Delirium: Interdisciplinary Responses:
Since 1996, when the deportation laws were hardened, millions of migrants to the U.S., including many long-term legal permanent residents with “green cards,” have experienced summary arrest, incarceration without bail, transfer to remote detention facilities, and deportation without counsel—a life-time banishment from what is, in many cases, the only country they have ever known. U.S.-based families and communities face the loss of a worker, neighbor, spouse, parent, or child. Many of the deported are “sentenced home” to a country which they only knew as an infant, whose language they do not speak, or where a family lives in extreme poverty or indebtedness for not yet being able to pay the costs of their previous migration. But what does this actually look like and what are the systems and processes and who are the people who are enforcing deportation policies and practices? The New Deportations Delirium responds to these questions.
Taken as a whole, the volume raises consciousness about the complexities of the issues and argues for the interdisciplinary dialogue and response. Over the course of the book, deportation policy is debated by lawyers, judges, social workers, researchers, and clinical and community psychologists as well as educators, researchers, and community activists. The New Deportations Delirium presents a fresh conversation and urges a holistic response to the complex realities facing not only migrants but also the wider U.S. society in which they have sought a better life.
Human Rights and Judicial Independence in Guatemala
Wednesday, January 27
12:00-1:30PM
McGuinn 521
With Claudia Escobar, former Guatemalan judge and current Scholar at Risk at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
Claudia Escobar was a judge in Guatemala until last year, when she bravely spoke publicly on corruption in the judicial selection process in the country, including evidence that she herself was approached with an illicit offer. Her public denouncements played a part in further exposing corruption in the country, and public protests helped lead to the arrests of former president Otto Perez Molina and former vice president Roxana Baldetti.
Escobar did receive threats as a result of her statements, however, and decided to seek refuge with her family in the US, where she is currently a Scholar at Risk at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advacned Study. There, she is working on a project highlighting the links between lack of judicial independence in Guatemala and corruption there.
To read more about Ms. Escobar and her story in the Harvard Gazette.
Book Discussion: The Catholic Church and Argentina's Dirty War
Tuesday, February 9
12:00-1:30PM
McGuinn 334
With Gustavo Morello SJ, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Boston College, and author of The Catholic Church and Argentina's Dirty War.
Professor Morello will join us to discuss his new book, which will also be available for sale at a discounted price at the event.
An interview with Prof. Morello about the book may be viewed here.
About the book:
On August 3rd, 1976, in Córdoba, Argentina's second largest city, Fr. James Week and five seminarians from the Missionaries of La Salette were kidnapped. A mob burst into the house they shared, claiming to be police looking for “subversive fighters.” The seminarians were jailed and tortured for two months before eventually being exiled to the United States.
The perpetrators were part of the Argentine military government that took power under President General Jorge Videla in 1976, ostensibly to fight Communism in the name of Christian Civilization. Videla claimed to lead a Catholic government, yet the government killed and persecuted many Catholics as part of Argentina’s infamous Dirty War. Critics claim that the Church did nothing to alleviate the situation, even serving as an accomplice to the dictators. Leaders of the Church have claimed they did not fully know what was going on, and that they tried to help when they could. Gustavo Morello draws on interviews with victims of forced disappearance, documents from the state and the Church, field observation, and participant observation in order to provide a deeper view of the relationship between Catholicism and state terrorism during Argentina's Dirty War.
Morello uses the case of the seminarians to explore the complex relationship between Catholic faith and political violence during the Dirty War—a relationship that has received renewed attention since Argentina’s own Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis. Unlike in countries such as Chile and Brazil, Argentina's political violence was seen as an acceptable tool in propagating political involvement; both the guerrillas and the military government were able to gain popular support. Morello examines how the Argentine government deployed a discourse of Catholicism to justify the violence that it imposed on Catholics and how the official Catholic hierarchy in Argentina rationalized their silence in the face of this violence. Most interestingly, Morello investigates how Catholic victims of state violence and their supporters understood their own faith in this complicated context: what it meant to be Catholic under Argentina’s dictatorship.
The Tsarnaev and Mehanna Trials: Reflections from the Presiding Judge, George A. O'Toole
Wednesday, April 6
3:30PM
East Wing Room 120, BC Newton campus
With US District Court Judge George O'Toole, Jr.and BC Law Professors George Brown, Kari Hong and Robert Bloom. Moderated by Center Associate Director Daniel Kanstroom.
Come hear US District Court Judge George O'Toole, Jr., joined by a stellar panel of BC Law experts, who will discuss the Marathon Bombing case and judicial responses to other acts of terror in the US and abroad.
Judge O'Toole was confirmed in 1995 as a United States District Court judge for the District of Massachusetts. He presided over the 2015 trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon Bombings.
A BC Law School event co-sponsored by the Center.
Working with those Left Behind from Migration: Experiences from a Transnational Project between Zacualpa, Guatemala & Boston
Tuesday, April 12
12:00-1:30PM
McGuinn 334
With Luisa Hernández Simaj and José Daniel Chich González, staff members of the Office for Research and Promotion of the Rights of the Migrant in the parish of the Holy Spirit in Zacualpa, El Quiché, Guatemala.
Staff members of the Office for Research and Promotion of the Rights of the Migrant in Zacualpa, El Quiché, Guatemala and collaborating researchers from the Center will share their experiences of working with local families affected by migration North during a seven-year Center project, including. the types of cases they receive and community-based initiatives with women.
Co-sponsored by the BC Latin American Studies Program, the BC Sociology Dept. and the BC Organization for Latin American Affairs (OLAA).
A Conversation with Heisoo Shin on Gender, Poverty and Human Rights
Thursday, April 21
10:40-11:40AM
Stuart 407
Boston College Newton campus
With Heisoo Shin, Member, UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and moderators Center Associate Director Daniel Kanstroom and Center Affiliated Faculty Member and BC Professor of Law Katharine Young.
Heisoo Shin is trained as a sociologist, and has been working in the human rights movement for more than thirty years, in particular in the area of women’s human rights. She is the president of Korea Women’s Hotline, a national organization with twenty-five branches working to combat domestic and other forms of violence against women. In the 1990s, she led the legislative movements on sexual violence and domestic violence. Representing the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, she raised the comfort women issue at the United Nations and in other international forums, demanding legal reparations by the Japanese government.
Shin also served as an expert on the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women from 2001 to 2008 and as a commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission in Korea from 2005 to 2008. Currently, she is the representative of the Korea Center for UN Human Rights Policy (KOCUN), a human rights organization, and is in the process of establishing a new nongovernmental organization, Movement Against Sexual Exploitation. She is also an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of International Studies at Ewha Woman's University.
Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy event co-sponsored by the Center.
End of Year Presentations & Gathering
Wednesday, May 18
12:30-2:00PM
Stokes North 203
Presenting our graduate certificates to this year graduates and hearing presentations from our summer grantees.