Lisa Schirch, the Richard G. Starmann Sr. Professor of the Practice in Peace Studies at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, will be the first speaker in the Horizons of Change luncheon series, hosted by Eastern Mennonite University’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute. Schirch is a former professor at EMU. Read more about Dr. Schirch.
The lecture series featuring experts in the peacebuilding and conflict resolutions fields is an annual tradition at SPI, which draws several hundred peacebuilders from around the world to take courses for both professional development and academic courses. SPI is a program of EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.
Schirch will speak Wednesday, May 18, from 12:30-2:30 p.m. in the Dining Hall at EMU. Cost is $20 for community members and $15 for EMU faculty and staff. Email dsilvam@emu.edu to reserve your seat. The deadline to reserve is Monday, May 16.
Her topic will be “Decolonializing Peacebuilding.” “Decolonising agendas” are emerging in the fields of humanitarian aid, development, anthropology, sociology and many other facets of life, including peacebuilding. Decolonialism refers to the process of undoing colonial worldviews, institutions and impacts.
Schirch will analyze how the peacebuilding field can respond to the profound sense of chaos and unpredictability in today’s world by addressing the colonial distortions of governance, economy and society. Schirch will talk about how a decolonizing agenda for peace can help us respond to a global set of interacting “ meta calamities” (the pandemic, climate change and weaponisable technologies) as well as rising economic inequality and mass migration, accelerating polarisation and extremism, and urgent demands for racial justice and an end to gender-based violence.
Subsequent lectures will be
- Wednesday, June 1, with CJP Executive Director Jayne Docherty and EMU Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Jackie Font-Guzmán, on the future of CJP and DEI at EMU. Docherty is retiring after 21 years at CJP. Font-Guzmán, an expert in conflict transformation and author with Bernard Mayer of The Neutrality Trap: Disrupting and Connecting for Social Change, will begin a new role as CJP’s strategic vision director this summer. She will aid in the search for and transition to a new executive director for the center.
- June 8, speaker TBD
- June 15, with Ram Bhagat, EdD, speaking on “Brown Vs. Board of Education: The Re/Mix – From Massive Resistance to Massive Resilience. Bhagat, a graduate of CJP, works in the Richmond Public Schools and has taught several courses at CJP. He is a certified Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience trainer.
Cost is $20 for community members and $15 for EMU faculty and staff. Email dsilvam@emu.edu to reserve your seat no later than the Monday before each event.