social justice

Arcus Center Invites Proposals for 2014 Conference “WITH/OUT – ¿BORDERS?”

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KALAMAZOO, Mich. [Oct. 23, 2013]: Kalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL) invites proposals for papers, workshops, roundtables, and think-tanks for “WITH/OUT – ¿BORDERS?” a conference to be held September 25-28, 2014 on the Kalamazoo College campus—including in the new home of the ACSJL currently under construction.

The deadline for submitting 150-word proposals is Jan. 15, 2014. Send entries to Karla.Aquilar@kzoo.edu. Entries selected for the conference will be notified by Feb. 15, 2014. For more information, email Arcus.Center@kzoo.edu or visit https://reason.kzoo.edu/csjl/withoutborders.

“Conference-goers will explore the very notion of borders both physical and theoretical,” said ACSJL Academic Director Lisa Brock, Ph.D. “Borders and boundaries of all kinds, whether intersectional, cartographical, ideological, political, cultural, and social, will be deconstructed.”

Confirmed conference speakers include award winning performance artist Guillermo Gomez Pena, 2011 National Book Award poetry winner Nikky Finney, artist Ashley Hunt, scholar Saree Makdisi, musician Ugochi, and scientist Jon Beckwith.

According to Brock, the 2014 WITH/OUT – ¿BORDERS conference aims to foster both theoretical discussion and practical problem-solving around key questions such as how individuals and groups can:

  • cross academic borders and break down organizational silos in order to embrace emerging disciplines and create interdisciplinary spaces;
  • remove or open seemingly fixed national and military borders such as the U.S.-Mexico border or the conflict between Palestinian and Israeli territories;
  • span cultural borders such as race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation; and
  • connect and combine historically separate social justice issues and work in solidarity across social justice movements.

“We are interested in creating conversations on emerging epistemologies, radical geographies, critical solidarities, and transgressive practices that transcend disciplinary and academic/activist borders,” said Brock. “We want conference attendees to show us how they would re-map the world—with and without borders.”

WITH/OUT – ¿BORDERS? builds on the ACSJL’s successful spring 2013 Global Prize for Collaborative Social Justice Leadership that drew more than 100 entries from around the United States and 22 other countries, and culminated in the awarding of three global prizes and one regional prize.

The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (www.kzoo.edu/socialjustice) was launched in 2009 with support from the Arcus Foundation (www.arcusfoundation.org), including a $23 million endowment grant in January 2012. Supporting Kalamazoo College’s mission to prepare its graduates to better understand, live successfully within, and provide enlightened leadership to a richly diverse and increasingly complex world, the ACSJL will develop new leaders and sustain existing leaders in the field of human rights and social justice.

Kalamazoo College (www.kzoo.edu), founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, is a nationally recognized liberal arts college and the creator of the K-Plan that emphasizes rigorous scholarship, experiential learning, leadership development, and international and intercultural engagement. Kalamazoo College does more in four years so students can do more in a lifetime.

Countless Malalas

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President and Chief Executive Officer of Pathfinder International Purnima Mane
Dr. Purnima Mane, President and Chief Executive Officer of Pathfinder International

“Empowering girls with information and giving them a voice enables them to say ’no’ to early marriage, ’no’ to dropping out of school, and ’no’ to an early pregnancy or unsafe sex that might cost them their future.” So wrote Dr. Purnima Mane, President and Chief Executive Officer of Pathfinder International.

Next week Mane will visit the Kalamazoo College campus to give a talk titled “Catalysts for Change: Empowering Youth through Sexual and Reproductive Rights.” The event will occur on Tuesday, October 22, at 7 p.m. in the Mandelle Hall Olmsted Room. It is free and open to the public.

Pathfinder International believes that people everywhere have the right to live a healthy sexual and reproductive life. For more than 55 years, The organization has worked to expand access to quality sexual and reproductive health care to enable and empower individuals to make choices about their body and their future. “When people take charge of their life choices–such as if or when and how often to have children–they gain confidence and strength,” said Mane. “They can better pursue their education, contribute to the local economy, and engage in their communities.”

Mane is a distinguished diplomat, leader, manager, academician, and social activist, as well as an internationally recognized expert on HIV, maternal health, behavior change, gender, and population. Pathfinder International has more than 1,000 staff around the world, an annual budget exceeding $100 million, and sexual and reproductive health programs in more than 20 developing countries.

Mane’s visit to Kalamazoo College is co-sponsored by the Center for Civic Engagement and the Office of Student Development.

Phi Beta Kappa Lecture on K’s Campus

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David Forsythe
David Forsythe

David Forsythe will deliver the annual Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Lecture at 8 PM on Tuesday, November 5, in the Mandelle Hall Olmsted Room at Kalamazoo College. The title of his address is “The United States and Torture after 9/11.” The event is free and open to the public.

Forsythe is University Professor and Charles J. Mach Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Emeritus at the University of Nebraska (Lincoln). His work focuses on international human rights, international law and organization, American foreign policy, and international relations.

His books include The Humanitarians: The International Committee of the Red Cross, Human Rights in International Relations; The United Nations and Changing World Politics; American Foreign Policy in a Globalized World; and The Politics of Prisoner Abuse. He is the general editor of The Encyclopedia of Human Rights and the recipient of many awards for scholarship. In 2008 he held the Senior Fulbright Distinguished Research Chair for Human Rights and International Studies at the Danish Institute for International Studies.

Since 1956, the Phi Beta Kappa Society’s Visiting Scholar Program has been offering undergraduates the opportunity to spend time with some of America’s most distinguished scholars. The purpose of the program is to contribute to the intellectual life of the institution by making possible an exchange of ideas between the Visiting Scholars and the resident faculty and students. The 13 men and women participating during 2013-2014 will visit 100 colleges and universities with chapters of Phi Beta Kappa, spending two days on each campus to meet informally with students and faculty members, participate in classroom discussions and seminars, and give a public lecture open to the entire academic community.

 

 

Social Justice Networks in Action

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Alyssa Rickard ’12 works for the Africa Department of Freedom House, an independent watchdog organization that supports democratic change, monitors the status of freedom around the world, and advocates for democracy and human rights. The organization’s Johannesburg (South Africa) office–and Rickard–are working on a project seeking people in southern Africa to serve as mentors to 20 Fellows of a Freedom House program called Empowerment of a New Generation of Leaders in Southern Africa (ENGLSA). The Fellows (and prospective mentees) are men and women between 25 and 45 years old from government, private sector and civil society organizations in Namibia and South Africa, all of whom are committed to ethical leadership and accountable governance. Prospective mentors will use one-on-one and group meetings as well as virtual interactions to mentor, drawing from their personal experiences and professional backgrounds to serve as trusted counselors, loyal advisors, sounding boards and coaches to mentees. Mentors will help the Fellows reflect on their developing competencies and enhance their leadership capacity. In her work, Rickard, who earned her B.A. as a political science major, is drawing on some of her own undergraduate mentors as resources, specifically the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership’s Lisa Brock and Prexy Nesbitt. Rickard took the College’s course on Nelson Mandela, co-taught by Brock and Nesbitt, and later joined one of Nesbitt’s trips to Africa. Both Brock and Nesbitt have extensive networks of social justice leaders in southern Africa that might help Rickard and Freedom House recruit the mentors for ENGLSA. The connection is one example of the worldwide impact of the ACSJL.

Conference Call

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The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College will hold its first conference to question–and complicate–the notion of borders. Called WITH/OUT – ¿BORDERS?, the gathering will use a “(un)conference” structure, says Lisa Brock, academic director of ACSJL. “We welcome proposals for papers, roundtables,think tanks, and workshops.” The deadline for proposals is January 15, 2014. “We are interested in creating conversations on emerging epistemologies, radical geographies, critical solidarities, and transgressive practices that transcend and theorize across disciplinary and academic /activist borders,” says Brock. Topics include (but are not limited to) the following:

The seemingly fixed and immutable character of national-state borders (often writ in blood based on conquest and war) that, in truth, are actually unsettled and contestable. How might we map this?

Globalization’s increasing commodification of ever more forms of human and natural activity and the concomitant rise of “new” borders (fences, checkpoints, restrictions, gates, walls, prisons, and policies and laws that put greed before need). Where are the critical solidarities being developed?

The challenges to gender borders and the re-inscription of race and class divides. Where are the radical transgressions today?

The effect two changes–old borders under review and new borders in flux–on pedagogy, disciplines, nationalist paradigms, and social justice in education. What are the emergent 21st century epistemologies?

The conference will take place September 25 through September 28, 2014, at the ACSJL on the K campus. Proposals should be sent (by January 15) to Karla.Aguilar@kzoo.edu. Address queries to Arcus.Center@kzoo.edu.

African Film Series at K, June 22-23

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Four documentary films centering on social justice issues critical to both Africa and the United States and that also have global implications will be presented at Kalamazoo College, Saturday June 22 and Sunday 23, in the Light Fine Arts Building, Connable Recital Hall, at 7:30 p.m. Showings are free and open to the public.
      Saturday films are Fuelling Poverty (28 minutes) and Sweet Crude (93 minutes), which are about the destructive crude oil extraction economy and the Occupy Movement in Nigeria.
      Sunday films are God Loves Uganda (90 minutes) which analyses the political implications of the American evangelical movement in Uganda, and Native Sun (21 minutes), a film by Ghanaian rapper and visual artist Blitz the Ambassador.
      The Broadcast Africa Film Series is brought to Kalamazoo by The US-Africa Network (http://usafricanetwork.wordpress.com), an independent network with the aim of fostering an inclusive international and intergenerational dialogue about priorities and strategies for solidarity with Africa in the United States, in collaboration with Kalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. Additional support is provided by Western Michigan University Housing and WMU Professor of Social Work and City Commissioner Don Cooney.
      The US-Africa Network Consultation is bringing together a small group of organizers, activists, and scholars living and working in Africa and the U.S. to discuss a broad range of issues such as human rights, economic justice, climate change, and threats to human security in both Africa and the United States.
      The US-Africa Network has come together in the belief that there is an urgent need to reinvigorate solidarity work between the U.S. and Africa. Their initial objectives are to foster an intergenerational dialogue on the future of U.S.-Africa solidarity work and to help activists both old and new to rethink, regroup, and claim a space for activism linking progressive movements in Africa and the United States.

Kalamazoo College Hosts Conference on Art, Social Justice, and Critical Theory

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Kalamazoo College will host a three-day conference of international artists, philosophers, social justice practitioners, and other scholars examining how art and aesthetic experience are connected to human freedom and social thriving.

Art, Social Justice and Critical Theory will be held May 16-18 on the K campus. The conference is free and open to the public, but registration is requested. A complete conference schedule is available at https://reason.kzoo.edu/criticaltheory/conference along with information on presenters and registration.

“Some of the leading philosophers of art and aesthetics in North America and Europe will join with artists, social justice practitioners, scholars, and students to focus on the connection between art, freedom, and social justice,” said conference organizer Kalamazoo College Associate Professor of Philosophy Chris Latiolais.

“This will truly be a unique gathering and one that will appeal to academicians and lay audiences across a spectrum of disciplines.”

According to Latiolais, invited speakers and panel members will address questions such as: Do experiences of natural beauty and art change how we experience the world and ourselves? If artwork illuminates critical issues, what type of understanding or participation do they require from their audiences? Might aesthetic experiences open us to new personal and political commitments?

“Answers to these questions have perplexed artists, critics, and scholars for centuries,” Latiolais said. “We invite all attendees to listen, learn, and lend their voices our lively discussion.”

The conference, co-sponsored by Kalamazoo College’s Philosophy Department and Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, begins Thursday evening, May 16, with a keynote address on “Active Passivity” by Martin Seel from Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität in Frankfurt, Germany. Latiolais describes Seel as “Europe’s most celebrated critical theorist of art and aesthetics.”

Lambert Zuidervaart, author, professor of philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto, and a member of the graduate faculties in theology and philosophy at the University of Toronto, will join Seel as a featured commenter and panel moderator throughout the conference. Before moving to Toronto in 2002, Zuidervaart was a professor of philosophy at Calvin College for 17 years and served as board member and president of the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts.

Other invited speakers include professors Paul Guyer (Brown University), Richard Eldridge (Swarthmore College), Michael Kelly (University of North Carolina), Elizabeth Millán (DePaul University), Sandra Shapshay (Indiana University), and Veronique Fóti (Pennsylvania State University).

According to Latiolais, Friday May 17 will focus on theoretical issues of art and aesthetics and includes a panel discussion on murals and public art featuring artists and scholars from Ireland, Wisconsin, and Kalamazoo, including Arcus Center Artist-in-Residence Sonia Baez-Hernandez. Martin Seel delivers a second keynote address Friday evening titled “Theses on Pictures and Films.”

Saturday, May 18, will be devoted to four panel discussions on performance art, the aesthetics and politics of food, museums and curatorship, and religious art and material culture. Panelists will include Grand Valley State University Professor of Art Paul Wittenbraker and numerous Kalamazoo College faculty members and students.

Kalamazoo College Selects Winners of Its Inaugural Global Prize for Collaborative Social Justice Leadership

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Four social justice leadership keynote discussion panelists
The Global Prize weekend included a keynote panel discussion on social justice leadership with (l-r) Arcus Center Executive Director Jaime Grant and jurors Angela Y. Davis, Cary Alan Johnson, and shea howell.

Kalamazoo College has announced the winners of its inaugural Global Prize for Collaborative Social Justice Leadership, a juried competition that attracted 188 entries from across the United States and 22 other countries. Instead of awarding one Global Prize for $25,000, as had been planned, jurors awarded three Global Prizes for $10,000 each.
Jurors also awarded a $5,000 Regional Prize for a project originating in Southwest Michigan.
Sharing the top Global Prize (with links to their brief video entries) are:

  • Dalia Association: The Road toward Palestinian Self-Determination. Based in Ramallah, Palestine, Dalia Association is a Palestinian-led community foundation dedicated to civil society development, accountability and self determination through awarding local grants and eliminating reliance on international aid.
  • Language Partners. Based in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, Language Partners is a prisoner-created and led bilingual educational program that develops language, leadership, and job skills post incarceration in collaboration with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
  • Building Power for Restaurant Workers. Based in New York City and with national impact, Building Power is a restaurant worker-driven wage justice project founded by workers displaced by the 2001 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.

Winners were announced by Kalamazoo College President Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran on May 11 at the end of a three-day social justice leadership weekend where 18 Global and Regional finalists presented their project strategies and visions to jurors and an audience of campus and community members.

“You are all winners,” she said to the finalists, “because of what you do every day and by how you inspire us to believe that the just world we all seek is within our grasp.”

Longtime social justice activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis, who served as a juror, explained the jury’s decision to depart from the plan to award one $25,000 Global Prize. “We had no idea it would be so difficult to choose one winner” from among so many inspiring finalists. “We came down to three and asked if it would be possible to split the prize three ways for $10,000 each.”

Welcoming Michigan, a regional partnership that seeks to educate and organize across immigrant and U.S.-born communities throughout Michigan, earned the $5,000 Regional Prize. Based in Kalamazoo at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, Welcoming Michigan carries out its work across the state with an emphasis on Southwest and Southeast Michigan. Its message—“When Michigan welcomes immigrants, Michigan thrives”—can be spotted on billboards and in other media region-wide.

The biennial Global Prize competition honors innovative and collaborative leadership projects in the pursuit of social justice and human rights around the world and in Southwest Michigan. Leadership teams submitted 8- to 10-minute video entries by a March 8 deadline. Fifteen global and three regional finalists were selected. More information about the Kalamazoo College Global Prize competition and video entries of all finalists is available via www.kzoo.edu/socialjustice and K Facebook.

In addition to Davis, jurors included former Executive Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission Cary Alan Johnson and lifelong scholar/activist shea howell, whose work has focused on social justice education and grassroots empowerment in Detroit.

Several Kalamazoo College students, faculty, staff, and community partners also served as jurors.

The Global Prize competition was administered by the College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, launched in 2009 with support from the Arcus Foundation (www.arcusfoundation.org), including a $23 million endowment grant in January 2012. Supporting Kalamazoo College’s mission to prepare its graduates to better understand, live successfully within, and provide enlightened leadership to a richly diverse and increasingly complex world, the ACSJL will develop new leaders and sustain existing leaders in the field of human rights and social justice.

Kalamazoo College (www.kzoo.edu) was founded in 1833 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, located midway between Detroit and Chicago. K is a nationally recognized liberal arts college and the creator of the K-Plan that emphasizes rigorous scholarship, experiential learning, leadership development, and international and intercultural engagement. Kalamazoo College does more in four years so students can do more in a lifetime.

Kalamazoo College Hosts May 9-11 Award Weekend for Inaugural Global Prize for Collaborative Social Justice Leadership

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Kalamazoo College hosts its inaugural Global Prize for Collaborative Social Justice Leadership awards weekend May 9 through 11 on the K campus. The Global Prize competition honors innovative and collaborative leadership projects in the pursuit of social justice and human rights and features a $25,000 Global Prize for a project that originates anywhere in the world and a $5,000 Regional Prize for a project that originates in Southwest Michigan.

A total of 188 social justice leadership teams submitted 8- to 10-minute video entries to the juried competition. Fifteen global and three regional entries were selected as finalists and will present their social justice strategies and vision in person during a social justice leadership weekend at K. All events are free and open to the public.

Presentations for the $25,000 Global Prize on Friday and Saturday will be live-streamed. View a complete schedule of prize weekend events, information on live-streaming, and links to finalist videos at www.kzoo.edu/socialjustice.

“Our 18 finalists offer cutting-edge social justice vision and practice,” said Jaime Grant, Executive Director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. “They are working across boundaries of gender, race, age, sexuality, ability, socioeconomics, geography, politics, and more, leading us to new ways of thinking and working together.”

Kalamazoo College President Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran said the Global Prize competition and weekend events are a good match for the College’s educational mission and offer a unique opportunity for both the campus and Greater Kalamazoo communities. “K students, faculty, and community members are being exposed to leading social justice scholars and practitioners from across the world,” she said. “This further demonstrates how Kalamazoo College does more in four years, so our students can do more in a lifetime.”

Finalists for the $5,000 Regional Prize will present their entries Thursday, May 9, at 7:30 p.m., in the Kalamazoo College Field House, 1600 W. Michigan Ave. Finalists for the $25,000 Global Prize competition will present their entries Friday, May 10, at 2:45 p.m., in Dalton Theatre at the corner of Academy Street and Thompson Street on the K campus. Seven finalists will present their work Friday afternoon, and eight will present on Saturday, from 2:15 to 6 p.m.

A keynote panel will be delivered by the Global Prize competition’s panel of distinguished jurors on Saturday, May 11, at 11:30 a.m., in Dalton Theatre. Panelists include renowned social justice scholar and activist Angela Y. Davis (University of California-Santa Cruz), former Executive Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission Cary Alan Johnson, and lifelong scholar/activist shea howell, whose work has focused on social justice education and grassroots empowerment in Detroit.

President Wilson-Oyelaran will award the $5,000 Regional Prize and the $25,000 Global Prize at 7:15 p.m., May 11 in Dalton Theatre.

K Alum Returns to Campus to Screen his Oscar-Nominated Documentary

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David France ’81, co-writer and director of the Oscar-nominated documentary How to Survive a Plague, will screen the film on campus Sunday, May 5, at 7 PM in Dalton Theatre (Light Fine Arts Building). France will participate in a discussion with the audience at the conclusion of the film. Everyone is invited, and the event is free. INDEX news editor Elaine Ezekiel posted an interview with France. ABC Studios has purchased the rights to France’s film with the idea of making it into a dramatic miniseries. France will prepare the adaptation, which will go broader and deeper into the subject of the documentary.