War at Home – Spring 2015

Whether war slowly impinges on home, or comes in like a wave, washing away familiar conventions of everyday life, new institutions emerge that re-structure society, valorize new attitudes and ways of perceiving, and create new technologies. Focused on these three aspects, the seminar on war at home seeks to understand the deep historical and social contexts for these transformations, but also whether, across cultures and nations, we can discern broad patterns that typify the trajectory from pre-war to war to peacetime.

Stephen Ortiz

Ortiz PosterBinghamton University (SUNY)

Comrades in Arms: The Politics of War, 1939-1941

Monday, March 23, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

This talk will explore how the two major veterans organizations, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, became part of the political battle over the Roosevelt Administration’s involvement in World War II during the two-plus years between the onset of World War II and the entry of the United States into this conflict.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of Political Science, English, Film Studies and History. This program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, War at Home.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

DSCNStephen R. Ortiz is an associate professor of history at Binghamton University (SUNY). He is the author of Beyond the Bonus March and GI Bill: How Veteran Politics Shaped the New Deal Era (NYU Press, 2010) and editor of Veterans’ Policies, Veterans’ Politics: New Perspectives on Veterans in the Modern United States (University Press of Florida, 2012). Ortiz is currently working on a new book project titled Comrades in Arms: Veterans Organizations and the Politics of National Security, 1919-1961. Read more

Michael Wessells

Wessells posterColumbia University

Children and Armed Conflict

Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Armed conflicts worldwide have profound effects on children, yet simplistic portrayals of these effects have provided poor guidance on how to support vulnerable children in wartime situations. Drawing on field experience throughout sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, this lecture gives a holistic understanding of children amidst armed conflicts and points toward a set of contextualized supports that will improve the resilience and well-being of affected children.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund and the health studies program. This program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, War at Home.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

WessellsphotoMichael Wessells, Ph.D. is a professor at Columbia University in the Program on Forced Migration and Health. A long time psychosocial and child protection practitioner, he is former co-chair of the IASC Task Force on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings. He has conducted extensive research on the holistic impacts of war and political violence on children, and he is author of Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection (Harvard University Press, 2006). Currently, he Read more

Catherine Lutz

Lutz Final PosterBrown University

The Costs of War

Thursday, February 5, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

What have been the consequences, short and long term, of the wars launched by the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq in the wake of 9/11? This talk reports on the efforts of a large group of scholars and practitioners to assess the human, social, political, and economic impact of these wars on the two countries as well as on the United States.

The program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of Anthropology and International Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, War at Home.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Lutz head shotCatherine Lutz is the Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Family Professor of Anthropology and International Studies at Brown University. Her research has variously focused on war, gender, photography, and emotions, as well as the US car system. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation, and numerous book awards. She is past president of the American Ethnological Society.

Video of the Lecture

 

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