Visitors and Projects from 2020-Present

Rethinking Territory: Global Shifts, Local Dynamics (Spring 2023)
In response to the changing global geopolitics ever since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Geography will organize an in-person conference to address global territorial conflicts, international relations, and peace. The conference will include paper presentations, keynote speakers on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and its implications for European security, panel discussions on the U.S.-China trade war, and dialogues between conference attendants and UO undergraduate students. Henry Yeung, a distinguished professor from National University of Singapore, will give a public lecture on the U.S.-China Trade War and the Reterritorialization of Global Electronics. Three student mapathons events related to territorial conflicts, peace, and natural disasters will be held. Maps will be circulated through Open Street Map and UO Geography club social media. The goal is to forge richer understandings of crises brought about by territorial conflicts so that students and other members of the UO community can respond productively to these crises.

Tuesday, May 23 – GEOG Club Mapathon
Stop by 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. in Condon 207

Friday, June 2 – Chips war? Global production networks and geopolitics in the post-pandemic US and East Asia
12:30-2 p.m. in Knight Library, DREAM Lab, 122
Learn more on the University of Oregon events calendar.

Saturday, June 3 – Rethinking Territory: Global Shifts, Local Dynamics Day 1
9 a.m. – 6:30 p.m. in Gerlinger Lounge
Event details: Rethinking Territory Global Shifts, Local Dynamics

Sunday, June 4 – Rethinking Territory: Global Shifts, Local Dynamics Day 2
9 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. in Gerlinger Lounge
Event details: Rethinking Territory Global Shifts, Local Dynamics

Classic Threats and New Responses in Europe’s 21st Century Order (Spring 2023)
Europe today displays sharp contradictions between a traditional order of clashing nation-states and a possible future of cosmopolitan, institutionalized cooperation. Russia has launched the largest war on the continent since 1945, offering nationalist justifications for seeking to dismantle Ukraine. It has provoked a shift in Germany and other European states toward larger military spending that long seemed unimaginable. It has also created enormous pressure to accelerate change in Europe’s energy sources, plus a massive refugee crisis. Europe’s response to these classic threats to security and resources, however, has been shaped powerfully by the supranational European Union. Widely seen as weak amid many recent crises—debt, refugees, eastern European quasi-authoritarianism, Brexit, the pandemic—the EU is now reasserting itself. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has taken a leading role in the response to Russia. Brussels is setting the agenda for the energy transition, and trying to use the Ukrainian crisis to consolidate a supranational system for refugee distribution. Meanwhile a hapless post-Brexit Britain makes the EU look more appealing. Keith Darden of American University will address Russia, Ukraine, and Europe’s future. Sara Wallace Goodman of UC Irvine will address refugees, migration, and post-Brexit politics in Britain and the EU.

Find event details on the University of Oregon events calendar.

Director screening of The Ice Cream Sellers, a film about the Rohingya genocide (Spring 2023)
Since 2016, the Rohingya genocide has been hiding in plain sight. The UN has called the Rohingya “the world’s most persecuted people”, but due to public lack of awareness and media neglect, this widely accepted view has been amended by Al Jazeera to be “the most persecuted people you’ve never heard of.” The award will bring Sohel Rahman director of The Ice Cream Sellers, to campus. The Ice Cream Sellers is an award-winning film that provides viewers with a human-scaled point of entry into grasping the incomprehensible scale of the violence and abuse endured by the Rohingya in Myanmar, and the bleakness of their quotidien existence in the refugee camp.

Find event details on the University of Oregon events calendar.

Cawo Abdi (2020)

Dr. Abdi is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota and specializes in transnational migration, human rights, gender, race, and class within the Somali Diaspora. She has published many books, with her best-known work being her book Elusive Jannah: The Somali Diaspora and a Borderless Muslim Identity, published in 2015. While at the University of Oregon, Dr. Abdi gave a public talk, attend courses, and supported a workshop for graduate students and faculty.

Hugo Echeverria (2020)

Hugo Echeverria is a professor, lawyer, and scholar, teaching at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador. He is a leading scholar on the topic “rights of nature,” and studies how this principle can protect communities and biodiversity around the world, further promoting connection between people and nature. Mr. Echevarria’s visit included guest lectures in Political Science, Environmental Studies, and Law School courses along with faculty collaboration. While in Oregon he also was honored as an Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW) Fellow.

Getting Religion Right: Scripture, Social Justice & Love (2020)

Sister Helen Prejean and Rabbi Michael Lerner visited Eugene to discuss their recently published works. This visit was inspired by the aims of the UNESCO Chair in Transcultural Studies to promote interreligious dialogue. Sister Prejean is a well-known opponent against capital punishment, influencing Pope John Paul II’s revision of the Church’s position on the death penalty and Pope Francis’s denouncement of the practice as inadmissible. Rabbi Michael Lerner is the editor of Tikkun magazine and has published eleven books. In 2019, he received Morehouse Collee’s King-Gandhi Award for his work for peace and nonviolence.

Irma Alicia Velasquez Nimatuj (2021)

Dr. Velasquez is a renowned indigenous activist and scholar. She is the first Maya-K’iche’ woman to earn a doctorate in social anthropology. Her visit to the University of Oregon was centered around the theme, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights and Human Security: Why Migration and Displacement are Related to Struggles of Land and Territory. While at the UO, Dr. Velasquez taught a class and provided a public lecture. Her visit helped to emphasize indigenous rights, gender and ethnic studies, and environmental justice for the UO community, while also relating to the themes of crises over borders.

Adaptive Refugee Housing (Funded 2020, Occurred 2022)

This project funded public lectures and workshops, along with full-term architecture courses, centered around the need for prompt shelter construction for individuals and families who may be displaced and persecuted. Community engagement and empowerment were at the forefront of this project, with the goal of preparing future generations of designers to thoughtfully serve populations at risk.

Common Reading Project (Funded in 2020, Occurred in 2022)

This project provided an opportunity for students, faculty, and administrators, along with state and community leaders to converge in dialogue around the issue of global climate change, one of the United Nations 17 key goals. Historically, UO Common Reading has brought members of campus together to share thoughts, practice critical thinking, build community and engage in conversation across disciplines. The GJP supported events in 2022 also highlighted over 40 UO faculty who research and publish the effects of climate change across the globe.

Translations of Migration (Funded in 2020, Occurred in 2022)

This project centered around an international conference and research group of historians and cultural studies scholars exploring many ways that migration and mobility have been translated across time and space, languages, cultures and academic disciplines. The research group focus is to explore cultural histories of migration policies on temporary labor migrants, refugees, and settled immigrants.

Visitors and Projects from 2011-2019

Haiti Simulation (2018-19)

The Savage Committee funded a Haiti Simulation Seminar, which was a for-credit, multi-day event for both undergraduate and graduate students. This event brought high profile practitioners and policymakers to campus who participated in the simulation. In attendance were representatives from Mercy Corps, USAID, US State Department, two former ambassadors and a local veteran. The simulation attracted 60+ students and faculty. During the simulation, students, academics, and career professionals came together to engage in deliberation and decision-making. Using insights from practitioners and academia, students developed the tools needed to be intentional global citizens and to have informed opinions on the atrocities.

Shirin Ebadi (2017-18)

Shirin Ebadi served as the first female judge in Iranian history and then worked as a prominent lawyer. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her significant efforts for democracy and human rights, especially for women, children, and refugees. She was the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize. While in Eugene she participated in a roundtable discussion for UO students, a public lecture open to the community, and was a part of the Peacejam Northwest conference for middle and high school students.

Oscar Arias Sanchez (2016-17)

Oscar Arias Sanchez served two terms as President of Costa Rica and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his work in trying to bring peace to Central America. While in Eugene, Sanchez helped lead the PeaceJam Northwest conference on the UO campus and gave a talk, open to both community and university members.

Leymah Gbowee (2015-16)

Leymah Gbowee received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for her leadership of a nonviolent women’s movement that unified Christians and Muslims and helped to end the 14-year civil war in Liberia. While in Eugene, Gbowee was a guest speaker at a UO hosted public event. Her talk was titled, Mighty Be Our Powerand she addressed the importance of fostering peace through a recognition of collective humanity. She also led a two-day seminar for middle and high school students as a part of the PeaceJam Northwest conference.

Hugo Slim (2013- 14)

Hugo Slim is a senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict at Oxford University where he leads research on humanitarian ethics. He has been affiliated with Oxfam GB, British Red Cross, Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), Save the Children, and the United Nations. Slim’s visit to Eugene further sparked collaboration between the University of Oregon and the Oxford University, centering issues of global human rights through events and scholarship opportunities for students and faculty members on the Eugene and Oxford campuses. While at the UO, Slim conducted a workshop with UO faculty and 4J teachers, attended classes, engaged with students interested in international aid work, and delivered the UO’s second annual address on the State of Human Rights.

Genocide Prevention (2013-14)

During this academic year, the Savage Committee funded programs aligned under the theme, “Genocide Prevention.” Events included:

• Preventing Further Genocide and Mass Atrocities in Guatemala and Beyond
• Overcoming Psychic Numbing: Creating Better Media Coverage of Mass Atrocity
• African Peacebuilding Project
• Building Response-Based Undergraduate Curriculum and Course Content Concerning Genocide and its Prevention
• Technology and Human Rights

War and Memory: Bearing Witness to Loss in Everyday Life (2012-13)

This project brought together a group of interdisciplinary scholars whose work sheds light on the intricate connection between war and memory in Africa and Latin America. Primary questions centered in the symposium built upon previous Oregon Review of International Law (ORIL) gatherings that had provided a space for critical yet constructive voices in international law. War and Memory carried on ORIL’s critical tradition evidenced in Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL): Capitalism and the Common Good. Arturo Arias, from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Texas, was the keynote speaker for this event.

Henry Shue (2012-13)

Henry Shue was professor emeritus of political science at Oxford University, where he was instrumental in founding the Changing Character of War Program. Professor Shue is the author of the book, Basic Rights, and has become a major voice on issues of torture and human rights, as well as the politics of climate change. While visiting the UO, Shue spoke to issues of human rights and the death penalty as an issue of torture, as well as historic influences of genocides. His visit also helped build collaboration between the UO and the Oxford University.

Sister Helen Prejean (2011-12)

Organized by University faculty members David Frank and Steve Shankman, UO hosted Sister Helen Prejean. Sister Prejean is an American advocate for the abolition of the death penalty. Her visit was in conjunction with her book, The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions, being selected as the UO common reading material for the academic year.

Seymour Hersh (2010-11)

The Savage Program hosted renowned journalist, Seymour Hersh, for a term program on torture in human rights. Hersh is an American investigative journalist and political writer, most notably known for his 1969 documentation of the My Lai Massacre and subsequent cover-up during the Vietnam War. He later received a Pulitzer Price for this reporting. His visit included public talks and class visits on both the Eugene and Portland campuses. During this academic year, the Savage Program also hosted visiting Professor Henry Shue, who is the Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Centre.

Visitors and Projects from 2001-2010

2009-10

Ireland: Mediating the Conflict Between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland (2008-09)

The project developed opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students to examine the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, a relatively rare case of a seemingly intractable conflict that has moved from violence to productive political dialogue. Four mediators who were deeply involved in the conflicts in Northern Ireland visited the UO and shared their experiences and insights. In addition to public presentations and a faculty seminar, this program also included new courses and a faculty-led study abroad internship in Northern Ireland.

History, Contested Memories, and the Politics of Reconciliation: Understanding Truth Commissions in Latin America (2006-08)

This program evaluated the place of Truth Commissions within regional and international efforts towards peace, reconciliation, and democratic governance. This program centered the UO within transnational debate about the Truth Commissions in Latin America. The Truth Commission reports in countries such as Argentina (1984), El Salvador (1993), Guatemala (1999), Chile (1991 and 2004), and Peru (2003) provide accounts of the atrocities committed by repressive regimes in these countries and in some cases identify individual and institutional culprits of human rights violations. The program included several scholarly and instructional activities, including several courses taught by visiting and UO faculty, a speaker series, a film series, and a scholarly symposium that produced an edited volume on Truth Commissions in Latin America.

Cities in War, Struggle, and Peace: The Architecture of Memory and Life (2006-08)

The intention of this two-year project was to advance community knowledge of war and peace through understandings of buildings and cities that have been affected by war. The project included a major symposium, an undergraduate course, and an intensive design program open to design students and others. The first year focused on questions of memory and how museums and memorials use artifacts of everyday life, destroyed by war, to demonstrate the horror of war. The second year dealt with the challenges and successes of rebuilding and how communities and cities use the reconstruction of their physical fabric as a means of healing, and of pointing the way to a peaceful future.

Witnessing Holocausts: The Shoah and Genocide in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries (2005-07)

This conference was mirrored off an event hosted by the Oregon Humanities Center in 1996 titled, Ethics After the Holocaust. This project included a year-long series of events, performances, and speakers that culminated in another international conference. The underlying premise for this project was an exploration of “witnessing,” with the number of actual witnesses to the Shoah (the Hebrew word for the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis) rapidly dwindling. Events during the academic year that were a part of this project drew comparisons between twentieth and twenty-first century genocides and the recognition that all traumas, both past and present, can only be sustained through various modes of creative representation. Funding sponsored a variety of literary, dramatic, cinematic, artistic, architectural, and musical events that addressed aspects of the Nazi Shoah and other genocidal assaults on human communities.

Global (Dis)Integrations: Identity Politics and Cultural Transformations in an Interconnected World (2004-05)

Human Rights for ALL (2003-04)

During this academic year, the Savage Committee supported a multifaceted event titled, Human Rights for ALL. UO hosted Professor Svitlana Kravchenko, who in her early career worked as an environmental law attorney in Ukraine. While in Eugene, Professor Kravchenko facilitated the Human Rights for ALL seminar and conducted classroom visits. Subsequently, Kravchenko remained in Eugene, eventually becoming the director of the UO Law School’s Program in Environmental and Natural Resources Law, among many other accomplishments. Kravchenko passed away in 2012.

Waging Peace Through the Arts (2000-01)

During this academic year, the Savage Committee funded programs aligned under the theme of art. Events included:

• Waging Peace Through Music

Premiere: Robert Kyr’s Symphony No. 9 The Spirit of Time

Eugene Symphony Orchestra.  Miguel Harth-Bedoya, conductor

• Waging Peace through Cross-Cultural Collaboration

Gamelan Celebration Concert, featuring Lou Harrison

• Waging Peace in the New Millennia

Public Lecture by Arun Gandhi

• Waging Peace through the Practice of Non-violence

Workshop by Arun Gandhi

Visitors and Projects from 1991-2000

Europe: Healing the Wounded Century (1999- 20)

In 2020, the Savage Committee organized and hosted a conference centered around the recovery of communities following times of war. The keynote lectures included the following:

• Painting while Bombs are Falling:  Art and Literature of the Spanish Civil War by Cary Nelson (Jubilee Professor, University of Illinois)
• Children of the Spanish Civil War by Anthony Geist (Associate Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature, University of Washington)
• The US and Europe during and after the Cold War by Admiral Stansfield Turner (Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, 1977-81)
• European Identity and the Future of Europe: A View Between East and West by Lennart Meri (President of the Republic of Estonia)

United States: Violence/ Suffering/ Image (1998- 99)

This conference was organized by the Savage Committee and took place in 1999.  The keynote lectures included the following:

• A Deep and Dangerous Transformation: Experience of Suffering, Pictures of Violence, and the Moral Processes of Everyday Life by Arthur Kleinman (Medical Anthropology, Harvard University)
• Violence and Representation: An Overview by W.J. T. Mitchell Editor, Critical Inquiry (English and Art History, University of Chicago)
• Boundaries, Violence, and Time: Saying and Showing by Veena Das (Anthropology, New School for Social Research)
• Exhibiting Terror by Lindsay French (Anthropology, Rhode Island School of Design)
• Reflections on Violence in America: An Encyclopedia by Ronald Gottesman (English, University of Southern California)
• Documentation/ Mediation by Susan Meisalas (Photojournalist, Magnum Photos)
• Watching Your Back: Vision and the Politics of Fear in Peru by Deborah Poole (Anthropology, New School for Social Research).

Palestinians and Israelis: Narratives of Peace and Identity (Year 1997- 98)

Madhu Kishwar (1998)

Kishwar, Founder and Editor of Manushi and professor of gender studies at Satyavati College, Delhi University visited the university and provided a talk titled From Ethnic Communities to Nationalities and Back Again:  The Cycle of Conflict and Resolution in India.

Chaim Seidler-Feller (1998)

Seidler-Feller, a Rabbi at UCLA Hillel, delivered a public lecture titled Paths to Peace: A Jewish Perspective on the Search for Peace in the Middle East.

Galia Golan (1998)

Golan, professor of political science at Hebrew University in Israel, visited UO.

Zahira Kamal (1998)

Kamal, General Director, Directorate of Gender Planning and Development for The Palestinian Authority, visited UO

David Newman (1998)

Newman, Director of the Humphrey Center for Social Research and professor political geography at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, delivered a public lecture titled Shared Spaces or Separate Places:  The Map of Israeli-Palestinian Peace.

Rashid Khalidi (1997)

Khalidi, Director of the Center for International Affairs and professor of history at the University of Chicago, visited UO and delivered a public address titled Palestinians and Israelis: Narratives of Peace and Identity.

Corazon C. Aquino (1996-97)

Aquino was President of the Philippines, elected in 1986, and is known for restoring democracy in the Philippines after the long dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. In 1995, Aquino was awarded an honorary doctorate of humanities at the UO. While in Eugene, Mrs. Aquino’s provided a public lecture, presentations in UO classes, and visited a local Middle School. She later passed away in 2009.

Ethics after the Holocaust (1996)

Conference included keynote speakers Elie Wiesel from Boston University and recipient of the 1986 Nobel Prize for Peace, Professor Deborah Lipstadt from Emory University and Professor Emil Fakenheim from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Lecture series commemorating the 50th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan (1996)

Principal speakers in this series included Professor Rey Chow from the University of California-Irvine and Professor Robert J. Lifton from the City University of New York.

Viet Nam and the United States: Forging a Peacetime Friendship (1995)

A conference designed to foster dialogue between scholars from Viet Nam and the United States on normalization and its effect on developing peaceful cooperative relations in education, business, science, and politics. Guest speakers included Dr. Vo Quy, head of Viet Nam National University Environmental Institute; Dr. Phung Hu Phu, vice director and dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, Viet Nam National University; and Dr. Nguyen Kim Cuc, head of the international relations department, Viet Nam Women’s Union.

Dimitrina Petrova (1994-95)

Petrova was a professor and Chief Assistant in the Department of Philosophy as the University of Sofia, Bulgaria. She also was a member of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights. Petrova is a noted human-rights and environmental activist with a particular focus on the rights of women and ethnic minorities in Eastern Europe. An elected member of the Bulgarian parliament from 1990 to 1991, Petrova participated in the creation of the 1991 Bulgarian Constitution following the overthrow of Communist rule. While visiting the University of Oregon, Petrova taught Human Rights and Ethnic Relations in Eastern Europeand Social Change and Gender in the Post-Communist Countries. Her public lecture addressed the compelling environmental and social issues facing Eastern European countries in the post-Communist era.

Nelly Arvelo-Jimenez (1993-94)

Arvelo-Jimenez is a senior anthropologist and was the associate director of the Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas in Caracas, Venezuela. Arvelo-Jimenez has worked as an advocate for the twelve ethnic groups that inhabit the Amazonas State in Southern Venezuela on land-rights issues. Because of her advocacy, the government has allowed for an implementation of intercultural bilingual education of Spanish with indigenous languages. During her tenure at the UO, Arvelo-Jimenez taught Constitutional Rights and Human Rights: The Indigenous Peoples of Amazonia and Environmentalism and Indigenous Rights in Latin America. Her public lecture focused on the effects of the global economy and environmentalism on the rights of indigenous peoples.

Winona LaDuke (1992-93)

LaDuke is an internationally recognized activist and a member of the Mississippi Band of Anishinaabe from White Earth Reservation in Northern Minnesota. LaDuke is a graduate of Harvard University and received a M.A. in community economic development from Antioch University. LaDuke has been a leader in the overlapping global struggles to restore native rights, protect the environment, and promote women’s rights. She is a founding member of Anishinaabe Akeeng, a community land rights group, and current director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project. She is a board member of the Indigenous Women’s Network and of IKWE, a native women’s craft marketing collective. LaDuke served on the board of Greenpeace Action and was the 1988 recipient of the International Reebok Human Rights Award.

Yoshikazu Sakamoto (1991-92)

Sakamoto is a professor of peace and world order studies at the International Peace Research Institute Meigaku in Yokohama and Japan’s leading scholar in peace research. Sakamoto has had extensive experience with both the United Nations and the International Peace Research Association (IPRA). As a visiting professor, Sakamoto taught Key Issues in Peace Studies: A Global Perspective and Approaches to Peace Research at the University of Oregon. He also gave a public lecture titled, A Just Peace in the Pacific: The Role of the American and Japanese People, which focused on the key roles these nations play in world peace.

Fatima Meer (1990-91)

Meer is a professor of sociology at the University of Natal, Durban, South Africa, and author of Higher Than Hope: The Authorized Biography of Nelson Mandela. She has been prominent as an opponent of apartheid and has published extensively on apartheid as well as cross-cultural and women’s issues. Meer taught two courses during her term at the University of Oregon, Women in South Africa and Current Issues in Peacemaking: Focus on Conflict and Change in Southern Africa, the Middle East, India, and Trinidad. Meer’s public address in Eugene was titled The Peoples Search for Peace in South Africa.

Visitors from 1980-1990

Betty Reardon (1989-90)

Betty Reardon is the founder and director of the Peace Education Center and Peace Education Graduate Degree Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Reardon has written more than 100 works on peace education, human rights education, global problems, and women’s issues. During her term at the University of Oregon, Reardon taught two courses. She also gave two public lectures, one on the University of Oregon campus titled, Peace Studies and the Future of the University, and the other at the World Trade Center in Portland title, Peace Education in Public Schools: Towards Building the Capacities for Peacemaking.

Susan Griffin (1988-89)

Susan Griffin is the author of several books focusing on a feminist approach to the issues of war and peace. Her work includes, The First and the Last: A Woman Thinks about War and Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her. While visiting the UO, Griffin’s presented a public lecture titled, A Woman Thinks About War.

Michael Klare (1988-89)

Klare was an associate professor and director of peace and world security studies for Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith colleges as well as at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is the author of several books, including Low-Intensity Warfare: Counterinsurgency, Pro-insurgency and Antiterrorism in the Eighties. While visiting the UO, Klare presented a public lecture titled, Defense in Arms Control in the 1990s: Challenges for the Bush Administration.

Margaret Papandreou (1988-89)

Papandreou was the founder of the Women’s Union in Greece and is world renowned as a peace activist.  Papandreou’s public lecture focused on developing leadership role for women in the international peace movement.