social justice

Kalamazoo College Launches “Praxis Center” Online Resource for Social Justice Scholars, Activists, and Artists

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Kalamazoo College today announced the launch of “Praxis Center,” an online resource for social justice practitioners hosted by the College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. Accessible via www.kzoo.edu/praxis, Praxis Center contains scholarly articles, teaching resources, images, and links to videos, blogs, and other websites, as well as information on conferences, events, publications, research, and other items of interest to social justice scholars, activists, and artists.

“There are many single-issue resource sites available online, but few such as Praxis Center where multiple issues and resources intersect,” said Lisa Brock, Praxis Center senior editor and Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL) academic director. “Praxis Center is a crossroads where social justice leaders can learn, share, and connect across disciplines and issues.”

Praxis Center is arranged around seven themed sections, each with a contributing editor: Science and Social Justice; Race, Class, and Immigration; Human Rights; Global Health; Genders and Sexualities; Environment, Food and Sustainability; and Art, Music, and Pop Culture.

Under each themed section are five action buttons: Posts (an archive of previously posted articles), Teach (where teachers can post social justice course syllabi and teaching tools), Read (a list of social justice bibliographies), Watch/Listen (videos and other audio visual materials), and Act (listings and links to upcoming social justice events, conferences, and other engagements.)

Praxis Center editors will update the site weekly, while encouraging comments and contributions from an engaged readership. Original artwork (changed monthly) that matches the themed sections is also featured.

“We envision Praxis Center to be a marketplace for the free and open exchange of information and ideas on all social justice issues,” said Brock. “From action research and radical scholarship to engaged teaching and grassroots activism, from community and cultural organizing to revelatory art practice, Praxis Center will make visible all the critical social justice work being done today across the country and around the globe.”

Iranian Cultural Center Graffiti Action 2009
Photo: “Iranian Cultural Center Graffiti Action 2009” by Naeem Mohaiemen, a writer and visual artist working in New York City and Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Chicago-based educator, cultural organizer, activist, and writer Alice Kim serves as Praxis Center editor. ACSJL Program Coordinator Karla Aguilar is managing editor. Read all editors’ bios at www.kzoo.edu/praxis/about.

The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership 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.

Winter Term Ethnic Studies

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Dr. Reid Gómez, the Melon Visiting Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies, has designed a series of winter term programs and web pages and prompts as a collective resource for a campus-wide conversations on the matter of ethnic studies. For many of these conversations the general public is welcome as well. The series begins with a lecture (Thursday, January 9) titled “What is Ethnic Studies?”  Gómez will give the lecture twice–at 4:10 PM and at 7 PM–in the Mandelle Hall Olmsted Room.

“Conversations about ethnic studies at K have been taking place since 1968,” says Gómez. “Recently a renewed movement and rising range of voices reflect the desire for a further exchange of ideas.”

Features on the ethnic studies website will serve to deepen that exchange. The features include a bookshelf, several faculty discussions, a blog for the K community, a calendar of events (programs occur every week of the 10-week term), and a series of conversations. For the latter, the campus community will be called to join several invited participants to discuss a particular theme, reading, or video prompt. Gómez will moderate. “We will sit in concentric circles (one inside, and the other outside),” says Gómez.  “The participants will take their place in the center, and we will leave several chairs open, should someone catch the spirit and chose to formally join the conversation. People may enter and exit the conversation at will, and they may choose to participate in silence, while listening. Everyone in the outside circle will have the opportunity to listen in.  Near the end, we will turn the circles inside out for the opportunity to debrief, and review the places our conversation lead us.  Opportunities for follow-up conversations will take place on the ethnic studies blog.”

College Honors Legacy of Nelson Mandela

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If ever there was a human being for whom the descriptor of sublime applied, that person is the late Nelson Mandela. His magnanimity was nonpareil; as was his capacity to unite that which seemed irrevocably divided. “It is with heavy hearts that we mourn the passing of the former South African President,” said Lisa Brock, academic director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. Brock knows the Mandela family, and she was interviewed about his legacy by WWMT-TV, WOOD-TV, Kalamazoo Gazette/MLive, WKZO radio, and the Chicago Tribune.

Mandela died on Thursday, December 5, at the age of 95. “After serving 27 years as a South African political prisoner on the infamous Robben Island, he emerged as a symbol of freedom to millions worldwide,” added Brock. “Revered as a hero and human rights leader, he will be dearly missed.” In honor of his legacy, the College will hold a vigil on Friday, December 6, at noon in front of Stetson Chapel. All are welcome.

David Barclay, the Margaret and Roger Scholten Professor of International Studies, shared his personal encounter with Mandela. “It was almost exactly twenty years ago, in 1993. I was sitting in Johannesburg airport, waiting to change planes,” Barclay wrote. “As I recall, it was a very long wait, and I was trying to finish some work. I vaguely noticed a group of four or five individuals as they sat down in the seats next to mine; but, as one does in airports, I didn’t pay any particular attention to them, continuing instead with my work. At one point I lifted my head and looked over at them, and suddenly I noticed that one of them was Nelson Mandela. I couldn’t help myself. I decided to be a crass American tourist and ask him for his autograph. I began to search for a blank piece of paper, and all I could find was the reverse side of a set of Kalamazoo College faculty meeting minutes! So I walked up to him and asked if I could bother him for his autograph. He very graciously stood up, asked me my name, and signed the K faculty minutes! We then spoke for about five or 10 minutes. I was a nobody, an autograph-seeker, a complete stranger, yet he spoke to me as though I were actually important. I was immensely impressed. This was in 1993, three years after his release from prison and one year before he became president, and he had absolutely no security detail of any kind. It turned out that he and his colleagues were waiting for another group of colleagues who were arriving on a delayed flight from London. At the head of that group was Thabo Mbeki, who succeeded Nelson Mandela as president in 1999. So on that day, purely by coincidence, I saw two future presidents of South Africa.”

Annual Lecture Focuses on Deportation Law

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Jacqueline Stevens, professor of political science and legal studies advisory board member at Northwestern University, will deliver the 2013 William Weber Lecture in Government and Society. Her talk is titled “Government Illegals: Deportation and the Rule of Law.” The event takes place on Monday, October 28, at 8 PM in the Mandelle Hall Olmsted Room at Kalamazoo College. It is free and open to the public. Stevens is director of the Deportation Research Clinic, Buffett Center on International and Comparative Studies. She conducts research on political theories and practices of membership, and her current work in deportation law enforcement, past and present, uncovers contemporary illegalities, including practices resulting in the unlawful deportation of United States citizens from the U.S. Her work has appeared in Political Theory, the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Political Philosophy, Social Text, Third World Quarterly, The Nation, and the New York Times. Her latest book is titled States Without Nations: Citizenship for Mortals. The William Weber Lectures in Government and Society were funded by the late Bill Weber, who graduated from Kalamazoo College in 1939 with a degree in physics. He also funded the William Weber Chair in Political Science, which is held by Professor Amy Elman. Past lecturers include, among others: David Broder, E.J. Dionne, Frances Fox Piven, Jeane Bethke Elshtain, William Greider, Tamara Draut, and Mickey Edwards.

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.