23rd Annual Peace Conference: A Project of the CNY Peace Studies Consortium

23rd Annual Peace Conference: A Project of the CNY Peace Studies Consortium
November 12th, 2011
Le Moyne College Campus


(I am not actually a part of the CNY Peace Studies Consortium, the Syracuse Peace Council, or any of the amazing organizations that took part in the Peace Conference. I am just a part-time student at Le Moyne College that was the Vice President of the Amnesty International Club at my High School. Since I graduated two years ago, I haven't been keeping up with a lot of the global issues so I went to this conference to cathc myself up. And well... I was blown away. Let's just say this: the world moves fast and it does not wait for anyone!)


I am going to type out the synopsis from the conference program and the schedule and I will link each event I attended to another post of my 'commentaries'/notes.


The event was put together by Caroline Tauxe, Ph. D. She teaches at Le Moyne College in the Department of Anthropology, Criminology & Sociology. She teaches classes such as Introduction to Anthropology and Global Crime, She is also the Interim Director and Project Coordinator of the Center of Urban and Regional Applied Research (CURAR).
The event was sponsored by the Le Moyne's Center for Peace and Global Studies Program and Center for Urban and Regional Applied Research (CURAR).
The theme of the conference was: Globalized restructuring, New Media, and Mobilization


"Accelerating global flows of people, money, technology, images, ideas, and narratives are transforming the ways people connect, inspire one another, participate in informal economies, and organize social movements. The intersection of globalized economic restructuring and widespread access to Internet-based media provide an appropriate context in which to understand such phenomena. Events of Arab Spring have demonstrated the impact of some of these changes and of potential reactions, through their full significance remains to be seen. This conference will explore the implications for conflict and mobilization in the 21th century."




9:00 AM - Registration and Booths
9:30 AM - Welcoming
Caroline Tauxe, Ph. D. (Le Moyne College) and Farha Ternikar, Ph. D. (Le Moyne College)


9:50 AM - 
Session 1A - Internet-Based Organizing
Chair: Darius Makuja, Ph. D., Le Moyne College
1. Whose Honey, Whose Hive: Qualifying Global Email Petition Drives, W. Kurt Stavenhagen (Syracuse University)
2. Internet-Based Organizing in the Liberian Diaspora, Sanicee H. Kromah (Le Moyne College)
3. A Comparison of Internet Usage in Recent Political Uprisings and the Orange Revolution, Gregor Hintler (Plant-for-the-Planet and Technical University of Cottbus, Germany) Skype
4. Why a Wiki: Powering Up the Swarm Against King Coal, Caroline Tauxe, Ph. D. (Le Moyne College) and Ted Nace (CoalSwarm)
Session 1B - War and Peace
Chair: Ed Kinane (Voices for Creative Nonviolence, School of America's Watch)
1. Thirty Days in Kabul, Ed Kinane
2. The Limits of Military Solution: An Emperical Analysis of the Effectiveness of Improvised Explosive Devices in Afghanistan, Andrew Kosydar and Paul Meinhausen (U.S. Army Combined Arms Support Command, Fort Lee, Va.)
3. Introduction to LookSharp's Media Construction of Peace and Media Construction of Social Justice Curriculum Kits, Companion Volumes to its First Kit, Media Constructions of War. These curricula support teaching of content for 11th grade American history classes and college-level peace studies classes. Sox Sperry (Ithaca College, LookSharp)


11:00 AM - 
Session 2A - Off the Internet and Into the Streets: From Social Media to Social Movement
Chair: Jessica Maxwell (Syracuse Peace Council)
A panel of Syracuse peace and justice activists will speak about their experiences.
Session 2B - Rethinking Education and Parenting
Chair: Andrew Fitz-Gibbon (SUNY Cortland)
1. Social, Cultural and Educational Resiliency: A Nigerian Case Study, Jennifer Penland (Western Wyoming Community College), Skype and Egbuna Chuks, Esq. (Diamond Link Network), Skype
2. Rethinking Educational Violence: Interrupting the Pain with Peaceful Practice, Linda Pickett (SUNY Cortland)
3. Nonviolent Re-Parenting: A Research Note, Andrew Fitz-Gibbon and Jane Fitz-Gibbon (SUNY Cortland)


12:00 NOON - Keynote -
Televising the Revolutions: The Role of the Media in the Arab Spring
Laila Al-Arian, Al Jazeera English
(About the Keynote Speaker: Laila Al-Arian is a writer and producer for Al Jazeera English in Washington, D.C. Al-Arian holds a master's degree from Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. Her work has appeared in The Nation, Alternet, The United Independent, The Guardian, The Australian, United Press International and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Al-Arian is the author, with Chris Hedges, of Collateral Damage: America's War against Iraqi Civilians. The book is based on their 2007 Nation magazine investigative piece "The Other War," which was selected as one of Project Censored's 25 most important undercovered news stories of 2008.)


12:30 PM - Lunch


1:00 PM - Award Ceremony
Peace Studies Book of the Year
Peace Studies Media of the Year
Peace Studies Undergraduate Paper/Project of the Year
Peace Studies Graduate Paper/Project of the Year
Peace Studies Faculty Paper/Project of the Year


1:30 PM -
Session 3A - Amplifying Voices
Chair: Caroline Tauxe, Ph. D. (Le Moyne College)
1. Baghdad Burning: Benefits of Blogging, Staci Stutsman (Syracuse University)
2. In Our Own Backyard: Local Community Organizing and the Power to Publish, Benjamin Kuebrich (Syracuse University)
3. Stories Are the Only Vector: New Media in Arts-Based Community Development, Mary B. Stanley (Art Across Borders) and Caroline Tauxe, Ph. D. (Le Moyne College)
Session 3B - Youth, Justice and Incarceration
Chair: Elizabeth A. Green
1. Hip-Hop Pedagogy from Higher Education to Youth Incarceration, Hasan Stephens (Save the Kids)
2. Youth in the Adult System: New York's Juvenile Offender Law and Why it is Broken, James Czarniak (Director of Juvenile Justice, Onondaga County)
3. Nothing About Me, Without Me: Giving Youth in the Juvenile Justice System a Real Voice, Christopher Petilli (Director of Re-Entry and Mentoring, Save the Kids)


2:30 PM -
Session 4A - States, Citizens and Insurgents
Chair: Ed Kinane (Syracuse Peace Council)
1. Military Doctrine and Intelligence Fusion in the American Homeland, Matthew Hidek (Syracuse University)
2. U.S. Military Repression of Peace Movement Activists, Seth Kershner (Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts)
3. Direct Action, Animal Advocacy and Eco-Justice: 'Eco-Terrorists' Challenging State Capitalism, Michael Loadenthal (George Mason University), Skype
4. The Preservation of the Japanese Emperorship and the Firebombing of Japan, Imogene Wallenfells (Syracuse University)
Session 4B - Social Justice Education and Technology
Chair: Elizabeth A. Green
1. De-Schooling the Digital Divide: Technology as a Tool for Communities to Transform School, Vivian Johnson (Hamline University), Skype
2. Beyond Magic: English Language Learners and the Digital Divide, Kimberly Socha (Normandale Community College), Skype
3. Critical Urban Education's Argument for Technology as a Tool for Justice, Anthony J. Nocella II (Hamline University), Skype


3:40 PM - Plenary Session
Liberation Technology, Popular Uprisings and Neoliberal Ideology
Ulises Mejias, Ed. D. (SUNY Oswego)
(About the Plenary Speaker: Ulises Mejias is an assistant professor in the new media and communications studies department at the State University of New York at Oswego. He earned a doctorate in education at Teachers College, Columbia University, in the communication, computing and technology in education program. Previously, he was the director of learning systems design at Cornell University, where he was the principal architect behind the company's approach to online learning systems design and production, Learning Molecules. His research interests include critical Internet studies, network theory and science, philosophy and social studies of technology and political economy of new media. He is finishing a book tentatively titled Unmapping the Net: The Limits of the Digital Network as Social Template.)


4:30 PM - Closing
Christina Michaelson, Ph. D. (Le Moyne College) and Joseph Rayle (SUNY Cortland)


6:30 PM - Film Screening
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
Welcome: Darius Makuja, Ph. D. (Le Moyne College)
A documentary from PBS mini-series Women, War and Peace about the role of women in ending the Liberian civil war.
The film will be followed by a discussion facilitated by:
 - Mardea Warner, Syracuse activist and daughter of the last democratically elected vice president of Liberia
 - Sanicee H. Kromah, peace and global studies student at Le Moyne College and online political organizer in the Liberian diaspora

This post was written by: Korean Lovers

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