The Silent Strength of Liu Xia, An exhibition of photographs, Opening Reception with Commentary by Guy Sorman and Andrew Nathan

Exhibition Dates: February 9 - March 1, 2012
Gallery Hours: weekdays, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm Saturdays, 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Curated by author and professor, Guy Sorman, the exhibition features photographs of life-like dolls in a series of sets devised by the artist. The dolls, called "ugly babies" by Liu, are positioned between large stacks of books, wrapped in plastic, and lying on planks against a bright sky, among other tableaux.

Born in 1959 in Beijing, Liu Xia is a poet, painter and photographer, and the wife of 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Liu Xiaobo. She has been a noteworthy figure on the contemporary Chinese art scene for more than three decades. Her work in various media focuses on freedom of expression rooted in traditional values and styles.

ReelAbilities: NY Disabilities Film Festival is the largest festival in the country dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories, and artistic expressions of people with different disabilities. Initiated in New York in 2007, the festival presents award-winning films by and about people with disabilities in multiple locations throughout each hosting city. All screenings will be followed by discussions with filmmakers or other guest speakers. ReelAbilities strives for inclusion of all people.

ReelAbilities: NY Disabilities Film Festival is the largest festival in the country dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories, and artistic expressions of people with different disabilities. Initiated in New York in 2007, the festival presents award-winning films by and about people with disabilities in multiple locations throughout each hosting city. All screenings will be followed by discussions with filmmakers or other guest speakers. ReelAbilities strives for inclusion of all people.

ReelAbilities: NY Disabilities Film Festival is the largest festival in the country dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories, and artistic expressions of people with different disabilities. Initiated in New York in 2007, the festival presents award-winning films by and about people with disabilities in multiple locations throughout each hosting city. All screenings will be followed by discussions with filmmakers or other guest speakers. ReelAbilities strives for inclusion of all people.

ReelAbilities: NY Disabilities Film Festival is the largest festival in the country dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories, and artistic expressions of people with different disabilities. Initiated in New York in 2007, the festival presents award-winning films by and about people with disabilities in multiple locations throughout each hosting city. All screenings will be followed by discussions with filmmakers or other guest speakers. ReelAbilities strives for inclusion of all people.

This all-day symposium will recognize the 40th anniversary of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joining the Columbia law faculty as the first female tenure-track professor. This gathering will mark not only this important milestone, but also the foundational contributions Justice Ginsburg has made, as jurist, as advocate, and as scholar, to the law of gender-based justice and equality.

Detailed schedule available at www.law.columbia.edu/center_program/gendersexuality/colloquium

To register for the event, please RSVP to Gender_Sexuality_Law@law.columbia.edu. Due to limited space and tight security measures, seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Your RSVP does not guarantee you a seat.

An Interdisciplinary Dialogue with Ivan Cepeda and Alfredo Molano on Force Disappearance in the Colombian Conflict with respondent, Michale Taussig from Columbia University.

Talk will be conducted in Spanish (If you need simultaneous interpretation, please indicate in RSVP)

Presentation with David Phillips, Director of the Program on Peace-building and Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights. Mr. Phillips is a former Foreign Affairs Expert and Senior Adviser to the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau of the U.S. Department of State. He is author of many articles and books on political developments in the Middle East, including Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco and from Bullets to Ballots: Violent Muslim Movements in Transition.

Brown Bag Lunch

*CALL FOR PAPERS!
We invite graduate students to submit proposals for a graduate student colloquium on the theme of Indigenous Spaces: Pushing the Boundaries of History, Bodies, Geographies, and Politics,to take place at Columbia University in the City of New York on February 15, 2012.

Contributors are encouraged to think about 'indigenous spaces' that connect indigenous communities, bodies (understood in a broad sense), histories, geographies, and academia.

Becoming a mother in Africa can be among the most frightening and dangerous jobs in the world. This documentary documents the struggle of Grace Kodindo, an obstetrician in the poverty-stricken central African country of Chad, to stop mothers in her country from dying. Cutting maternal mortality by 75% by 2015 was one of the eight Millennium Development Goals set by 189 countries in 2000. Five years on, progress is far behind schedule, but "Dead Mums Don't Cry" shows there is reason for hope.

This information session will discuss thesis guidelines, deadlines and other important aspects of the thesis-writing process. A representative from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) will also explain what human subject research is, and the basic requirements and general timelines for IRB approval.

Please see the thesis information page for further details: hrcolumbia.org/hrstudies/thesis

Film by Tamar Yarom. 2007, 59 min.

The story of women who served in the occupied territories. Tamar Yarom studied film at the London Film School and psychology at the Hebrew University. Her diploma films were screened at festivals around the world. Her documentary credits include "Laundry" and "Witches." "Sob Sister," Tamar Yarom's drama debut, won the Best Drama Award at the 2002 Haifa Festival. Selected filmography: "Sob Sister" (2002).

Refreshments will be served!

Film by Julie Bridgham. 2008, 92 min.

Documentary that follows six Nepalese women on the forefront of the civil war in Nepal and the escalating instability and violence that is engulfing the country. Over the course of a year, the film follows these women on the different sides of the conflict and witnesses the challenges they face as women taking such a strong role in a male dominated society, and why they are willing to risk their lives to make a difference in Nepal.

Refreshments will served!

Oren Ipp is an international development professional with more than ten years’ experience in democratic governance. His expertise is in fragile and post-conflict governance, with a regional focus on Afghanistan and South Asia. Oren has worked in the areas of security sector reform, political party development, election support, legislative strengthening, and civil society capacity building. Within these functional areas, Oren’s primary focus has been on programme design, management and monitoring and evaluation.
 


Oren is currently an adjunct assistant professor at New York University (NYU) as well as a consultant for a number of organizations, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, and the consulting firm Development Transformations. Recent projects have concentrated on international support for post-conflict political settlements, the role of development assistance in counterinsurgency efforts and political party development. During 2006-2008, Oren was based in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he directed the national and sub-national legislative programs of the National Democratic Institute (NDI).

Refreshments will be served!

Film by Bahman Ghobadi. 2009, 106 min.

Follows a pair of young musicians, recently released from prison, on a mission to take their rock band to Europe. Forbidden by the authorities to play in Iran, they plan their escape abroad with a fast-talking music promoter. Vowing to play one last show before leaving Tehran, their dangerous mission takes them on a free-wheeling journey through the city's vibrant and diverse underground scene, home to an estimated 2,000 illegal independent bands.

Refreshments will be served!

Film by Carlos Carrera. 2009, 122 min.

An idealistic policewoman arrives in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, to investigate the murder of a young woman found in the desert. The film incorporates the reality of the massive number of unsolved crimes against women, including kidnapping, rape and murder, in the border town located in the backyard of the United States.

Refreshments will be served!

Film by Roberto Hernández, Geoffrey Smith. 2008, 87 min.

"In December 2005 Toño Zuniga was picked up off the street in Mexico City, Mexico, and sentenced to 20 years for a murder he knew nothing about. A friend of Toño's contacted two young lawyers, Roberto Hernández and Layda Negrete, who gained prominence in Mexico when they helped bring about the release of another innocent man from prison. Looking into Toño's case, Roberto and Layda managed to get a retrial--on camera--and enlisted the help of filmmaker Geoffrey Smith (THE ENGLISH SURGEON) to chronicle the saga. Shot over three years with unprecedented access to the Mexican courts and prisons, this dramatic story is a searing indictment of a justice system that presumes guilt."

Refreshments will be served!

A Sheldon Scheps Talk by, Rhoda Kanaaneh, Adjunct Associate Professor, Anthropology Department, CU

Respondent:Isis Nusair, Associate Professor, Department of Women’s Studies, Denison University

A light lunch will be served prior to the talk from 12:00-12:30

Join us to learn more about the internship opportunities at non-profits across New York City related to conflict resolution, peace studies, human rights, social justice and international development.

Human Rights Student Internship Panel

Considering an internship in human rights? Come to the Human Rights Student Internship Panel!

Fellow students will explain how they found their internships, describe their responsibilities as an intern, offer advice for how to get the most out of an internship, and answer other questions you may have.

Sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Human Rights and Center for Career Education

https://calendar.columbia.edu/sundial/webapi/displayEvent.php?id=56004&vt=detail&brand=default

Refreshments will be served!

The Oral History Master of Arts program, Columbia Center for Oral History, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, and the Human Rights Institute at the Columbia Law School will host Ayelet Waldman, attorney and author of Red Hook Road and Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace and Robin Levi, human rights director of the California-based non-profit Justice Now, to discuss their latest book Inside This Place, Not of It: Narratives from Women's Prisons in the United States. The talk is part of the Oral History Seminar Series.

Waldman and Levi will discuss and read from their new book, which is an extraordinary account of women’s lives both inside and out of prison in their own voices and reveals egregious human rights violations within women’s prisons in the United States.

In connection with Holocaust Remembrance Day

Free and open to the public. Reservations are recommended.

Welcoming remarks: Barbara Faedda, Italian Academy for Advanced Studies, Columbia University

Speakers:
Edward Phillips, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933-1945”
Elizabeth Leake, Columbia University Department of Italian, “Fascism and Sexuality in Italian Literature and Film”

Europe and the United Nations commemorate the victims of the Shoah each winter on the date of Auschwitz's liberation in 1945, and the Italian Academy marks Holocaust Remembrance Day with an annual academic event exploring issues of discrimination and crimes against humanity.

Jocelyn Courtney was a Fullbright scholar in El Salvador. As a result of her research, she co-created the documentary "Escape Valve" which aims to portray the causes, realities and consequence of child gangs in this small Central American country. Ms. Courtney is currently a lawyer, with experience in criminal and human rights law. She will conduct a discussion after the documentary and will be available to answer any questions.

Refreshments will be served!

The Columbia Center for Oral History will host Oral History Productions founder Elisabeth Pozzi-Thanner. An independent oral historian based in New York City and Vienna, Elisabeth conducts oral history interviews, develops and manages oral history projects and creates personal histories on audio, video and print. Her work is wide-ranging and includes interviewing and interpretation for USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education and the September 11, 2001 Narrative and Memory Project at Columbia University. Elisabeth will speak on her past and current work in the US and Austria, as well as chronicle her path to becoming an oral historian.

RSVP: Holocaustremembrance@un.org
“IWitness” is a new online application which provides a searchable collection of video testimonies of Holocaust
survivors, along with educational tools and supporting resources for students. Ten classes from secondary
schools in the New York metropolitan area will be invited to create a research project using “IWitness”. The
launch will feature student presentations of their projects using “IWitness” and a Q&A with Roman Kent, a
Holocaust survivor, whose testimony is in this collection.

Peter Raymont’s latest documentary pays as much tribute to Allende’s Chile as it does to writer and intellectual Dorfman. The strength of the film lies in Dorfman returning to Santiago and recalling in vivid detail how he escaped from the soldiers and hid in the Argentinean embassy that Chilean snipers were watching day and night. Rare archival footage is skilfully blended with Dorfman’s recent homecoming. There are of course, tributes paid to the thousands of mothers of the disappeared, who Pinochet’s secret police murdered without a trace. Based in part on Dorfman’s memoir and co-produced by his son, A Promise To The Dead is a walk through Chile’s dark history, guided by a key eyewitness.

Refreshments will be served!!

http://vimeo.com/15088725

Brown Bag Lunch Presentation

Remarks by: David L. Phillips
Director, Program on Peace-building and Rights at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights

Dr. Hamid Ali: Assistant Professor of Public Policy, American University of Cairo

Dr. Hamid Ali’s research on the severe economic impact of war is the first attempt to quantify the economic cost of the conflict in Darfur. The war costs in Darfur include the destruction of infrastructure, direct military spending attributable to the war effort, and the impact of the latter on the export sector and capital formation. In addition, the human destruction—loss of life and income—is taken into account. With support from Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, Ali also helped establish the Darfuri Development Advisory Group (DDAG), a Darfuri-led non-governmental, non-profit organization in Sudan mobilizing Darfuri civil society in support of humanitarian relief, early recovery and development.

Florence Howe became involved with the women’s movement in the 1960s after participating in the civil rights and antiwar movements. She co-founded the Feminist Press in 1970. As a professor of English, first at Goucher College and then at SUNY’s College at Old Westbury, she was a leader in creating and nurturing the women's studies movement in North American universities. Howe tells the story of the tribulations and triumphs of women’s studies from the inside.
The Institute for Retired Professionals presents this program of free events on timely topics for IRP members, friends, and all members of the New School community.

Free; seating is limited; reservations required by calling or emailing.

Cafe Social Science is a series of informal discussions about the questions surrounding the social science field today, led by Columbia University's foremost professors. The discussions are held at the Picnic Market Cafe at 2665 Broadway (between 101st and 102nd Street).

Professor of International and Public Affairs Elazar Barkan will discuss "Is Refugee Repatriation a Solution or a Problem?"
There is a widespread international belief that displaced refugees have the right to be repatriated to their homes. This conflicts with political and empirical reality, and ethnic refugees hardly ever return. Should repatriation be more diligently implemented, or is the commitment to repatriation misguided? Barkan will discuss this complex contemporary issue.

Space is limited; $10 cover (cash only) includes one drink
Social Science on Us, First Come, First Served
NO RSVP Necessary

Cafe Columbia is a series of informal discussions, led by Columbia University faculty, focused broadly on the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences. The discussions are held at the Picnic Market Cafe at 2665 Broadway (between 101st and 102nd Street).

Professor of Journalism and Sociology Todd Gitlin will discussUnderstanding Occupy Wall Street
Gitlin will talk about the social, political and historical background of the Occupy movement.

Space is limited; $10 cover (cash only) includes one drink
First Come, First Served
NO RSVP Necessary

Cafe Columbia is a series of informal discussions, led by Columbia University faculty, focused broadly on the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences. The discussions are held at the Picnic Market Cafe at 2665 Broadway (between 101st and 102nd Street).

Political Theorist David Johnston will discuss
A Brief History of Justice
Johnston will discuss how complex ideas are anchored in ordinary tuitions about justice, how distributive and corrective justice converge and diverge, and how the modern idea of social justice emerged.

$10 cover (cash only) includes one drink. First Come, First Served.
NO RSVP Necessary.

Helene D. Gayle '76 is president and CEO of CARE USA, a leading international humanitarian organization with approximately 10,000 staff whose poverty fighting programs reached 82 million people last year in 87 countries. Since joining CARE in 2006, Dr. Gayle has led efforts to reinforce CARE's commitment to empowering girls and women to bring lasting change to poor communities. Under her leadership, CARE has strengthened its focus on long term impact, increased policy and advocacy efforts and deepened connections between poverty and the environment. Gayle has leveraged the power of CARE's corporate and NGO partners to significantly expand CARE's reach across the globe. An expert on health, global development and humanitarian issues, she spent 20 years with the Centers for Disease Control, working primarily on HIV/AIDS. Dr. Gayle then worked at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, directing programs on HIV/AIDS and other global health issues.

Dr. Gayle serves on several boards, including the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Rockefeller Foundation, Colgate-Palmolive Company, Cox Enterprises Incorporated and ONE. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Public Health Association. Dr. Gayle also chairs the Obama Administration's Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, and serves on the President's Commission on White House Fellowships.

Named one of Foreign Policy magazine's "Top 100 Global Thinkers," and Newsweek's top 10 "Women in Leadership" Dr. Gayle has been featured by national and international media outlets. She has also published numerous scientific articles.

The Athena Center for Leadership Studies Power Talks feature today’s leaders in conversation on provocative topics of the moment. Each talk will be followed by audience Q&A. Come join the conversation. Cost is $20 per individual lecture.

For the entirety of her career, Anita Hill has been committed to securing justice and equality. Over twenty years ago she ignited a national discussion on sexual harassment with her testimony at the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, and she has continued to broaden the conversation around race, class, and gender through her publications and teaching. This spring, we are pleased to bring Professor Hill to Barnard as the 2012 Helen Rodgers Reid Lecturer, a series that was inaugurated in 1975 to honor distinguished women in public life who have shown significant commitment to improving the lives of all women. Professor Hill will share her most recent work, Reimagining Equality: Gender, Race, and the American Dream. Exploring cultural ideas and ideals about the home as a site of social and economic security, she will discuss how our definition of the American Dream is tied up in the concept of “home,” and what this means in our current climate of mortgage foreclosures and an ever-widening income gap. The event will be followed by a book signing.

Anita Hill is Professor of Social Policy, Law, and Women’s Studies at Brandeis University. Professor Hill raised awareness nationwide on the issue of sexual harassment. Thanks to her efforts, Congress passed a law that allowed sexual harassment victims to seek damage awards as well as back pay and reinstatement. She received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1980 and began her career in private practice in Washington, D.C. Before becoming a law professor, she worked at the U.S. Education Department and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 1989, Professor Hill became the first African American to be tenured at the University of Oklahoma, College of Law, where she taught contracts and commercial law. Her latest book is Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race and Finding Home. She has also written her biography,Speaking Truth to Power and co-edited with Professor Emma Coleman Jordan, Race, Gender and Power in America: The Legacy of the Hill-Thomas Hearings.

This event is free of charge, but registration required to attend. Registration will be available on the BCRW website starting in mid-January.

Most feminist studies of post-1979 Iran focus on the legal setbacks that women encountered and their collective strategies for regaining the formal grounds they lost with the establishment of an Islamic Republic in Iran. However, Iranian women’s studies should not only examine social movements and elite political action in its effort to decipher the post-revolutionary state. Researchers must also account for non-elite and individual political action in different spheres of daily life. This conversation between Shirin Saeidi (Cambridge University, UK) and Kristin Soraya Batmanghelichi (Columbia University) will engender debates regarding the urgency in continually reconsidering and reinventing methodological approaches used in Iranian studies.

Historian of education Diane Ravitch tackles one of the most provocative issues in education today: What’s behind the trend to close lowscoring schools and turn them over to private managers? What happens when the educational welfare of America’s next generation becomes privatized? And what are the troubling repercussions for the future of public education? Diane Ravitch, research professor of education at New York University, is the author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education; The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn; and Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform.

Jan Willem Duyvendak addresses prominent debates in Western Europe and the United States on themes as seemingly diverse as national identity and nostalgia, migration and integration, and gender relations and “caring communities.” At the most fundamental level, all of these debates deal with the right to belong and the ability to “feel at home.” Professor Duyvendak discusses what has happened to the “home feelings” of the majority under the gender revolution and increased mobility due to globalization. Duyvendak is professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam and the author or editor of 10 books on urbanism, community development, and multiculturalism, including, most recently, The Politics of Home: Nostalgia and Belonging in Western Europe and the United States.

Science journalist Barbara Seaman (1935-2008) spent the last forty years of her life on the front lines as a women’s health advocate. Throughout her career, she was also a tireless supporter of other women’s voices. The recently published anthology Voices of a Women’s Health Movement, co-edited by Seaman and her long-time collaborator, Laura Eldridge, brings together an essential collection of essays, interviews, and commentary by leading activists, writers, doctors, and sociologists on topics ranging across reproductive rights, sex and orgasm, activism, motherhood and birth control. Contributors to the book will discuss the rich history of this movement and its continued significance in struggles for reproductive rights today. Panelists include:

Laura Eldridge ’01 is co-editor of Voices of a Women’s Health Movement, and author of In Our Control: The Complete Guide to Contraceptive Choices for Women.

Helen Lowery has worked as a legal advocate at a rape crisis center and as an attorney in the area of reproductive rights and women’s health.

Lauren Porsch ’01 is a reproductive and sexual health activist, educator, and researcher with extensive experience working on access to health care for traditionally marginalized communities.

Leonore Tiefer PhD, is an author, educator, researcher, therapist and activist who has specialized in many areas of sexuality.

Irene Xanthoudakis ’01 is Manager of Major Gifts for the Ms. Foundation. Her professional experience includes tenures with organizations ranging in size from grassroots groups to national foundations.

In America, more than any other place in the world, guest workers are used to lower labor costs under the guise of filling shortages for substandard or scarce skilled jobs. Immanuel Ness shows migration’s influence in weakening wages and working conditions in countries that send and receive guest workers. His in-depth case studies of hospitality workers from India and Jamaica not only reveal how these programs expose guest workers to employers’ abuses but also detail how organized labor ought to protect the interests of migrant and US-born workers alike. Immanuel Ness is a professor of political science at Brooklyn College, CUNY. He has published scholarly books and monographs on unemployment, precarious labor, migration and guest work, syndicalism, and new worker organizations.

Since the fall of communism, Muslim organizations have boomed in number and strength in Albania. Yet, they represent an exceptional case of Islam which is both liberal, tolerant, pro-democratic and pro-European. The Albanian brand of moderate Islam has persisted over radical influences which have penetrated the porous post-communist terrain characterized by open competition for sources and ideas.

A discussion with: Bachir Souleymane Diagne, Etienne Smith, Alfred Stepan, and Alioune Badara Diop (a political scientist from Senegal). Moderated by Mamadou Diouf on the upcoming Senegalese elections, which were rocked by the recent announcement of the presidential bid by musician and media mogul Youssou N'Dour. That this is one of the smaller issues in these fraught contests speaks volumes about their complexity and import.
Followed by a film screening from 6:15 to 7:30 of "Democracy in Dakar," which looks at the involvement of the youth and rap singers in the elections in 2007.

Saudi Arabia's leaders have claimed that their regime is immune to the revolutionary changes associated with the Arab Spring uprisings. The Saudis have been quite actively engaged with these events and in complicated ways, domestically as well as regionally. They have encouraged some of the uprisings and attempted to clamp down on others. Haykel will explore Saudi Arabia's policies in response to the Arab Spring, which include enforcing religious sanctions against public demonstrations within the Kingdom, increasing various domestic subsidies in an effort to co-opt potential dissent, stabilizing the monarchy in Bahrain and stewarding a new government into power in Yemen.

This event is by invitation only and features 1996 Advocate Jackson Kaguri who has been building schools for AIDS orphans in southwestern Uganda.

A very special evening of solidarity and political strategy
featuring a documentary “The War We Are Living”
part of the acclaimed PBS series Women, War & Peace
and conversation with Clemencia Carabali and Francia Marquez, Afro-Colombian Leaders featured in the film.

The film highlights the efforts of two extraordinary Afro-Colombian women who are defying powerful mining interests and paramilitary death threats to protect their community and the land that sustains them. They are standing up for a generation of Colombians who have been terrorized and forcibly displaced as a deliberate strategy of war.
Simultaneous interpretation will be provided.
Please RSVP at yesenia@afrocolombiany.org

Side-event organized by B'nai B'rith International Zachor:

RSVP by 23 January 2012 rsvpUN@bnaibrith.org or Tel.: (212)-557-0019

Opening of the Exhibitions A Monument of Good Deeds: Dreams and Hopes of Children During the Holocaust; and “The Holocaust - Keeping the Memory Alive”

The exhibition on children is curated by Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, and features the stories of 13 children during the Holocaust. Through their portraits, toys and artwork, visitors to this exhibition will learn how these children lived their daily lives as the war was raging around them.

A second exhibit titled "The Holocaust - Keeping the Memory Alive" will feature 16 entries of the Design Student Poster Contest. The exhibition is supported by the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research (ITF) and held in partnership with Yad Vashem, le Mémorial de la Shoah, the European Shoah Legacy Institute and the UN Holocaust Programme. The top 16 entries will be presented.

RSVP: exhibition@topographie.de

This exhibition presents new photographs of community life in the Lodz Ghetto, taken by the Jewish inhabitants. The exhibition is curated by the Topography of Terror Foundation, Berlin in cooperation with the National Archives in Lodz (Poland). While researching in the National Archives in Lodz, historian Dr. Ingo Loose and curator Dr. Thomas Lutz came across 27 photo albums. Inside were about 12,000 contact prints in small format, sorted thematically and taken by Jewish photographers at the request of the ghetto's Jewish Council. This collection of images - which is hardly known, even among experts in the field - shows a decisive step in the persecution of Jews in the Lizmannstadt Ghetto. Through this exhibition, these photographs are accessible to the public for the very first time.

In this lecture, Professor Bajaj will discuss how human rights education has influenced policy, pedagogy, and practice in contemporary India. She will present findings from a larger research project that examined how human rights education has been contested and received by policy actors, educators, activists, and students in India over the past three decades. Professor Bajaj's talk and recent book, based on research undertaken from 2008-2010, will focus on the rise of human rights education globally and in India, the range of responses from students and educators, local adaptations of human rights, and the strategies activists employ to secure support domestically and internationally.

Please RSVP to RussellHallServices@gmail.com

RSVP: Holocaustremembrance@un.org
The UN's Holocaust Programme will screen a new animated documentary film on the life and artwork of Petr Ginz, a Jewish boy from Prague who perished in the
Holocaust at the age of 16, after spending two years in Terezin. He was a brilliant child who wrote a diary, four novels and created 200 illustrations and paintings during his short life. The screening will be held in partnership with the Documentary Film Program at Wake Forest University, the Documentary Institute at the
University of Florida. A panel discussion with the filmmakers will follow. The UN Holocaust Programme will also launch a 32-page study guide that will serve as
a companion to this documentary. The publication features Petr’s art and writings, and provides historical context for the film and information about the United
Nations, human rights and Holocaust remembrance activities. The publication will be available online in all official United Nations languages. For more information, please visit our website

The 2012 observance of the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust will focus on the theme, “Children and the Holocaust”. The theme serves to highlight the impact of mass violence on children. We invite you to attend the United Nations' annual observance of the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust

To register, please RSVP to holocaustremembrance@un.org by 15 January 2012.
The solemn ceremony on the theme “Children and the Holocaust” will feature a video message remarks by UN
Secretary-General, and statements by the President of the General Assembly and the Permanent Representatives of Israel and the Dominican Republic to the United Nations. The UN Holocaust Programme’s new study guide for children will also be launched. Keynote remarks will be made by Professor Robert Krell (Canada), a child survivor and a psychiatrist. Students will perform songs from the musical theatre production “Sosua: Dare to Dance Together”, which is based on the true story of the emigration of Jewish refugees to the Dominican Republic.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is proud to present a panel discussion on the case for international accountability featuring representatives from Survivors Network of those ...Abused by Priests (SNAP), CCR staff attorneys and clients, and activists. We will examine CCR and SNAP’s current complaint before the International Criminal Court charging that Vatican officials tolerate and enable the systematic and widespread concealing of rape and child sex crimes throughout the world.

This event is free and open to the public.

For more information about this and other events please visit www.CCRjustice.org.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SEMINAR: Culture, Power, Boundaries

Note: Paper available at: http://www.box.com/s/ba6qx6qxlbvdyojb9jpf

Ttalk and discussion with:
Thaddeus Gregory Blanchette, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Macaé
Ana Paula da Silva, University of Sao Paulo

Please join our speakers and us at Faculty House for drinks and dinner before the presentation. If you will be able to join us for dinner, please inform our rapporteur "Alexandra Hall" ASAP, so that we can give Faculty House an approximate count. The dinner costs $24 and should be paid for in cash or with a check. It is not necessary to RSVP if you will be attending only the presentation.



Please join us for our next Distinguished Anthropology Lecture (postponed from December 2010 and rescheduled by popular demand).

Guest speaker: Paul Shankman, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado-Boulder

Margaret Mead was the best-known anthropologist of the 20th century, and her reputation was secure until Derek Freeman, an anthropologist at the Australian National University, published two books sharply criticizing Mead’s Samoan research in the 1920s. Freeman’s books on Mead and Samoa spawned one of the great controversies in anthropology, and many intelligent academics, as well as some of the American public, found his arguments credible. In his recent book,The Trashing of Margaret Mead: Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy and in this lecture, Paul Shankman reviews Freeman’s allegations about Mead’s fieldwork in Samoa.

“Comfort Women Survivors’ Encounter with Holocaust Survivors”

The Cinema for Peace Foundation Invites you to the screening of "The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court."

There will be introducing remarks and a post-screening discussion with Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Film Director, Pamela Yates, and Yasmine Ergas, Columbia University.

This event will be followed by a reception. RSVP is requested but not required to guest@cinemaforpeace.com. Seating is first come first serve.

45 neighbourhoods in Ciudad Bolivar, a municipal district of Bogotá, are the site of a conflict between guerrillas, paramilitary groups, street gangs and the Army

Film Screening of "Ciudad Bolívar: Mosaico de una realidad" followed by a discussion with filmmaker David García.

Talk will be conducted in Spanish and Spanish-English consecutive interpretation will be provided.

Refreshments will be served.

Since South Sudan gained independence earlier this year, the tensions with its northern neighbor, the rump state of Sudan, have exacerbated. What are the prospects for a positive outcome of these complex dynamics? Will conflict trump peacebuilding?
This conference brings together a panel of experts with a deep understanding of these issues.

Panelists:
-Huda Shafiq Ali, Human Rights Advocate; Vice President, Gesr Center for Development, Khartoum.
-Luka Biong Deng, former Minister of Cabinet Affairs for the National Government of Sudan (representing South Sudan), now Executive Director of Kush, Inc., and Visiting Fellow at the University of Sussex.
-Tanya Domi, Chair of the Board, Our Humanity in the Balance; Adjunct Professor at SIPA.
-Kenny Gluck, Chief of Staff of the AU-UN Joint Mediation Support Team (2008-1010); earlier, Director of Operations at Médécins sans Frontières (MSF).
-Ahmed Adam Hussein, Chief Negotiator for the Sudanese Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).
-John Prendergast, Co-Founder of the Enough Project; earlier, Director of African Affairs at the U.S. National Security Council; author of, inter alia, Not On Our Watch.
Moderator:
-Dirk Salomons, Director, Humanitarian Affairs Program, SIPA

Cheese and wine reception after the panel discussions

Celebrate the season with us, and bid farewell to the Human Rights Advocates.

Thursday, December 8, 2011
5:30pm - 7:00pm

Int’l Affairs Bldg, Lindsay Rogers Room

What right do people have to claim against social and economic inequality? Is inequality unjust? Who can be held accountable?

Join us for a discussion with OWSers and Columbia faculty from the Economics, Business, Human Rights and Political Science
worlds.

Confirmed speakers include:

Elazar Barkan: Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, Director of SIPA's Human Rights Concentration, and Director of Columbia's Institute for the Study of Human Rights

Yesenia Barragan, OWS Protester and Ph.D. Candidate, Columbia University

Bruce Kogut: Sanford C. Bernstein& Co. Professor of Leadership and Ethics, Columbia Business School, Columbia University.

Peter Rosenblum: Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann& Bernstein Clinical Professor of Human Rights Law Columbia University.

Jeffrey Sachs: Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.

Dorian T. Warren: Ass. Professor of Political Science at
Columbia  University, SIPA

Alicia White, OWS Protester and M.A. Candidate, Columbia University

Moderated by Anya Schiffrin

Columbia University Students for Human Rights (CUSHR) invites you to:
Looking Back to Look Forward: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 63

A discussion on this critical document, including the historical background and challenges for the future, with Professors Yasmine Ergas and J. Paul Martin
Refreshments will be served
For more information contact ler2138@gmail.com

The Weatherhead East Asian Institute (WEAI) presents a brown bag discussion and book talk with Michael Laffan, Professor of History, Princeton University; Author of "The Makings of Indonesian Islam" and Duncan McCargo, Visiting Scholar, Weatherhead East Asian Institute; Professor of Southeast Asian Politics, University of Leeds; Author of "Mapping National Anxieties: Thailand's Southern Conflict."

No registration required.

The Weatherhead East Asian Institute (WEAI) presents a brown bag lecture entitled "China's Demographic Dynamics and Future Challenges" with Xizhe Peng, Dean, School of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University.

Co-sponsored by the Columbia University Population Research Center.

The first decade of the twenty-first century witnessed a passionate engagement with the losses of the past. Rites of Return examines the effects of this legacy of historical injustice and documented suffering on the politics of the present. Twenty-four writers, historians, literary and cultural critics, anthropologists and sociologists, visual artists, legal scholars, and curators grapple with our contemporary ethical endeavor to redress enduring inequities and retrieve lost histories. Mapping bold and broad-based responses to past injury across Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, Australia, the Middle East, and the United States, Rites of Return examines new technologies of genetic and genealogical research, memoirs about lost family histories, the popularity of roots-seeking journeys, organized trauma tourism at sites of atrocity and new Museums of Conscience, and profound connections between social rites and political and legal rights of return.

Contributors will read from their piece for 5 minutes—just long enough to suggest the range of returns that are featured in the book.

Marianne Hirsch is William Peterfield Trent Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and professor in the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Her recent books include The Generation of Postmemory: Visual Cultures After the Holocaust and Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory. Nancy K. Miller is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her most recent books are But Enough About Me: Why We Read Other People’s Lives and the family memoir, What They Saved: Pieces of a Jewish Past.

Amnesty International celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2011. Panelists reflect upon the history AI-USA’s campaigns and strategies and discuss the present and future of human rights advocacy.

3:00 Opening Remarks:
James G. Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian, Columbia University; and Joshua Rubenstein, Northeast Regional Director, AIUSA

3:15 Panel I: Torture:
Sowore Omoyele of Nigeria, Former Prisoner of Conscience
Vincent Warren, Center for Constitutional Rights; Dr. Allen Keller, Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture
Moderator: Jerald Albarelli, Columbia Center for Oral History

4:45 Panel 2: Capital Punishment:
Laura Moye, Death Penalty Abolition Campaign, AIUSA; Lawrence Hayes, former inmate on death row and co-founder, Campaign to End the Death Penalty
Vincent Southerland, NAACP Legal Defense Fund; Moderator: J. Paul Martin, Director, Human Rights Concentration, Barnard College

6:00pm Reception:
AIUSA Archives Exhibit and AIUSA Write-a-thon

Programme on 2 November, argues that sustainability and equity must—and can—be addressed simultaneously in order to achieve a fair, inclusive and sustainable future.

A distinguished panel will debate how these recommendations can translate into action for the Rio+20 agenda, and in national and international policy making.

Participants include: Rajendra Pachauri (Chairman, UN IPCC), Maurice Strong (former Executive Director, UNEP) and UN Under-Secretary General Rebecca Grynspan (Associate Administrator, UNDP). This event will be introduced and moderated by Khalid Malik, Director of UNDP’s Human Development Report Office.

Award-winning filmmaker and founder of Scribe Video Center Louis Massiah to discuss how communities are defined by common histories and the specific methodology developed at Scribe to create community history media projects. Scribe Video Center was founded in 1982 in Philadelphia as a place to give emerging and mid-level media artists the skills and opportunities to use digital media as tools for self-expression and for representing and supporting their communities.

Louis Massiah is the Lang Professor for Issues of Social Change at Swarthmore College, a prolific, award-winning independent documentary filmmaker, and the founder and executive director of Scribe.

Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war, lasting for over a quarter of a century, came to an end in May 2009 with a decisive military victory for the government forces over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The culmination of the war resulted in thousands of deaths and allegations of human rights violations by both the government as well as LTTE forces. The international community’s response to the violence varied widely, yet unanimously urged both sides to work towards national reconciliation and address the vast human displacement and humanitarian crisis. The government has launched its own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, whose results will be published later this month.

For the first time, excerpts of the films Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, produced by the U.K.’s Channel 4, and Lies Agreed Upon, the Sri Lankan government’s rebuttal, will be screened at one event, followed by discussion featuring the director of the Channel 4 film, Callum Macrae, the International Crisis Group’s Bob Templer, and other distinguished panelists.

Join a talk with Magda M. Elsanousi Omer, Director of Middle East Regional Gender Equality Program at Oxfam GB, on Arab Women's Rights.

Magda Mohammed Elsanousi Omer is the Oxfam Great Britain Country Director for Lebanon, where she also directs Oxfam’s Middle East Regional Gender Equality Program. She is currently leading a women’s empowerment program with an innovative Arab Spring strategy. Magda has extensive experience working in the area of gender justice with a special focus on engaging men and boys in promoting gender equality. She holds Masters degrees in both Rural Development and Gender and Development from the University of Sussex. She worked previously in several capacities for Oxfam GB in Yemen, and with several organizations and research teams in Sudan.

Confirmed speakers include:

Bill Dobbs, Member, Occupy Wall Street Public Relations Working Group

Jeremy Kessler, J.D./Ph.D. Candidate, Yale University

Donna Lieberman, Executive Director, new York Civil Liberties Union

Nathan Schneider, Editor, Waging Nonviolence

Alicia White, OWS Protester, M.A. Candidate, Human Rights Studies Program, Columbia University

Moderated by Professor Kendall Thomas

Join the Human Rights Working Group at SIPA as participants in the 2011 Human Rights Advocates Program read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in their native languages.

The Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War & Peace Studies presents a special ambassador series event
"The International Criminal Court: The First Ten Years"

Registration required at
https://calendar.columbia.edu/sundial/webapi/register.php?eventID=54648

This event is free and open to the public.

Ambassadors included:

Amb. Christian Wenaweser of Liechtenstein,
Permanent Representative of Liechtenstein to the United Nations

Amb. Bruno Stagno Ugarte of Costa Rica,
Executive Director of the Security Council Report

Moderated by Jean-Marie Guéhenno,
Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of Professional Practice in International and Public Affairs, and Director of the Center for International Conflict Resolution (CICR)

Part of Columbia University's "Rights Week."
For additional info or with any questions or concerns, email Dani at daniel.salvador.alonso@gmail.com
*also see http://occupycolumbiauniversity.tumblr.com/

Tamil National Alliance:
R. Sampanthan
Mavai S. Senathirajah
K. (Suresh) Premachandran
M. A. Sumanthiran

Remarks by: David L. Phillips--Director, Program on Peace-building and Rights at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights, and Professor E. Valentine Daniel, South Asia Institute

Technology and Human Rights: The Role of Information Technology and Social Networking Platforms in Mobilizing People to Advance the Cause of Human Rights and Social Justice

Welcoming Remarks: Professor George Andreopoulos, Director, CIHR
Moderator: Aferdita Hakaj, Assistant Director, CIHR

Panelists: Mr. Fred Kirungi, Mr. Shahram Hashemi, Professor Sylvia Maier, Ms. Raja Althaibani, Ms. Sally Abdelghafar

The Weatherhead East Asian Institute (WEAI) and the Center for Chinese Legal Studies (CCLS) present a brown bag lecture entitled "Marriage Law Propaganda and Legal Education Campaigns in the Early PRC" with Jennifer Altehenger, An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University.

Co-sponsored by the Department of History.

The Philolexian Society invites you to enjoy an evening examining the role of journalism in creating socially just societies. Sheila Coronel, founder of the Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism and head of the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia's own J-School, will discuss the role of investigative reporters, bloggers, plane spotters, WikiLeakers, and citizen journalists in promoting government accountability through media old and new. Refreshments will be provided.

The Inaugural Robert N. Butler Memorial Forum brought to you by the Philolexian Society

Thomas A. Perreault, Associate Professor of Geography, Maxwell School, Syracuse University

This presentation explores the social and environmental implications of intensive mining activity on the Bolivian altiplano. Of particular concern are the implications for agrarian communities downstream from the Huanuni mine, the sole remaining mine operated by the state-owned Corporación Minera de Bolivia (COMIBOL). Once part of tin baron Simón Patiño's mining empire, the Huanuni mine has never implemented adequate environmental safeguards in its nearly 100 years of
operation. As a result, the Huanuni river, into which the mine and associated processing plants dump their waste materials, is contaminated in the extreme. In 2009, Bolivian president Evo Morales took the unusual measure of declaring an ecological disaster in four
municipios, but remediation efforts promised by the government have been slow to materialize. Quechua speaking indigenous-campesino communities downstream from the Huanuni mine are exposed to an array of pollutants, and suffer from acute water scarcity and associated health problems and deteriorating livelihoods opportunities. Mining has long held a hegemonic position in Bolivian culture and political
economy, and the country remains structurally dependent on its extractive industries. Thus, in spite of having a president with indigenous-campesino heritage, little has been done to address the social and environmental injustices of mining in Bolivia. Using the
analytical lens of political ecology, this presentation examines the relationship between mining, water and rural livelihoods in the Huanuni watershed, and considers the relative absence of social mobilization against the impacts of Bolivia?s mining economy, a paradox in the hyper-politicized context of Bolivian politics.

Professor Anne McClintock (Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison) will be exploring what kind of overt U.S. empire emerged in the aftermath of 9/11. She will engage notions such as paranoia and perpetual war, torture and the crisis of violence and the visible, imperial déjà vu and the empire of drones in the twilight of U.S. imperial power. McClintock will be exploring the concept of imperial deja vu through the unquiet dead of Hiroshima as the first “ground zero,” and the ubiquitous invocation of “Indian Country” in the “War on Terror.”

Free and open to the public. The building and the venues are fully accessible. For more information please visit http://centerforthehumanities.org/ or e-mail ch@gc.cuny.edu.

The Columbia Center for Oral History will host Daniel Kerr, American University professor and author of "Derelict Paradise: Homelessness and Urban Development in Cleveland," as part of the Oral History Seminar Series. Focusing on his work with the Cleveland Homeless Oral History Project, Kerr will examine how oral history research can move beyond professional and academic aims and actively facilitate social change. Community organization members outside of Columbia University are especially encouraged to attend.

A full-day conference.

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of Frantz Fanon's death, an international group of scholars addresses the diverse sources, trajectories and reinscriptions of his thought. Participants will consider Fanon's biographical and intellectual migration between the French Caribbean and North Africa, and between the theory of race and the project of anticolonial nationalism, and discuss his legacy across continents and across disciplines.

Read the full day's schedule here: http://www.maisonfrancaise.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1364:transcolonial-fanon-trajectories-of-a-revolutionary-politics&catid=18:upcoming-events-conferences-and-cinema&Itemid=54





Filmmaker and installation artist Isaac Julien has been praised for his “stunningly lush aesthetics” and “utterly sensual” approach to filmmaking (Artforum). In this lecture, he presents excerpts from his recent major work, Ten Thousand Waves. Set in China, this work features renowned actresses Maggie Cheung and Zhao Tao, video artist Yang Fudong, poet Wang Ping, and venerable Chinese calligrapher, Gong Fagen. Ten Thousand Waves is an homage to the culture of immigrants who relocate seeking a better life, echoing his parents' journey from the Carribean to England.

Followed by a moderated conversation with Carol Becker, Dean of Faculty, School of the Arts


Required Reservation


Isaac Julien's earlier works include Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask; Young Soul Rebels (which was awarded the Semaine de la Critique prize at the Cannes Film Festival); and the acclaimed poetic documentary Looking for Langston. 

Julien was visiting lecturer at Harvard University's Schools of Afro-American and Visual Environmental Studies and is currently a visiting professor at the Whitney Museum of American Arts.

The talk will include the following speakers:
- Ifeanyi Orazulike – Executive Director, International Center on Advocacy for the
Right to Health
- Dr. Cheikh Traore – Senior Policy Advisor, HIV & Sexual Diversity, UNDP
- Jessica Stern – Director of Programs, International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights

Moderator: Betsy Apple – Legal Director/General Counsel, AIDS-Free World, and Adjunct Professor, SIPA

Topics Included:
Stigma, HIV/AIDS, Discrimination, "Corrective" Rape, Hate Crimes, Criminalization, Gender Identity, Laws, Policy, Education, Culture, and Violence surrounding Same-Sex and Intersex individuals and relationships.

Ethiopian food buffet at 6:00pm



"Methods, experiences from the field, industry initiatives, challenges"

The two speakers are Kelly Bidwell from Innovations for Poverty Action, Director of the Post-Conflict Recovery Initiative, and Cyrus Samii, Assistant Professor at NYU who has extensive field experience with evaluating peacekeeping missions. They will talk about the methodologies they use to understand the performance and impact of post-conflict interventions, e.g. peace education, peacekeeping, etc., their own experiences in the field and the challenges they encountered. It will also be a great opportunity for students to interact with field practitioners.

Refreshments will be provided.

Co-sponsored with OLAS, Latino Heritage Month, Colony at Columbia University, Omega Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated, Students for Education Reform, the Beta Chapter of Latinas Promoviendo Comunidad/Lambda Pi Chi Sorority, Inc.

Entertainment: a talented mix of musicians and artists: Andre Rivie's Blues Band, Osekre and the Lucky Bastards, and the Columbia University Ballroom Dance Troupe

There will be catered food from Havana Central and lots of yummy chocolate!

Your very attendance to this event contributes directly to the important work of BECA (Bilingual Education in Central America), a non-profit organization working to promote cultural exchange and affordable bilingual education to underserved communities in Honduras. BECA also offers volunteering opportunities so come learn about how to immerse yourself in an enriching experience. For more information, visit their website: www.becaschools.org

BUY YOUR $5 TICKET ONLINE!
https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/9391765

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=310104285671011

"Not My Life" is directed, written and produced by Oscar Nominee Robert Bilheimer, President of Worldwide Documentaries, a non-profit film production company focusing on subjects of social, cultural, and humanitarian concern. This documentary portrays modern-day slavery and global human trafficking, crimes that affect millions of children, women, and men in North and South America, Europe, Southeast Asia, India, and Africa.

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=239815439410571

Lazihno vs. Brazil was brought to the InterAmerican Commission in 2005 in response to a summary execution at a juvenile center in Brazil. Daniela Ikawa, a human rights attorney from Brazil, and Program Officer at ESCR-net, will discuss her experiences bringing this case before the commission and the broader impacts of Inter-American Commission recommendations on human rights protection in Brazil.

Second International Forum for Peace and Prosperity in Northeast Asia--Sixty Years after the San Francisco Peace Treaty: Peace, Conflict, and Historical Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific

An all-day conference entitled Sixty Years after the San Francisco Peace Treaty: Peace, Conflict, and Historical Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific. Speakers include Bruce Cummings, Kimie Hara, Naoyuki Umemori, and many more.

For full agenda, visit The Center for Korean Research website: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ckr/events.html

Asian Women Leaders Series
A lunchtime discussion on Kyrgyzstan’s Political Transition
and its Role in the World

Featuring Her Excellency Roza Otunbayeva, President of the Kyrgyz Republic. Roza Otunbayeva is the President of the Kyrgyz Republic, a post she has held since July 2010.
Following the Kyrgyz Republic’s independence in 1991, she served as the Ambassador to the United States and Canada, the United Kingdom, and on three occasions as Foreign Minister. A former member of the Kyrgyz parliament, she was honored with the U.S. Secretary of
State's 2011 International Woman of Courage award.
President Otunbayeva will be joined in discussion with Reuters’ Senior Correspondent in Washington, D.C., and former Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Fellow, Philip Shishkin. — Lunch will be served —

Can't make it to this program? Tune into AsiaSociety.org/Live at 12:30pm ET for a free live video webcast.

Tickets:
Members: $25
Students/Seniors: $30
Nonmembers: $35
To purchase tickets: Call the Box Office: (212)-517-ASIA (M-F 1pm-5pm)
Online tickets: tickets.asiasociety.org
No cancellations, exchanges or refunds

The Human Rights in New Constitutions - Professor Ssekandi and Elvis Mbembe Binda, a human rights advocate will be speaking. The program will focus on human rights and constitutional issues in Africa. A light lunch will be served.

All over the world controversies continue to beset the practice of peacebuilding. Peace versus justice. Religious versus secular. Individual versus structural justice. Forgiveness versus retribution. Overcoming these dilemmas requires more than reforming institutions but rather new thinking about the questions: what is justice? how is it related to the building of peace?

Answers to these questions lie in the twin concepts of reconciliation and restorative justice. The symposium explores their potential for overcoming the familiar controversies and offering guidance for peacebuilding. It will explore as well what these concepts have to say about punishment, accountability, apology, forgiveness, confession, truth telling, human rights, international law, and other issues and practices. Participation is open to students, scholars, and practitioners interested in transitional justice and peacebuilding.Learn more and RSVP at http://iilj.org/newsandevents/RJRP.asp

All over the world controversies continue to beset the practice of peacebuilding. Peace versus justice. Religious versus secular. Individual versus structural justice. Forgiveness versus retribution. Overcoming these dilemmas requires more than reforming institutions but rather new thinking about the questions: what is justice? how is it related to the building of peace?

Answers to these questions lie in the twin concepts of reconciliation and restorative justice. The symposium explores their potential for overcoming the familiar controversies and offering guidance for peacebuilding. It will explore as well what these concepts have to say about punishment, accountability, apology, forgiveness, confession, truth telling, human rights, international law, and other issues and practices. Participation is open to students, scholars, and practitioners interested in transitional justice and peacebuilding. Learn more and RSVP here: http://iilj.org/newsandevents/RJRP.asp

Panelists: Lila Abu-Lughod, Columbia University; Elizabeth Hurd, Northwestern University; Liesl Gerntholtz, Human Rights Watch; Ron Hassner, UC Berkeley; Naz Modirzadeh, Harvard University; Makau Mutua, SUNY Buffalo; Anupama Rao, Barnard College; Dorothy Q. Thomas; Miriam Ticktin, The New School; Burton Visotzky, Jewish Theological Seminary; and Sarah Leah Whitson, Human Rights
Watch.

Please contact Chris Chafin at chriscdtr@gmail.com to
read panelists' papers before the workshops.

Panelists: Fabienne Hara, International Crisis Group; Stephen Hopgood, SOAS University of London; Thomas Kellogg, Open Society Foundations; Sally Merry,
New York University; Daniel Philpott, Notre Dame University; Leslie Vinjamuri, SOAS.

Please contact Chris Chafin at chriscdtr@gmail.com to
read panelists' papers before the workshops.

The Center for Public Scholarship presents the 25th conference from the Social Research journal at The New School. Join us as experts and scholars discuss human rights as a mediating language for discussions about social justice and the global economy. How does a wealthy nation determine what they can do to alleviate global poverty? What are the ethical obligations and how can such assistance be mutually beneficial? What are the human rights responsibilities and obligations of
international financial institutions and corporations? Where are the opportunities in economic policies and institutions to strengthen human rights policies around the world and improve social justice?

Full program and registration:http://newschool.edu/cps/human-rights-global-economy/

Featuring:
Philip Alston, Christian Barry, Nehal Bhuta, Jackie Dugard, Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Des Gasper, Siri Gloppen, Kathryn Hochstetler, Robert Howse, Chris Jochnick, Andrew Lang, Asunción Lera St. Clair, Chris London, Vitit Muntarbhorn, Sanjay Reddy, Margot Salomon, Galit A.
Sarfaty, Meaghen Simms, Ruti Teitel and Miriam Ticktin.

Tickets:
Full conference: $30; single session $10
Nonprofit Members and Staff: $15; single sessions $5
Free for all students and all New School faculty, staff, and alumni
(with valid ID)

The Center for Public Scholarship presents the 25th conference from the Social Research journal at The New School. Join us as experts and scholars discuss human rights as a mediating language for discussions about social justice and the global economy. How does a wealthy nation determine what they can do to alleviate global poverty? What are the ethical obligations and how can such assistance be mutually beneficial? What are the human rights responsibilities and obligations of
international financial institutions and corporations? Where are the opportunities in economic policies and institutions to strengthen human rights policies around the world and improve social justice?

Full program and registration:http://newschool.edu/cps/human-rights-global-economy/

Featuring:
Philip Alston, Christian Barry, Nehal Bhuta, Jackie Dugard, Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Des Gasper, Siri Gloppen, Kathryn Hochstetler, Robert Howse, Chris Jochnick, Andrew Lang, Asunción Lera St. Clair, Chris London, Vitit Muntarbhorn, Sanjay Reddy, Margot Salomon, Galit A.
Sarfaty, Meaghen Simms, Ruti Teitel and Miriam Ticktin.

Tickets:
Full conference: $30; single session $10
Nonprofit Members and Staff: $15; single sessions $5
Free for all students and all New School faculty, staff, and alumni
(with valid ID)

Free, four-day (11/10-13), non-profit film festival featuring work by international filmmakers exploring social, political, and cultural issues. Documentaries, features, experimental work, and shorts look at industrial pollution, workers' rights, police brutality, the economic collapse, living with disabilities, other topics. Q&A's with the artists follow some presentations. See www.chafilmfest.com for screening schedule and more information. Reserve seats through pr@chafilmfest.com or Eventbrite.

Free, four-day (11/10-13), non-profit film festival featuring work by international filmmakers exploring social, political, and cultural issues. Documentaries, features, experimental work, and shorts look at industrial pollution, workers' rights, police brutality, the economic collapse, living with disabilities, other topics. Q&A's with the artists follow some presentations. See www.chafilmfest.com for screening schedule and more information. Reserve seats through pr@chafilmfest.com or Eventbrite.

Free, four-day (11/10-13), non-profit film festival featuring work by international filmmakers exploring social, political, and cultural issues. Documentaries, features, experimental work, and shorts look at industrial pollution, workers' rights, police brutality, the economic collapse, living with disabilities, other topics. Q&A's with the artists follow some presentations. See www.chafilmfest.com for screening schedule and more information. Reserve seats through pr@chafilmfest.com or Eventbrite.

Free, four-day (11/10-13), non-profit film festival featuring work by international filmmakers exploring social, political, and cultural issues. Documentaries, features, experimental work, and shorts look at industrial pollution, workers' rights, police brutality, the economic collapse, living with disabilities, other topics. Q&A's with the artists follow some presentations. See www.chafilmfest.com for screening schedule and more information. Reserve seats through pr@chafilmfest.com or Eventbrite.

A conversation with Gary Shteyngart, author of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, Absurdistan, and most recently Super Sad True Love Story. Moderated by McKenzie Wark, professor of media and cultural studies at The New School and author of Gamer Theory.

Rewiring the Real is a yearlong series of conversations with writers about the interplay of literature, technology and religion.

Opening Reception of new Exhibition

Social Forces Visualized offers an innovative view of the beginnings of social documentary photography in the United States. The exhibition includes over 125 photographs by seminal photographers Jacob Riis, Lewis Hine, Jessie Tarbox Beals, and others. The photographs were selected from over 1,000 images in the Community Service Society records at Columbia University's Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Many of the exhibition images have not been seen in public for close to a century. The exhibition also includes a generous selection of original illustrations, maps, exhibition panels, and publications in which many of the photographs first appeared. Social Forces Visualized is organized by Drew Sawyer and Huffa Frobes-Cross, both Ph.D. candidates in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University.

Featuring photographs by Jacob Riis, Jessie Tarbox Beals, Lewis Hine, Hiram Myers, and many others. An exhibit drawn from the Community Service Society Records at Columbia's Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Exhibit: 9 November through 17 December, 2011 (Wed-Sat, 1-5 pm)

Tthe first program that the Middle East Task Force will convene at the New America Foundation’s new space on Lafayette St.
To guarantee your Place, RSVP NOW at http://newamerica.createsend1.com/t/y/l/wjklld/ctjttitw/i/

Coming to NYC! This winter, the New America Foundation will officially launch New America NYC at our new space in Soho.
Join us for a video screening and discussion with B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights NGO, as we showcase “Visual Impact,” a video project that trains and empowers hundreds of Palestinians to record human rights abuses. Through innovative and conventional media channels the short films shine a spotlight on violations, promote accountability, create deterrence to violence, and generate new avenues for advocacy.

FEATURING: AWATIF ALJADILI, Gazan producer; ARAFAT AMIRA, Seventeen-year-old citizen journalist; DANIEL LEVY, Co-director of New America's Middle East Task Force; YOAV GROSS, Project Leader

NEW AMERICA NYC is dedicated to big ideas and lively conversation. It is an initiative of the New America Foundation, an independent and non-ideological organization that invests in new thinkers, breakthrough research and policy innovation to address the most important challenges facing the United States and the world.

Speaker: Douglas Morris
Discussant: Anne Nelson

About the speaker: Douglas G. Morris is a legal historian and practicing criminal defense attorney with Federal Defenders of New York, Inc. He is author of Justice Imperiled: The Anti-Nazi Lawyer Max Hirschberg in Weimar Germany (University of Michigan Press, 2005). He is now working on a book, tentatively entitled Discrimination, Degradation, Defiance: Jewish Lawyers in Nazi Germany. This book will explore the response of lawyers, both in their legal practice and their legal thinking, to a tyrannical regime’s destruction of a liberal legal order.

Optional Drinks/Dinner: Before the meeting, participants are cordially invited to join the speaker for drinks in the lobby of the Faculty House at 6:00pm and an optional buffet dinner at 6:30pm (partially subsidized for a cost of $24) on the second floor of the Faculty House.

Please RSVP by contacting Sarika Bansal at cuhrseminar@gmail.com and make sure you include your full name and affiliation. Please specify whether you plan to attend the dinner before the seminar.

A screening of Sun Come Up, an Academy-Award nominated documentary that tells the story of some of the world's first climate change refugees, the Carteret Islanders of Papua New Guinea, who are falling victim to rising sea levels. Sun Come Up provokes discussion about climate change, displacement, and the rights of vulnerable communities around the globe.

Michael Gerrard, Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice and Director of the Columbia Center for Climate Change Law, and Paige West, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Barnard College and Columbia University, will briefly introduce the film.

Dinner (Non-pizza) and drinks will be served.

Film by Ritu Sarin, Tenzing Sonam. 2010, 79 min.

A "look at The Dalai Lama's ceaseless struggle for justice and recognition for the Tibetan people, [the film] focuses on the pivotal and particularly tumultuous events of 2008. From Buddhist monks' protests in Lhasa on the 50th anniversary of the Chinese invasion and the four-month march of exiled Tibetans through India to the Tibetan border, to the Beijing Olympics and the raucous talks the between the Dalai Lama's representatives and the Chinese government, the film uncovers the growing rifts between younger Tibetans and their most respected spiritual leader. While His Holiness advocates for political autonomy within China rather than secession from it, a younger generation within Tibet has grown impatient and begun to chart a more confrontational course. Following The Dalai Lama's political life with unprecedented personal access, Tibetan filmmaker Tenzing Sonam and co-director Ritu Sarin bring an impassioned focus to the myriad complexities in finding a peaceful solution based on compromise and dialogue"

PIZZA will be served!

Over the past several months, the Horn of Africa has experienced one of the worst famines in the last 60 years. Although early warnings surfaced in November 2010, famine was not officially declared by the United Nations until July this year for regions in southern Somalia. Did the international community react too late? Malnutrition and disease are widespread and millions of food insecure people have yet to receive any emergency assistance. This panel discussion will focus on the current crisis along with the political instability and security factors linked with the various political factions, including the Islamist group Al-Shabaab.

Guest panelists include:

• Federica D'Andreagiovanni, Coordination Response Division-OCHA Somalia Desk
• Dr. Richard Garfield, Columbia University Schools of Nursing and Public Health, Forced Migration
• Sibi Lawson-Marriott, External Relations for Eastern and Central Africa, World Food Programme
• Gerry Martone, Director of Humanitarian Affairs, International Rescue Committee

Jamal Zahalka, Member of the Israeli Knesset, will discuss the myth of Israeli democracy. Moderated by Professor Bashir Abu-Manneh.

Jamal Zahalka, has been a member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, since 2003. He is a member of different committees in the Knesset that address education, culture, sports, local government and economic affairs. He is the head of the National Democratic Assembly, a party representing the Palestinians citizens of Israel. He holds a PhD in pharmaceutical studies from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The Weatherhead East Asian Institute (WEAI) presents a conference entitled "Borders and Frontiers: Connections between Power, Ideology, and Identity in Southeast Asia" featuring two panel discussions and a keynote speech by Duncan McCargo, Visiting Scholar, Weatherhead East Asian Institute; Professor of Southeast Asian Politics, University of Leeds.

Registration required. For more information, please visit: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/weai/events/speciallectures/borders_frontiers_southeastasia.html

In the wake of war crimes trials conducted in the ICTY and national jurisdictions, the countries of the Western Balkans are taking significant steps toward judicial accountability, and their political integration in Europe. At the same time, extremist sectors still see trials as selective scapegoating and deny the worst atrocities committed during the wars of the former Yugoslavia. From a different perspective, victims and survivors, while embracing justice, demand the public opportunity to be acknowledged in forms that a court of law can hardly do.

Responding to victims' demands, an innovative movement across the region has emerged to propose that the countries succeeding the former Yugoslavia join efforts and establish one multi-country truth commission (Regional Commission - RECOM), capable to obtain effective cooperation in all the region, fighting chauvinistic denial and recognizing the dignity of all victims.

A delegation of leaders of the RECOM project will be at NYU School of Law on November 15th to share their experiences with campaigning for truth in the Western Balkans. They will present the draft mandate submitted to the seven presidents of the region, and discuss a successful public campaign that has gathered some 700,000 signatures in the region to push for the commission.

Panelists:

Moderator: Paul Van Zyl, Transitional Justice Program Director, CHRGJ; Adjunct Professor, Transitional Justice, NYU School of Law

Vesna Teršelič - Documenta, Croatia; Daliborka Uljarevic - Center for Civic Education, Montenegro; Igor Mekina - Civic Line, Ljubljana, Slovenia; Maja Mićic - Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Serbia; Nataša Kandić - Humanitarian Law Center – Serbia; Dino Mustafić - Director, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Avni Melenica - Association of Families of Victims, Kosovo; Mario Mažić - Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Croatia

Strangers as Enemies: Walls all over the World, and How to Tear them Down
A lecture by Etienne Balibar

Borders isolate, but they also link people. Throughout history, they have been complex, mobile, porous, and conflictual. They retained an essential correlation to the figures of sovereignty and identity. In a “globalized” world, which is also increasingly diasporic and nomadic, they could become privileged sites of democratization and the renovation of politics. We observe, almost everywhere, just the opposite: walls, fences, barriers – be they material or virtual, inside and around territories – are being erected and violently fortified, killing and harming citizens and non-citizens, without producing protection or security, feeding xenophobia and anxiety. The lecture will describe the various forms of this “ghettoization” of the political space, discuss its meaning, and tentatively address the political alternatives it calls for.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER: 
Etienne Balibar is Professor Emeritus of moral and political philosophy at Université de Paris X – Nanterre and Distinguished Professor of Humanities at the University of California, Irvine. He has published widely in the area of Marxist philosophy and moral and political philosophy in general. His many works include Lire le Capital (with Louis Althusser, Pierre Macherey, Jacques Rancière, Roger Establet, and F. Maspero) (1965); Spinoza et la politique (1985); Nous, citoyens d’Europe? Les frontières, l’État, le peuple (2001); Politics and the Other Scene (2002); L’Europe, l’Amérique, la Guerre. Réflexions sur la mediationeuropéenne (2003); Europe, Constitution, Frontière (2005). His seminar at Columbia in Fall 2011 is entitled "Human Rights and the Institution of the Citizen."

The Center for International Conflict Resolution at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War & Peace Studies is pleased to host a roundtable discussion with Mr. Douglas Campos and Lieutenant Colonel Saqib Mirza on the future of Cote d'Ivoire. Mr. Campos and Lieutenant Mirza will discuss the crucial socio-political challenges faced by Cote d'Ivoire today as well as those issues which are likely to impact the country as it moves forward and away from last year's controversial presidential election. Topics of discussion may include but are not limited to: security sector reform, cross border issues, reconstruction, and the reconciliation process. Please note that registration is required and that seating is limited given the nature of the event.

A roundtable discussion with Souleymane Bachir Diagne and Jean-Pierre Filiu

In the unfolding movements of the "Arab Spring," the people leading revolutions and overthrowing dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, and now Libya have often done so in the name of values such as democracy, liberty, and equality that many consider universal. This raises a question: what place will political Islam occupy in the new landscape? Bachir Diagne and Jean-Pierre Filiu examine the historical and philosophical origins of political Islam in the Middle East and question its current and future role.

Souleymane Bachir Diagne is Professor of French and Philosophy at Columbia University. Jean-Pierre Filiu is an Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at the Centre for International Studies and Research (CERI) at Sciences Po.

A workshop on the history of religion, conflict, and accommodation in India. The two-day discussion will focus on two broad themes: Buddhists’ encounter of conventional Vedic religion in ancient India; and exchanges among Saivas, Vaisnavas, and Jains in ancient and medieval South India.

Convened by Sudipta Kaviraj (Columbia) and Rajeev Bhargava (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi). Speakers include Arindam Chakrabarti (Hawaii); Dan Arnold (University of Chicago); Valerie Stoker (Wright University); Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi (San Francisco); Lawrence McCrae (Cornell); Narayana Rao (Wisconsin); Charles Hallisey (Harvard); Ajay Rao (Toronto).
Co-sponsored with Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR).

A workshop on the history of religion, conflict, and accommodation in India. The two-day discussion will focus on two broad themes: Buddhists’ encounter of conventional Vedic religion in ancient India; and exchanges among Saivas, Vaisnavas, and Jains in ancient and medieval South India.

Convened by Sudipta Kaviraj (Columbia) and Rajeev Bhargava (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi). Speakers include Arindam Chakrabarti (Hawaii); Dan Arnold (University of Chicago); Valerie Stoker (Wright University); Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi (San Francisco); Lawrence McCrae (Cornell); Narayana Rao (Wisconsin); Charles Hallisey (Harvard); Ajay Rao (Toronto).
Co-sponsored with Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR).

A distinguished panel of experts — John Braithwaite, Joan Tronto, Rajmohan Gandhi, Nataša Kandić and José Zalaquett — will address these questions:

After genocide, civil war, and dictatorship, what is the meaning of justice? How can peace be built? What answers do the concepts of restorative justice and reconciliation provide?

The panel is free and open to the public, so your colleagues and friends are more than welcome (and please spread the word).

In anticipation of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the African National Congress (ANC) the New School's Transregional Center for Democratic Studies, in collaboration with the Center for Public Scholarship, presents a screening of the documentary Rewind by Liza Key.

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was an extraordinary moment in the history of South Africa and its impact reverberated around the world. In its effort to ensure a peaceful transition from Apartheid to democracy, the TRC heard the testimony of 21,000 victims who told their stories, and 7,000 perpetrators who confessed their crimes. To mark its tenth anniversary in 2004, composer Philip Miller (Yizo Yizo, Heartlines, Kentridge's 9 Drawings for Projection and Noyce's Catch a Fire) created Rewind: A Cantata for Voice, Tape and Testimony.

Rewind, South African filmmaker Liza Key's remarkably poetic documentary about the creation of Miller's cantata and the Truth and Reconciliation hearings upon which it is based, uses this exceptional and unusual musical work as a vehicle to tell the human stories behind the shards of TRC testimony integrated into Miller's work.

"United in Anger: Historicizing ACT UP,” a public workshop by ACT UP Oral History Project co-directors Jim Hubbard and Sarah Schulman on their interviews with surviving members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash to Power, a group that was formed in 1987 to raise public consciousness about the evolving epidemic.

Hubbard and Schulman will introduce the project, review its history, share the insights gained and discuss how they ultimately seek to "demystify the process of making social change."

Film by Barbara Attie and Janet Goldwater. 2009, 60 min. In English and Bambara and French with English subtitles.

“Bridging two worlds, Mrs. Goundo’s Daughter tells the moving story of one Malian mother’s fight for asylum in the US to protect her two-year-old daughter from female genital cutting. Expertly interweaving scenes from Mali of girls preparing for an excision ceremony and scenes from Philadelphia where those who have survived the ceremony share their stories, the film demonstrates precisely why and how Mrs. Goundo fights for her daughter and her future.” —HRW

We are deeply honored to welcome Pamela W. Barnes, President and CEO of EngenderHealth, to deliver the keynote address at the 2011 GlobeMed HillTop. EngenderHealth is a leading global reproductive health organization with more than 65 years of experience in improving the quality of family planning, maternal health, and HIV/AIDS services. Drawing upon her extraordinary leadership in EngenderHealth and previously at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, we hope Ms. Barnes will offer insight into the value of partnership in advancing health equity as well as advice on how to put these values into practice on the ground. Reception to follow keynote address.

Peter Luckow is Director of Operations at Tiyatien Health, a community-based health organization that works to provide health care to rural Liberian communities. As a co-founder of GlobeMed, 2011 Echoing Green Fellow, and featured speaker at the 2011 Partners in Health Thomas J. White Symposium, Mr. Luckow has emerged as one of the foremost young leaders in the global health movement. Drawing from his considerable experience in partnership-based organizations, we hope that Mr. Luckow will lay out broad questions about partnership’s role in global health with specific relevance to GlobeMed, shedding light on how the values of partnership have shaped the formation and growth of GlobeMed as a student organization.

A workshop with Christophe Jaffrelot (CERI, Sciences Po); Elazar Barkan (Columbia); Karen Barkey (Columbia); Rajeev Bhargava (Columbia); Shabnam Hashmi (ANHAD); Gagan Sethi (Jan Vikas Society).

The 2002 pogrom in Gujurat, India, which resulted in 2,000– mostly Muslim – casualties. It was exceptional not only because of its magnitude but also because of its spread to the countryside, where a large number of Muslims were attacked by their Hindu neighbours. After the pogrom, NGOs committed themselves to relief work, judicial assistance and attempts at reconciliating Hindus and Muslims. This workshop will engage NGO activists involved in reconciliation work to share their experience and assess the impact of their efforts. The workshop is part of the ongoing Sacred Sites project, organized by Karen Barkey and Elazar Barkan.

Sessions:
12:00-2:00: Gujarat Living Memory – Civil Society Advocacy
2:15-4:00: Sacred Sites, Violence and Coexistence

Following “Sacred Sites: Post-Gujarat Hindu-Muslim Violence Reconciliation Workshop,” a screening of Parzania will kick off the CDTR Film Festival.

Parzania is an award-winning Indian film from 2006 based on the true story of ten-year-old Parsi boy Azhar Mody, who disappeared during the violence in Gujarat. Starring Naseerudding Shah and Sarikah, it won the 2006 Silver Lotus for Best Actress and 2006 Golden Lotus for Best Direction.

The Sixth Annual Emilio Mignone Lecture on Transitional Justice, a discussion between Helen Clark (UNDP) and Hossam Bahgat (Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights), introduced and moderated by Philip Alston (CHRGJ and NYU School of Law)

This annual public lecture invites leading international figures to explore cutting edge issues in transitional justice. The focus of this year’s lecture will be on the nexus between transitional justice and development, followed by a conversation about how these relate to the recent and ongoing transitions in the Middle East and North Africa.

Please RSVP to Audrey Watne at watnea@exchange.law.nyu.edu. Valid ID required for admission.

A series of panels, including a keynote address, "The Quest for Justice and the Conundrum of Rights: Law, Religion and History in Lanna, by David Engel of NYU. Panel discussion topics include "Complicating 'Justice'," "Justice before and after transition: Legacies of human rights advocacy on transitional justice in post-New Order Indonesia," "When Torture is a Duty: The Murder of Imam Yapha Kaseng and the Challenge of Accountability in Thailand, "Keeping it Up and Keeping It Down – Broadcasting Rights at Thai Protests, "Faceless Wounds, Nameless Peace: Vietnamese Women in Search of Glocal Transformative Justice," "Trafficking In Law: Rethinking the Relationship Between Globalization of Law and Local Human Rights in Thailand," and "Rape: A matter of private prosecution? The interface of gender, sexuality, and politics in dealing with rape cases among some ethnic minority groups of northern Vietnam"

Registration is required. For details and a full schedule, visit www.columbia.edu/cu/weai/events/speciallectures/localizing_global_justice.html.

A series of panels, including a keynote address, "The Quest for Justice and the Conundrum of Rights: Law, Religion and History in Lanna, by David Engel of NYU. Panel discussion topics include "Complicating 'Justice'," "Justice before and after transition: Legacies of human rights advocacy on transitional justice in post-New Order Indonesia," "When Torture is a Duty: The Murder of Imam Yapha Kaseng and the Challenge of Accountability in Thailand, "Keeping it Up and Keeping It Down – Broadcasting Rights at Thai Protests, "Faceless Wounds, Nameless Peace: Vietnamese Women in Search of Glocal Transformative Justice," "Trafficking In Law: Rethinking the Relationship Between Globalization of Law and Local Human Rights in Thailand," and "Rape: A matter of private prosecution? The interface of gender, sexuality, and politics in dealing with rape cases among some ethnic minority groups of northern Vietnam"

Registration is required. For details and a full schedule, visit www.columbia.edu/cu/weai/events/speciallectures/localizing_global_justice.html.

LYSISTRATA International Law Event
Gender, National Security, and Counter-Terrorism

About the event: Jayne Huckerby will highlight findings of a groundbreaking report published by NYU's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, "A Decade Lost: Locating Gender in U.S. Counter-Terrorism. Throughout the United States' decade-long “War on Terror,”
women and sexual minorities' experience with counter-terrorism measures has been largely invisible to policymakers and the human rights community alike. Drawing on her experience and participation in the creation of this report, Jayne Huckerby is uniquely qualified to illuminate how the U.S. government’s counter-terrorism efforts impact women and sexual minorities. The lecture will highlight the unique gender dimensions and impacts of U.S. counter-terrorism, including the impact of anti-terror cuts in humanitarian aid to Somalia on women and girls, the experience of Iraqi gay men in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion, and the effects of targeted killings on female family members in Pakistan. We anticipate a robust discussion during the Q&A, moderated by Lysistrata's International Law Concentration Leader, Sara Birjandian.
About the speaker: Jayne Huckerby is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law of the Global Justice Clinic and Research Director at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, where she directs the Center’s project on Gender, National Security and Counter-Terrorism.

"The Woman-Hating Reality of Pornography and Why You Should Want No Part of It"
First in a series of talks given by Sunsara Taylor, followed by Q&A, discussion, debate, and mobilization. Sunsara is currently working with others to launch this new effort to: “End Pornography and Patriarchy; the Enslavement and Degradation of Women." Sunsara Taylor writes for Revolution Newspaper, sits on the Advisory Board of The World Can’t Wait, and is a co-host on “Equal Time for Freethought” on WBAI in NYC.
Admission: Donation requested at the door

Anthropology Today for the World Tomorrow
Anthropology Program
Colloquia Panel:
Yuksel Sezgin, Assistant Professor, Political Science, John Jay College
Shuki Cohen, Assistant Professor, Psychology, John Jay College
Marnia Lazreg, Professor, Sociology, Graduate Center & Hunter College
Moderator: Avram Bornstein, Graduate Center & John Jay College
Friday, October 28
4:15-6:15, Reception to follow in the
Brockway Room, GC 6402.

A panel presentation that will discuss several issues facing women in Central Asia. The panel participants are:

Nadira Artyk (Independent journalist, founder of Bilqa)
"Bilqa: Empowering, inspiring, and educating Central Asian girls"

Zhanara Nauruzbayeva (Harriman Institute, Columbia Univ.) "From Soviet to Post-Soviet Womanhood: Stories of Three Generations from Kazakshtan"

Emily O'Dell (Dept. of Anthropology, Columbia Univ.) "Women and Sufi Shrine Visitation in Turkmenistan"

This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

Please join us for a talk by Ms. Debbie Stothard, Coordinator of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma and Deputy Secretary-General, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) with a special guest speaker from Kachin State, the location of Burma’s newest war.

Together with international, regional and national human rights groups, FIDH has been campaigning for the creation of a UN Commission of Inquiry into international crimes in Burma as a tool to guarantee accountability for these crimes, identify the necessary institutional reforms to ensure their non-recurrence, and provide redress to hundreds of thousands of victims of these crimes over the past decades. Prof. Yasmine Ergas will moderate.

Refreshments will be served.

Congressman Felipe Michelini will discuss the current status of UNASUR and MERCOSUR in terms of Inter-American relations and particularly those of the Southern Cone countries, especially Uruguay. Major political and economic issues among the countries will be discussed from a political and parliamentarian perspective. In addition, progress concerning human rights will be discussed including the contributions and challenges of MERCOSUR and UNASUR. Michelini was in the 1990 Human Rights Advocates Program at ISHR. Meg Crahan, Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion and Senior Research Scholar at ILAS, Columbia University, will be the discussant.

Fambul Tok, a film about the power of forgiveness
Produced and directed by Sara Terry
Produced by Rory Kennedy
Produced by Libby Hoffman
Purchase tickets to the screenings here: http://www.docnyc.net/film/fambul-tok/

Synopsis: Victims and perpetrators of Sierra Leone's brutal civil war come together for the first time in an unprecedented program of tradition-based truth-telling and forgiveness ceremonies. Through reviving their ancient practice of fambul tok (family talk), Sierra Leoneans are building sustainable peace at the grass-roots level -- succeeding where the international community's post-conflict efforts failed. Filled with lessons for the West, this film explores the depths of a culture that believes that true justice lies in redemption and healing for individuals -- and that forgiveness is the surest path to restoring dignity and building strong communities. Watch the trailer here: http://www.fambultok.com/

Join Professor Hamid Dabashi and other leading scholars and activists for the world premiere screening of Education Under Fire, a documentary sponsored by Amnesty International on education rights in Iran. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion including Prof. Hamid Dabashi, the documentary producer and director, and others. Refreshments will be served.

Human Rights in Mexico: Accountability for the past and implications for the present

Human rights advocate Florencia Ruiz, a human rights activist from Mexico and a former HRAP advocate, will discuss the relationship between past and current human rights abuses committed by the state and the potential impacts and challenges of a truth commission.

The Murik Lakes of Papua New Guinea live in an intertidal zone between a large system of mangrove lagoons and the Pacific Ocean. In the past 5-10 years, they have been living at the frontlines of rising sea-levels for which efforts have been made to resettle them on higher ground. This is a case study of the insoluble problems of justice and compensation raised for states, both postcolonial and old ones, by property loss and internal resettlement caused by climate change and rising sea-levels.

Professor David Lipset
Department of Anthropology
University of Minnesota

After a long career covering wars, director Kevin McKiernan (Good Kurds, Bad Kurds) turns the camera on his grown daughter Cáitrín as she attempts to produce a play about Martin Luther King, Jr. in China. Her quest to build a bridge between countries threatens to fall apart over political and cultural clashes. Collaborating with acclaimed cinematographer Haskell Wexler (Medium Cool), McKiernan brings a personal touch to global issues.

Expected to attend: Director Kevin McKiernan AND Cáitrín McKiernan!

After a long career covering wars, director Kevin McKiernan (Good Kurds, Bad Kurds) turns the camera on his grown daughter Cáitrín as she attempts to produce a play about Martin Luther King, Jr. in China. Her quest to build a bridge between countries threatens to fall apart over political and cultural clashes. Collaborating with acclaimed cinematographer Haskell Wexler (Medium Cool), McKiernan brings a personal touch to global issues.

For more information about the film, the festival, and ticketing, visit the DOC NYC webpage:
http://www.docnyc.net/film/bringing-king-to-china/

The Oral History Master of Arts program, Columbia Center for Oral History, and the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy will host Taylor Krauss, founder of Voices of Rwanda, as part of the Oral History Seminar Series. Krauss will discuss his work recording and preserving testimonies of Rwandans, ensuring that their stories inform the world about genocide and inspire a global sense of responsibility to prevent human rights atrocities. He will also share the unplanned impact at the local level of creating a space for documenting memories in Rwanda and what opening that space for memory does within the survivor community.

There will also be a presentation from faculty and alumni about OHMA, a multi-disciplinary program that utilizes theoretical approaches across the social sciences and humanities.

The Africana Studies Program is proud to welcome Edwidge Danticat ’90 as the first speaker in its Distinguished Alumna series. Barnard alumna and award-winning novelist, Edwidge Danticat was born in Haiti and moved to the United States at the age of twelve. She is the author of several acclaimed works, including the novel Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994), the short story collection Krik? Krak! (1995), and the memoir, Brother, I'm Dying (2007). In her most recent book, she reflects on art and exile, examining what it means to be an immigrant artist from a country in crisis.

Following the author’s presentation, her Barnard mentor, Professor Quandra Prettyman, will join her on stage for a continued dialogue and a question and answer session. A book signing will follow.

The Columbia Center for Oral History will host Taylor Krauss, founder of Voices of Rwanda, as part of the Oral History Seminar Series. Krauss will discuss his work recording and preserving the testimonies of Rwandans, ensuring that their stories inform the world about genocide and inspire a global sense of responsibility to prevent human rights atrocities. He will also share the unplanned impact at the local level of creating a space for documenting memories in Rwanda and what opening that space for memory does within the survivor community.

Keynote speaker: Ma Jun – China's pre-eminent environmental advocate:
“Environmental Challenges and China's Green Choice”

Introduced by Mary Robinson – President of Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and President of Ireland

Also speaking: Mayling Chan – Hong Kong-based Researcher, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre:
“Business & human rights: Challenges and opportunities in China, Taiwan & Singapore”

The talks will be followed by:

Brief observations by Andrew J. Nathan, Professor at Columbia University
Q&A with the audience

Note: Admission is free, but reservations are required to attend, so please RSVP by October 25 to Annabel Short to ensure you have a space: short@business-humanrights.org or +1 212 564 9160.

A conversation with Tim Shriver, Chairman of the Special Olympics, which serves 2.8 million Special Olympics athletes and their families in more than 180 countries. Moderated by Newsweek writer Lisa Miller.

Shop Talk and God Talk is a conversation series with professionals working on how the study of religion shapes their work and their global perspectives.

I'd like to remind you of the next meeting of this Seminar series. Professor Ruti Teitel, the Ernst C. Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law at New York Law School and Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics, will lead a discussion entitled "Peacemaking, Punishment and the Justice of War".

For more detailed directions to the Faculty House, please visit: http://facultyhouse.columbia.edu/content/contact-us-new-york-event-and-r=ception-venue#Directions.

For updates regarding future meetings, please refer to our webpage: http=//www.columbia.edu/cu/seminars/seminars/politics/seminar-folder/Redress.html.

When: Monday, October 24, 2011 from 7pm - 9pm

Join us for an evening of short films from the sex worker community exploring the impact of police brutality, repression, and criminalization on communities of sex workers. This evening, take a stand in solidarity with the national day of action against police brutality and violence organized by the October 22 Coalition.

Films include “Prostitution Free Zone” and a scene from the forthcoming film “No Human Involved.”

This event is hosted by SWOP-NYC and SWANK.
http://www.swop-nyc.org

Sex Workers Outreach Project New York City (SWOP-NYC) and Sex Workers Action New yorK (SWANK) are both volunteer-based, grassroots organizations and part of a national network dedicated to improving the lives of current and former sex workers/those with experience in the sex trade in the New York metro area, on and off of the job.

Tam Ngo, Doctoral Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity
4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
International Affairs Building, Room 918
No registration required.
This talk from Tam Ngo, Doctoral Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute, looks at the roughly third of a million Vietnamese Hmong who identify as Protestant Christian and how they understand their own identity, subjecthood, and agency.
The tale of the emergence of Hmong Protestants is unusually bizarre, encompassing messianic lore and the accidental discovery of the Fareast Broadcasting Company’s proselytizing program in Hmong language in 1980. Dr. Ngo's talk will encompass the Hmong, the Vietnamese government, and international agencies who work with them.
Discussant: Weatherhead Research scholar Jayne Werner.

By 2025, China is expected to have 15 super-cities with an average population of 25 million. Europe will have none.

This conference aims to bring together scholars and practitioners from a variety of fields to develop a fuller, interdisciplinary view of the migration flows and rapidly transforming spaces that are revolutionizing China.

Chaired by Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology and Co-chair, Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University.

Panels will include:
"Migrations: Post-Economic Crisis Patterns and Potentials" 10-11:30 a.m
"Super Cities - Green and Smart?" 11:30-1 p.m.
"The Super City and The Right to a Slum" 2 -3:30 p.m.
"Architecture + Environment" 3:30-5 p.m.

For more information and a complete list of panelists, please continue to check: cgt.columbia.edu
Questions? Contact: cgtmail@gmail.com

Join NYU's Against Child Trafficking (ACT) club and Somaly Mam Foundation's Project Futures for a speaking engagement with Somaly Mam!

Somaly Mam, is a survivor of sex slavery and has touched the lives of nearly 7,000 women and children to date. She is recognized as an international heroine for her work. Her foundation, the Somaly Mam Foundation (SMF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the eradication of slavery worldwide, with a special focus on Southeast Asia, where trafficking of women and girls (some as young as five) is widespread. SMF supports victim rescue and rehabilitation programs, survivor empowerment programs, and awareness campaigns to involve governments and individuals in the fight against modern-day slavery.

Somaly is also a best-selling author for her memoir "The Road of Lost Innocence," and was named Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2009, as well as being featured as a CNN Hero.

Guest tickets are available with Ticket Central online for $10 in advance, and $12 on the day of the event.

You are cordially invited to attend a Sheldon Scheps workshop discussion with:

Hannah Appel
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Committee on Global Thought

Offshore Work: Oil and the Making of Modularity in Equatorial Guinea
(Precirculated paper. Please contact Marilyn Astwood at mp20@columbia.edu for a copy)

A light lunch will be served prior to the talk from 12:00-12:30 in the Robert F. Murphy/Morton H. Fried Lounge, room 465 Schermerhorn Extension

Scheps is a graduate student-organized space for presenting graduate student work and other things of interest. If you’re interested in being involved in curating Scheps, please email abm37@columbia.edu.

United Nations Department of Public Information and the International Bar Association invite you to: Justice and Accountability after the Holocaust

The roundtable discussion with prominent historians and legal professionals will focus on the role of the judiciary in Germany under Nazi rule, and the establishment of the international justice system in the aftermath of WWII and the Nuremberg Trials. The panelists will address the legal implications of the judiciary’s complicity in upholding discriminatory Nazi laws which culminated in the Holocaust. The discussion will then shift to the role of States and courts today in protecting vulnerable populations, holding war criminals accountable and preserving democratic values.

Speakers:

Cecile Aptel, Co-Chair of the International Bar Association’s War Crimes Committee, Professor at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

Patricia Heberer, an historian with the Centre for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Irwin Cotler, Member of Parliament and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada

Karen Odaba Mosoti, International Lawyer, Head of Liaison Office of the International Criminal Court to the United Nations

Moderator:

Ramu Damodaran, Deputy Director for Partnerships and Public Engagement, Outreach Division, United Nations Department of Public Information

Film by Lisa F. Jackson. 2007, 76 min.

"Since 1998 a brutal war has been raging in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Over 4 million people have died, and many tens of thousands of women and girls have been systematically kidnapped, raped, mutilated and tortured by soldiers from both foreign militias and the Congolese army. Until now, the world has known nothing of their stories. A survivor of gang rape herself, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Lisa F. Jackson has created an extraordinary film in which these brave women finally speak"

PIZZA will be served!

Commentator: 2011 HRAP Advocate John Mwebe
Film by Landon Van Soest. 2009, 73 min.

UN Habitat promises better housing to residents of the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya. Meanwhile in the Kenyan countryside, Dominion Farms, a private U.S. company, hopes to elevate the local standard of living by converting pastures and farmland into rice fields, but they must flood land used by over 500 families. By taking their camera directly to the communities affected by these two ambitious development projects, the filmmakers discover what these do-gooder institutions can't seem to, why their presence is unwelcome by the very people they are trying to help.

Discussion with 2011 HRAP Advocate John Mwebe to follow the film.

Refreshments will be served!

Shot like a political thriller, this story of manipulation, corporate greed and political corruption takes place in southeastern DRC, one of the world’s richest regions in mining resources. While the inhabitants of Katanga live in extreme poverty, the fight for control by multinationals is rivaled by newly-arrived and wealthy China. Belgian filmmaker Thierry Michel tells a tale of globalization and international corporate interest conducted without regard for the rights and benefit of the indigenous people, the true owners of the area’s resources.

This documentary tells the story of the story of the struggle for democracy in Egypt that led to the historic uprising in January-February 2011. Filmed on the ground in Egypt over the preceding fourteen months, this story is told through the eyes of Egypt’s youth activists, labor movements and political opposition figures. It is an account of their struggle against extraordinary odds to remove an uncompromising US-backed authoritarian regime determined to stay in power. Going beyond the recent headlines, director Lillie Paquette offers the background story of years of mounting political resentment against the ruling regime.

Free; ID required

Film screening to be followed by discussion of the film and the current situation in North Africa.

Panelists include:
Anthony Alessandrini (Kingsborough Community College-City University New York)
Bassam Haddad (George Mason University)
Mostafa Hefny (Columbia University)
Lillie Paquette (Director, “We are Egypt”)

Moderated by Dr. Etienne Smith (Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University)

Is the chocolate we eat produced by child slaves? Award-winning Danish journalist Miki Mistrati investigates. Presented by the NYU Law School Anti-Trafficking Advocacy Coalition. Light refreshments to be served. Free.

Followed by a discussion with filmmaker Paola Mendoza.

The people of La Toma, Colombia face displacement, death threats and the extinction to their way of life because of the rich gold deposits they live on. A young woman is determined to save her community, her future and the future of her children. She takes on her own government, the military militia that is threatening to kill her and one of the worlds largest corporations demanding that her human rights be respected.
Talk will be conducted in Spanish and Spanish-English consecutive interpretation will be provided.
Soft drinks will be served.

In this groundbreaking play, Director Valantina Abu Oqsa, highlights the strength and defiance of Palestinian political prisoners, particularly women, that are incarcerated in Israeli occupation prisons.

Tickets: http://anahurra.uspcn.org/newyork/
$20 Advance. $25 Door, $15 Students (must show valid student ID at door)

27 million adults and 13 million children around the world are victims of human trafficking. Of these victims, between 75-80% are used for sexual exploitation, and nearly 50% are children. Often, when people in America hear about human trafficking, they are unaware that the issue exists in their own country, believing that incidents like this only happen elsewhere. In the United States alone, 150,000 - 300,000 people are trafficked annually in the United States.

A large portion of the proceeds raised from the ARISE: Fight for Freedom program will go to the Human Trafficking Awareness Council. The HTA Council works to bring awareness to the crime of human trafficking by investigating and collaborating with government agencies and non-governmental organizations to establish acceptable preventive measures, identify victims, expose traffickers and users, and promote slave-free practices. Partly accomplished through the C.A.R.E. Initiative, they also provide funding for programs that support the survivors of human trafficking through medical assistance, vocational training, and economical development so that survivors are better prepared to re-enter society.

The rest of the proceeds will go to Kappa Phi Lambda's national philanthropy, the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (NAPAWF). NAPAWF raises awareness on human trafficking issues and is the only multi-issue Asian Pacific American women's organization in the country with the mission to build a movement to advance social justice and human rights for APA women and girls.
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Labor Trafficking Panel with ACT and NY Anti-Trafficking Network

Join us for a deep, informative look into labor trafficking – the slavery that makes the goods you use. Featured speakers include Linda Oalican, a former labor trafficking victim and now the founder of Damayan Migrant Workers Association; Ivy Suriyopas, an attorney at the Anti-Trafficking Initiative at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund; Tauno Bilstead from Safe Horizon; and Lydia Catina, a trafficking victims’ aid worker. There will also be interactive stations where you find out your slavery footprint and sign petitions. Free.

Artists can beautifully express what victims cannot or do not have the chance to convey. We are privileged to feature both world-renowned photographer/artist Kay Chernush, whose images of human trafficking have been shown worldwide, and poet Sweta Vikram, reading from her powerful new book, in this working-artsts’ loft/studio. Musician Courtney Wong will also perform. $10 at the door.

If you think you know what there is to know about prostitution - that it's a victimless crime, a transaction between consenting adults, a legitimate business that just needs regulation - then you should check out this panel.

Prostitution today isn't a clear-cut industry, not when sex trafficking now feeds it, not when its profits now rival those of drug trafficking. Come ask the questions you've always wanted to ask or listen to experts in their fields reveal what's really going. No question will be off limits. And no women will be allowed, either on the panel or in the audience.

This discussion will be moderated by spoken-word artist Jonathan Walton of NYCUP, and will include speakers Lamont Hiebert of Love146, Brad Riley of iEmpathize, and the Honorable John Zoll, an acting judge on the Civil Court in Queens, who will answer questions and explore all angles of the new sex trade. A conversation not to be missed! Limited seating. Free.

The first of its kind for human trafficking, this 45-minute interactive theater piece will approximate the experience of being trafficked. Like a Halloween house of horrors, the audience will be immersed in the production and pass through the five stages of trafficking in order to foster understanding, empathy and compassion for what human trafficking victims suffer. A debriefing at the end of the piece will explain and place the audience's experience into context, followed by a Q&A session.

* Doors will close promptly at 6:50 pm to allow the show to begin on time. $10 in advance ($20 at the door).

6:30-8:30 pm (reception to follow)

Human trafficking isn't the same as illegal smuggling. Come learn how at this event hosted by the NYU Law School's Anti-Trafficking Advocacy Coalition. Along with the fundamental differences between these two crimes, experts in immigration will explain how traffickers get around the laws we have, and what we can do about it. Speakers include: Lori Cohen, senior staff attorney at Sanctuary for Families; Ivy Suriyopas, staff attorney at Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund; Suzanne Seltzer, partner at Klasko, Rulon, Stack & Seltzer; Sienna Baskin, co-director of Sex Workers Project at Urban Justice Center. Free.

Immigration law’s focus is nation-state sovereignty and the ability of the state to exclude or deport aliens, who are understood to move spatially to the nation state, seeking entry or admittance. But this vision of immigration law fails to recognize settler colonialism, and, in particular, its grounding on preexisting indigenous populations’ territory. This talk seeks to examine the reasons for this omission, as well as its consequences. Immigration scholarship tends to presume not only that borders are spatially fixed, but that they are fixed over time, so that states have always existed within their current territorial borders. The focus of inquiry then becomes the lawfulness of the already existing state’s deployment of sovereignty to keep out or expel noncitizens. Forgotten is how states came to be. This talk will examine the political theory underpinning immigration law, political theory that imagines a social contract quite different from what has been termed a “settler contract.” The consequences of this settler contract for indigenous populations, including their transformation into aliens, will be discussed.

Leti Volpp is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. A well-known scholar in law and the humanities, she writes about citizenship, migration, culture and identity.

Free and open to the public.

A Reading and Talk with Peter Balakian, the author of many books including the memoir, Black Dog of Fate, winner of PEN/Albrand prize for Memoir, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response, winner of the Raphael Lemkin prize and a New York Times bestseller, and co-translator of Girgoris Balakian's Armenian Golgotha: a Memoir of the Armenian Genocide 1915-1918. His book of poems includes Ziggurat and June-tree, New and Selected poems, 1974-2000. He is Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities, Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Colgate University.

Lydia Cacho Ribeiro, one of Mexico’s most well-known investigative journalists, authored The Demons of Eden (2005), which implicated influential businessmen and politicians in a child pornography network, and founded the Women’s Assistance Center in Cancún, which helps victims of domestic and sexual violence and trafficking. Triveni Acharya is president of the Rescue Foundation, an organization that focuses on the rescue, rehabilitation and repatriation of women and children who have been victims of kidnapping, sex trafficking, forced labor or forced marriage. Prof. Yasmine Ergas will moderate.

A light lunch will be provided.

This documentary breaks the silence on the agreements between Italy and Libya about the control of immigration from Africa. A journey of pain and dignity told through the voice of filmmaker Dagmawi Yimer, himself an Ethiopian immigrant, this film captures and denounces the violence suffered by migrants arrested and sent back to Libya.

The last presidential election in DRC, a massive UN-funded exercise in a post-conflict fragmented country with a strong legacy of both authoritarian rule and armed dissent, ended with heavy weapon fire in the capital city Kinshasa. This year's election, the second free election since independence, is a major test for nothing less than the viability of Congo as a state. Key questions include: Is Joseph Kabila a real strongman or merely surviving because of the support of the international community? Has lifelong opponent to dictator Mobutu Etienne Tshisekedi's time come? How do elections work in such a fragmented and fragile country? Is the election likely to ignite conflict or further legitimize peace in Eastern Congo? Are UN-sponsored elections in DRC a model or a costly fiction? How can democratic institutions emerge out of decades of authoritarian rule? How can regionalized vote be avoided?

With the following panelists:
Severine Autesserre (Political Science, Barnard College)
Peter Rosenblum (Human Rights Law, Columbia University)
Tatiana Carayannis (Social Science Research Council)
Mehdi Belaid (Political Science, Universite Paris 1)

Moderated by Jack Snyder (Political Science, Columbia University)

Dr. Richard A. Kaul and Dr. Roger Luhiriri
cordially invites you to the 1st Fundraiser
for The Spine Africa Project!

Dr. Roger Luhiriri, former 2008 Human Rights Advocates Program alum at Columbia University, serves as a specialist physician in traumatic fistula at Panzi Hospital, the only center for victims of sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He also helps to guide the hospital’s other services for survivors of sexual violence, including psychological support, vocational training, and childcare.

Enjoy, Hors d'oeuvres, cocktails and a Classical Quartet

$500 minimum donation per attendee

Unable to attend IRB 101? Have questions about human subject research and IRB approval?

Come to this open session for general questions as well as one-on-one consultation about your research.

Networking your way in the human rights field: How to find the best opportunities.
Guest Speaker: Adam Dubin, Pace Law School
Q&A to follow
Refreshments will be provided.

For more information visit the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS):
http://clacs.as.nyu.edu/object/clacs.event.special.101911

Encounters in the Aftermath: Works by Lorie Novak
exhibition on view in the Neiman Gallery October 10-21
http://arts.columbia.edu/encounters-aftermath-works-lorie-novak
The publication of The Art of Clive Van Den Berg: Unlearning the Grounds of Art with text by Rosalind C. Morris, published by Goodman Gallery
(Johannesburg)

Helen Pond Mcintyre '48 lecture

This year’s McIntyre lecturer, Wendy S. Hesford, integrates critical legal studies and feminist rhetorical criticism to examine the figure of the child as a limit condition to the liberal subject of human rights law. Through her analysis of contemporary representations of children living in varied states of political exception and social exclusion—stateless children, children born to illegal immigrants, children born of wartime rape—she demonstrates how these limit conditions challenge the norms and power relations that produce, and ultimately, govern children as subjects of human rights. Reassessing humanities-based approaches to human rights, she calls for the development of a critical ethos based on an awareness of the historical contingencies and rhetorical exigencies of ethical responsibility.

Wendy S. Hesford is Professor of English at Ohio State University and affiliate faculty of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is the author of Framing Identities: Autobiography and the Politics of Pedagogy and Spectacular Rhetorics: Human Rights Visions, Recognitions, Feminisms; co-editor with Wendy Kozol of two collections, Haunting Violations: Feminist Criticism and the Crisis of the “Real” and Just Advocacy? Women’s Human Rights, Transnational Feminisms, and the Politics of Representation. She has published in a range of journals, including PMLA, Biography, College English, Humanity, Journal of Human Rights, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, and TDR: Journal of Performance Studies.

Please register with Gerald Govia at gg2431@columbia.edu. If you have questions, call Gerald at 212-851-7040.

Are you planning on doing Human Subjects Research? Are you conducting interviews, focus groups, or conducting surveys? Will you be conducting a study in a lab that involves interacting with subjects? Will you be conducting surveys on SurveyMonkey or Mechanical Turk? Will you be obtaining data sets with individually identifiable data?

If you answer yes to any of these questions, or need to know more about submitting a protocol to the CU Institutional Review Board (IRB) for approval before conducting human subjects research, we invite you to attend one of these IRB sessions.

Columbia University has implemented a comprehensive Human Research Protection Program (HRPP). The program is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that all human research studies conducted by Columbia faculty, students, and staff are conducted ethically and in a manner that promotes the protection of participants in research.

Please register with Gerald Govia at gg2431@columbia.edu. If you have questions, call Gerald at 212-851-7040.

Are you planning on doing Human Subjects Research? Are you conducting interviews, focus groups, or conducting surveys? Will you be conducting a study in a lab that involves interacting with subjects? Will you be conducting surveys on SurveyMonkey or Mechanical Turk? Will you be obtaining data sets with individually identifiable data?

If you answer yes to any of these questions, or need to know more about submitting a protocol to the CU Institutional Review Board (IRB) for approval before conducting human subjects research, we invite you to attend one of these IRB sessions.

Columbia University has implemented a comprehensive Human Research Protection Program (HRPP). The program is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that all human research studies conducted by Columbia faculty, students, and staff are conducted ethically and in a manner that promotes the protection of participants in research.

Yu Keping, Professor and Director, China Center for Comparative Politics and Economics (CCCPE); Professor and Director, Center for Chinese Government Innovations, Peking University

How does America's strategic alliance with Israel affect the prospects of peace in the Middle East, and why has the US been so involved in the region in the first place? Scholar and activist Noam Chomsky considers this question and ruminates on the causes and consequences of American foreign policy in Israel-Palestine. Don't miss this rare opportunity to discuss some of the most challenging questions in contemporary global politics, including the factors that determine US policy; the two-state solution and other options; Palestinian rights; Arab democracy; and what we can do to influence policy decisions. Co-sponsored by the Center for Palestine Studies, Columbia University. Moderated by Frederick Neuhouser, Professor of Philosophy, Barnard College.

6:00 pm/ Doors Open at 5:00 pm

These two documentaries offer a powerful critique of the political and economic stagnation besetting many African states as well as a recognition of the grassroots forces in civil society that are promoting democratic development in Africa. In "Chef!," director Jean-Marie Teno visits his ancestral village in western Cameroon and ends up exploring the problems of one-man rule at both the village and national levels. "La tete dans les Nuages," investigates the ties between an unaccountable government and an unproductive economy through profiles of Cameroonians struggling to make ends meet.

Free; ID required

Ruling Cameroon since 1982, president Paul Biya is running for yet another term. This year's election will be a test case of challenging hegemony and authoritarian rule for the divided opposition and civil society. Key questions include: Will the Biya regime manage to thwart alternance? Are elections in Cameroon a farce, an empty ritual of democracy? Is the 1990s democratizing momentum of the youth lost? Is the Arab Spring having an impact in Cameroon? Can we imagine a post-Biya Cameroon and what would that look like?

With the following panelists: Patrice Nganang (Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, Stony Brook University); Dickson Eyoh (Political Science and African Studies, University of Toronto); Dominique Malaquais (Political Science, CEMAf- Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne); Fanny Pigeaud (Agence France Presse)

Moderated by Etienne Smith (Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University)

Research and writing on globalization persist in presenting most cities in Africa as marginal, static spaces. Despite key findings to the contrary, African city-dwellers are all too commonly depicted as passive onlookers whose lives are shaped by economic and political developments over which they have little purchase. Focusing her gaze on cities of Central Africa, Malaquais proposes a very different view. Granted, all is far from well, she argues, but a fundamental fact remains: cities the likes of Douala and Kinshasa, on which much of her research is centered, are hubs of globalization, whose overwhelmingly young populations are often more keenly aware of and curious about political, cultural and economic states of affair worldwide than their counterparts in the North. At the heart of this awareness are a capacity to imagine otherwheres and, intimately linked to this, an overwheling interest in movement that results in near-daily, radical (re)shapings of urban spaces and cultures in Africa and beyond.

This is a co-sponsored event with the Alliance Program and the Museum for African Art.

Free and open to the public; ID required

This session is for HRSMA students planning to write their theses in Spring 2012. Come to receive the thesis guidelines, review the thesis process, and ask any questions you have about the thesis. Proposals for writing your thesis in Spring 2012 are due November 17th. If you cannot come to the information session and plan to write your thesis in the spring, please contact the HRSMA program at humanrightsma@columbia.edu

If you are thinking of pursuing a Ph.D. after completing your master’s degree and are looking for insider tips on the application process and funding, this information session is for you! Dean Darice Birge will offer tidbits of wisdom on producing successful applications. Students are encouraged to come with questions. This session is open to all M.A. students considering Ph.D. programs at Columbia and other universities.

Speaker: Dorota Gierycz

Part of the 2010-11 University Seminar on Human Rights: Human Rights in Conflict: Exploring the Issues, Assessing the Challenges

Optional Dinner: Before the meeting, participants are cordially invited to join the speaker for an optional buffet dinner at 6:30pm (partially subsidized for a cost of $24) on the second floor of the Faculty House.

Please RSVP by contacting Sarika Bansal at cuhrseminar@gmail.com and make sure you include your full name and affiliation. Please specify whether you plan to attend the dinner before the seminar.

Speaker: Lorrin Thomas

Part of the 2010-11 University Seminar on Human Rights: Human Rights in Conflict: Exploring the Issues, Assessing the Challenges

Optional Dinner: Before the meeting, participants are cordially invited to join the speaker for an optional buffet dinner at 6:30pm (partially subsidized for a cost of $24) on the second floor of the Faculty House.

Please RSVP by contacting Sarika Bansal at cuhrseminar@gmail.com and make sure you include your full name and affiliation. Please specify whether you plan to attend the dinner before the seminar.

Part of the 2010-11 University Seminar on Human Rights: Human Rights in Conflict: Exploring the Issues, Assessing the Challenges

Optional Dinner: Before the meeting, participants are cordially invited to join the speaker for an optional buffet dinner at 6:30pm (partially subsidized for a cost of $24) on the second floor of the Faculty House.

Please RSVP by contacting Sarika Bansal at cuhrseminar@gmail.com and make sure you include your full name and affiliation. Please specify whether you plan to attend the dinner before the seminar.

Speaker: Michele Grigolo
Title: Part of the 2010-11 University Seminar on Human Rights: Human Rights in Conflict: Exploring the Issues, Assessing the Challenges

Optional Dinner: Before the meeting, participants are cordially invited to join the speaker for an optional buffet dinner at 6:30pm (partially subsidized for a cost of $24) on the second floor of the Faculty House.

Please RSVP by contacting Sarika Bansal at cuhrseminar@gmail.com and make sure you include your full name and affiliation. Please specify whether you plan to attend the dinner before the seminar.

A Teach-in exploring microaggressions, heterosexism, and homophobia in higher educational settings and possible impacts on learning and social membership experiences of diverse LGBTQA communities. Join us for panel discussions, interactive workshops, and lots of stimulating dialogue. There will be a keynote presentation
from Dr. Kevin Nadal, a leading expert on microaggressions and assistant professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice Workshops include: The Law of the Land, Lunch Discussion, You Play
Like a Girl, Which Box Should I Check, and Bystander Intervention.

Butters Papi and the Queer Commons present:
Spotlight: Empowerment Through Art! QPOC Artist Showcase & Roundtable

How do we gain empowerment through art? How can the arts be a form of activism? In the space of performance, we have a chance to share our whole selves. Art allows us a voice, a platform to speak our truths. Strength is built on this. Communities are built on this. Join Butters Papi and the Queer Commons for a queer artists of color
showcase, followed by a discussion on the role of the arts in activism & community-building for queer people of color & queers in general. Artist bios coming soon! For details and updates, RSVP on Facebook here.
$5 suggested, no one turned away for lack of funds!
BUTTERS PAPI is a queer people of color (QPOC) production company that supports, promotes and increases the visibility of queer artists of color, including through MADHATTERS CABARET (MC), a QPOC cabaret. MC was created by founders Cristina Izaguirre and
Zakiyyah Shabazz, affectionately called Papi and Butters. MC prides itself in bringing audiences performance art that subverts, enlightens and questions notions of gender, sexuality and race. For more
information about MC, visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/Madhatters-Cabaret/294095204782?sk=info.

A panel of students, faculty, and staff will discuss the ways the university has both accommodated and excluded people with disabilities. What are some of the surprising and innovative ways that Columbia has sought to include people with disabilities in its community? Conversely, how has it managed to maintain ADA compliance, while creating an unwelcoming environment for people with disabilities? Our campus will serve as a starting place for a broader discussion about disability, access, and higher education.
Scheduled speakers include Christopher Baswell (Professor of English, Columbia and Barnard), Robin Kemper (Columbia graduate student, Narrative Medicine), Colleen Lewis (Office of Disability Services), Ansel Lurio (Columbia College graduate), and Suzanne Walker (Barnard Class of 2012). Sponsored by the Center for the Critical Analysis of Social Difference,
the University Seminar on Disability Studies, and the Center for American Studies.

ACCOMMODATIONS: Columbia University makes every effort to accommodate individuals with disabilities. If you require disability accommodations to attend an event at Columbia University, please contact Disability Services at 212-854-2388 at least 5 days in advance of the event. A sign language interpreter will be provided at this event,
and a closed-captioned videorecording will be posted at:
http://www.socialdifference.org/projects/future-disability-studies. Campus access maps are available online at:
http://www.columbia.edu/about_columbia/map/AccessibilityMap.pdf. If you have questions about campus accessibility, please contact Disability Services.

Arab-American Family Support Center presents: Cultural Competency
When Working with Immigrant Communities Jewish Board of Family and Children Services presents:Domestic
Violence through a Trauma Focused Lens

Violence Intervention Program, Inc. presents: Adelante Mujer: Domestic Violence from a Cultural Perspective
Center Against Domestic Violence presents: Teenage Violence: RAPP

Barrier Free Living presents: Domestic Violence and Disabilities Sanctuary for Families presents: The Best of Both Worlds: A Legal and Clinical Collaboration in Addressing Domestic Violence

RSVP BY SEPTEMBER 30, 2011
For all Reservations email info@themariaproject.com or call 212-726-2470
For General & Press Inquiries call 347-595-2083 or visit us at www.themariaproject.com

Sandra Krause, Reproductive Health Program Director, Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children

Part of the Conflict, Security, and Development Series co-presented by the . For more information click here

We are a new Student group for the undergraduate students. If you are interested in Human Rights and want to get involved come and meet us and learn about our future events and plans. We seek to broaden the base of knowledge and support on campus for rights and we are supported by the Institute for the Study of Human Rights. This year we will be bringing engaging speakers to campus as well as holding events which allow students to dialogue with others who are interested in the field, like Human Rights brunches.

The Columbia Global Scholars Program (GSP) is accepting applications from highly motivated students from all disciplines to investigate global issues through a French and European lens. On this pilot program based at Columbia Global Centers/Europe at Reid Hall, students will work closely with Columbia and European faculty throughout the spring term developing their critical focus and exploring multi-disciplinary approaches to the creation of knowledge, culminating in a funded summer research project.

An information session will be held with Victoria de Grazia, Director of Columbia Global Centers: Europe. Please

In the meantime, if you have any questions about the GSP, please get in touch with me in the Office of Global Programs by phone (x47444) or e-mail: sc2764@columbia.edu.

The Earth Institute and the Undergraduate Program in Sustainable Development present Rebecca Schnall, Associate Director, Center for Career Education. Join us for an informal gathering to learn more about the ins and outs of landing an internship or job related to sustainable development and how to best connect to experts working in the field. This event is open to all undergraduates. Registration required.

For more information about the Undergraduate Program in Sustainable Development visit www.earth.columbia/articles/view/2719.

From acclaimed director Steve James (Hoop Dreams,The New Americans) and bestselling author Alex Kotlowitz, The Interrupters tells the moving stories of three Violence Interrupters from the non-violence group, CeaseFire, who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed.

No tickets required. First come, first served.

This event is part of the “Human Rights in the Post-Communist World: Strategies and Outcomes ” series (Harriman Core Project 2010-2011). This event is free and open to the public. No tickets, no reservations required. Seating is on a first come, first served basis.

Please join the Harriman Institute for a panel discussion with the following participants: Graeme Robertson (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill), Chris Walker (Freedom House), Hugh Williamson (Human Rights Watch), and Robert Templer (International Crisis Group). Moderator: Alex Cooley (Barnard College, Columbia University).

A brief reception will be held at 5:00pm, followed by the panel presentation.

Discussant: Karen Baird

About the speaker: Yasmine Ergas is the Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Human Rights and Adjunct Professor of International Law and International Human Rights Law at the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University. She is currently engaged in a study on The Transnationalization of Everyday Life, Human Rights and the Dilemmas of International Law, which examines such issues as the emergent market in reproductive surrogacy.

Optional Drinks/Dinner: Before the meeting, participants are cordially invited to join the speaker for drinks in the lobby of the Faculty House at 6:00pm and an optional buffet dinner at 6:30pm (partially subsidized for a cost of $24) on the second floor of the Faculty House.

Please RSVP by contacting Sarika Bansal at cuhrseminar@gmail.com and make sure you include your full name and affiliation. Please specify whether you plan to attend the dinner before the seminar.

In Sierra Leona "Prosecutors say Issa Sesay is a war criminal, guilty of heinous crimes against humanity. His defenders say he is a reluctant fighter who protected civilians and played a crucial role in bringing peace to Sierra Leone. With unprecedented access to prosecutors, defense attorneys, victims, and, from behind bars, Sesay himself, WAR DON DON puts international justice on trial for the world to see — finding that in some cases the past is not just painful, it is also opaque."

A free and public conversation with renowned choreographer Rachid Ouramdane at Columbia University to discuss his latest performance “Ordinary Witnesses.” Through the innovative use of multimedia and extensive interviews with victims of war and violence from Rwanda to Brazil, Rachid creates a poetic and visually astonishing performance that blurs the boundaries between documentary and dance.

Brown Bag Lecture by Ji Dianpeng, Director, Beijing Jingdian Law Firm; Adjunct Professor, Southwest University of Political Science and Law and Zhongnan University of Economics and Law

Lecture will be in Chinese with English translation.

Lecture/presentation by Lolita Bosch, Founder and Editor of Nuestra Aparente Rendición

Lecture/Presentation Nuestra Aparente Rendición is a web portal working towards the collective reconstruction of Mexico and supporting the active and systematic proposals of thousands of people who are working for peace in our country. It is a critical and rigorous space that takes in and generates multiple expressions against terror and impunity. Its principal objective is to struggle against resignation in the face of the situation and establish conversation around all those issues that bind us as a society. The plurality of voices gathered in the web portal emphasizes the need to listen to one another, to know what is happening beyond the pain and the exhaustion, to propose paths forward, to give voice to grievances, to rebel. We believe that we are capable of assuming responsibility, as a society, of what is happening to us; and that beyond the pain, we will be capable of understanding and confronting this reality. We also know that we all have something to contribute. And you do too: we need you.

Lecture will be in Spanish, translation will be provided. Free, photo ID required.

Lolita Bosch is a novelist, directs the Fu Literary Collective and is the Editor of Nuestra Aparente Rendición. NAR is the most important web portal and media resource for the movement against violence in Mexico.

As the LGBT rights movement has grown in Africa, many governments have strengthened laws criminalizing homosexuality. A number of African media, religious, and political figures have denounced homosexuality as a Western import. How do Western organizations working on LGBT issues in Africa fit into this context? What have they accomplished, and what kinds of obstacles do they encounter? How have they prevailed against hostility? What approaches hold the greatest potential for overcoming homophobia in Africa? This event brings together panelists from prominent international organizations working on LGBT rights to explore this pressing topic. Speakers to be announced.

This event is the first in the 2011–2012 Coming Out in the Developing World lecture and discussion series, coordinated by the Global Studies program. The series provides a forum for discussion of sociocultural issues related to identity, activism, and coming out in developing nations.

Presenter: David L. Phillips, Director, Program on Peace-Building and Rights at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights.
Remarks by: H.E. Zoran Jovelski, Ambassador of Macedonia to the United States.

The Ohrid Framework Agreement was finalized on August 13, 2001. It ended a conflict between Macedonians and ethnic Albanians by setting up a power-sharing agreement among communities in Macedonia that guaranteed greater Albanian participation in governance, including constitutional reforms. The Agreement also provided for greater Albanian economic and cultural rights. While the agreement succeeded in mitigating conflict in Macedonia, signatories expected that NATO and European Union membership would resolve the country's deeply rooted problems. However, their aspirations remain in limbo because of the ongoing name dispute with Greece and the continuing dominance of identity politics, which is divisive and contributes to fragmentation in society.

Graduate students who engaged in summer internships in the field of human rights or who conducted field research for their thesis will discuss how they identified and prepared for these opportunities, explain the nature of their work, and reflect upon challenges and lessons-learned.

The Weatherhead East Asian Institute (WEAI) and the Center for Korean Research (CKR) present a brown bag lecture entitled "Report on a Visit to North Korea" with Charles Armstrong, Director, Center for Korean Research, Columbia University; Abraham Kim, Vice President, Korea Economic Institute; and James Person, Program Associate, North Korea International Documentation Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Scholars at Risk is pleased to invite students, faculty and friends to "Courage to Think," their 10th anniversary celebration. It will feature a keynote dialogue with Aryeh Neier, President, Open Society Foundations, former President, Human Rights Watch, and recipient of the inaugural Scholars at Risk Courage to Think Leadership Award and Jonathan Fanton, FDR Fellow, Roosevelt House, Hunter College and former President, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the New School.

Please note that the keynote dialogue will occur at a separate location than the earlier afternoon dialogues.

Scholars at Risk is pleased to invite students, faculty and friends to "Courage to Think," their 10th anniversary celebration.

Afternoon sessions include:

2:00 PM: Gender and blasphemy in PAKISTAN
with Shemeem Burney Abbas, SUNY Purchase

3:00 PM: Education and the future of ZIMBABWE
with Clement Jumbe, Centennial College, Canada

4:00 PM: Democracy and protest in SYRIA
with Radwan Ziadeh, George Washington University

A screening of AKU SIAPA (eng: "Who Am I?"), a film that explores the various political and cultural implications of wearing the hijab in Malaysia.

WHY do Muslim women in Malaysia wear the hijab? What are their challenges? When, why and how did the wearing of hijab became popular in Malaysia?

Through a series of candid interviews with Muslim women, young and old, urban and rural, Norhayati Kaprawi a Muslim woman activist and filmmaker, uncovers why Muslim women wear the hijab - and why some take it off. AKU SIAPA also interviews religious scholars, academics and politicians from both Malaysia and Indonesia about the phenomenon of the hijab and its development within Islam and in Malaysia.

Please check out the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzy40eRpQ4s

This World Leaders Forum program features an address by Michel Martelly, President of the Republic of Haiti, followed by a question and answer session with the audience.

This conference will examine the major path-breaking transitions in North Africa and the Middle East, as a continuation of three panels presented in Spring 2011, when the uprisings first broke out. Focusing on unresolved issues, future challenges, and strategies for the region, this conference will present panels of interdisciplinary experts analyzing key issues in this rapidly changing arena, including: financing transition, unemployment, health and migrations.

Distinguished panelists from Columbia and Harvard universities will include: Joseph Stiglitz, Saskia Sassen, Katharina Pistor, Ishac Diwan, Sudhir Venkatesh, Mamadou Diouf, Richard Parker, Mahmood Mamdami, Alfred Stepan, Timothy Mitchell, and Bruce Kogut.

REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. Seating and admission will be based on availability and is not guaranteed by registration.
To register or for more information, visit: http://cgt.columbia.edu/events/Uprisings_and_transitions/

This World Leaders Forum program features an address by Alpha Condé, President of the Republic of Guinea, followed by a question and answer session with the audience.

Online registration is required. Please visit www.worldleaders.columbia.edu to register and for more information.

A screening of a film on the Cambodian killing fields. Pizza dinner will be served and after the movie (which runs for 90 minutes) there will be a brief discussion on Cambodia (past and present).

This film explores the stories of the perpetrators of the Cambodia killing field massacres. Unprecedented access from top to bottom of the Khmer Rouge has been achieved through a decade of work by one of Cambodia's top investigative journalists, Thet Sambath.

This is a great opportunity for those interested in human rights work on the field.

Afro-colombian lawyer, Adil Melendez, will discuss,
among other topics, the human rights situation and the
displacement of communities in the departments of
Bolivar and Sucre, his personal experiences of
harassment and threats and the effects of a potential
free trade agreement between Colombia and the United
States on the Afro-Colombian community.

Talk will be conducted in Spanish and Spanish to English consecutive interpretation will be provided. Drinks will be served.

10 a.m. Panel 1. Understanding norms change and diffusion.

 Chair and introduction: Jack Snyder, Columbia 
Panelists: Kathryn Sikkink, University of Minnesota, 
Emilie Hafner-Burton, University of California at San Diego
Amitav Acharya, American University, 
Charli Carpenter, University of Massachusetts-Amherst


Discussants: Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch
, Anthony Richter, Open Society Foundations
, Samuel Moyn, Columbia


;

2:00 p.m. Panel 2. Norms change initiatives by regional, local, and religious actors


Panelists: James Ron, University of Minnesota 
Alfred Stepan, Columbia
, Tsveta Petrova, Columbia Harriman Institute, 
Daniel Goldstein, Rutgers University 
Discussant: Leslie Vinjamuri, SOAS

Please contact Chris Chafin at chriscdtr@gmail.com to
read panelists' papers before the workshops.

Justice Abdulai Sheikh Fofanah, High Court of Justice, Sierra Leone, Government Action in Monitoring Compliance with International Human Right Norms: The Sierra Leone Experience.

Please RSVP to Aferdita Hakaj at afhakaj@jjay.cuny.edu

Elsa Stamatopoulou, Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, Columbia University; Former Chief of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues for the United Nations Department of Economic & Social Affairs.

Please RSVP to Aferdita Hakaj at afhakaj@jjay.cuny.edu

A reception welcoming Columbia faculty and students interested in learning about upcoming events and funding opportunities at the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life (IRCPL) and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR). Learn about applying for research grants, proposing faculty seminars, convening events, and meet the directors and staff of the IRCPL and CDTR.

Welcoming Remarks: Professor George Andreopoulos, Director, CIHR
Moderator: Anissa Helie (Algeria/US)

Panelists:
Sunila Abeysekera (Sri Lanka)
Ariane Brunet (Canada)
Gita Sahgal (India/UK
Meredith Tax (US)

Seating is limited. Please RSVP to Sarah Guillet: sarah.guillet@jjay.cuny.edu

Learn more about the rich interdisciplinary education, research, practice and student involvement opportunities in conflict resolution, non-violence, peace and sustainability across Columbia University.

"Alta Gracia worker Maritza Vargas and Elba Nurys used to work in sweatshops that sewed Nike gear for our schools. After more than a decade of fighting together with students, they're transforming the apparel industry. A victory for students and workers, Alta Gracia is the first factory making clothes for our schools that respects workers’ union and pays a living wage over 3 1/2 times the minimum wage. Join these inspiring women to hear more about the history and impact of Alta Gracia in the
Dominican Republic and how you can be a part of the solution."

The first event in the Columbia University Seminar series on History, Redress, and Reconciliation.

Dr. Jennifer Lind, Assistant Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, will be speaking on the topic of "Sorry States. Apologies in International Politics".

For updates regarding future meetings, please refer to our webpage: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/seminars/seminars/politics/seminar-folder/Redress.html.

Lecture by Christian Delage

Presented as part of a new series at the Maison Française, Cinema: History and Theory

The Nuremberg trials introduced procedural and evidentiary novelties that remain relevant today: the filming of the trials, the presentation of filmed images as evidence, the passage from the description of "atrocities," inherited from the First World War, to "genocide" - that is, from the judicial concept of war crimes to crimes against humanity. The statute of non-delimitation concerning the crime of genocide and crimes against humanity derives from Nuremberg's precedents and continues to influence international jurisprudence in notable ways.

Christian Delage is a Professor at the University of Paris 8 and Sciences Po Paris and Visiting Professor at the Cardozo Law School.

Event co-sponsored by the Alliance Program.

As faculty and students return to campus, ISHR welcomes the 2011 Advocates to the Human Rights Advocates Program, the Visiting Scholars, and all those engaged with its programs with a wine and hors d'oeuvre reception. Please join us!

Open to the public.

Please read about the incoming Human Rights Advocates at http://hrcolumbia.org/hrap/participants

A conference in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Barnard Center for Research on Women

Forty years ago, the Barnard Center for Research on Women began its mission of using research and knowledge to advance feminist scholarship and long-term partnerships with activist groups. Inspired by the new women’s movement, BCRW became part of an historic moment that witnessed the proliferation of feminist activism, the establishment of women’s studies programs and women’s centers, and the founding of women’s bookstores and other cultural projects. This fall, we bring together our past, present and future collaborators as well as kindred institutions, scholars and activists engaged in social justice feminism to consider what kinds of collaborative projects are possible when scholarship and activism are joined.

The anniversary conference will also include a special reception with a performance by Suzanne Vega ’81 and remarks from Janet Axelrod ’73, as well as keynote lectures by Sonia Alvarez and Mamphela Ramphele.

A CONFERENCE IN HONOR OF THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BARNARD CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON WOMEN

Forty years ago, the Barnard Center for Research on Women began its mission of using research and knowledge to advance feminist scholarship and long-term partnerships with activist groups. Inspired by the new women's movement, BCRW became part of an historic moment that witnessed the proliferation of feminist activism, the establishment of women's studies programs and women's centers, and the founding of women's bookstores and other cultural projects. This fall, we bring together our past, present and future collaborators as well as kindred institutions, scholars and activists engaged in social justice feminism to consider what kinds of collaborative projects are possible when scholarship and activism are joined.

The anniversary conference will also include a special reception with a performance by Suzanne Vega '81and remarks from Janet Axelrod '73, as well as keynote lectures by Sonia Alvarez and Mamphela Ramphele.

Please visit the conference website for detailed program information and to register online.

A skill share on how to take care of ourselves while we try to fix the world.

Presentations to include Lauren Nagy of Hosh Yoga, Cassie Karopkin of Verite Catering, and massage therapist Leah DeCesare. Food sampling and donations sponsored by Raw Revolution, Earth Balance, Lightlife, Artisana, Turtle Mountain, the Integral Yoga Institute, and more!

Presenters:

Cassie Karopkin is a graduate of the renowned Natural Gourmet Institute in NYC and SUNY, Albany, and is also certified in Plant-Based Nutrition through Cornell University. She earned her kitchen stripes at Pure Food and Wine, New York’s first raw-foods restaurant.

Leah DeCesare is a queer, hard of hearing person living in Brooklyn, NY. She graduated from the Swedish Institute of Health Sciences and is a member of the American Massage Therapy Association. As a martial artist since 1999, she adopted the philosophy, “if you’re going to learn to harm people, you must learn to heal people.” As an avid athlete, she uses her work to assess and relieve overuse syndromes, enhance performance, rehabilitate injuries and reduce stress – the root of most of our ails.

At 17, Lauren Nagy began her yoga practice at a small gym in her hometown of Toms River, NJ. Lauren has since completed her 200 hour teacher training at the Center for Health and Healing and has been actively teaching since 2009. Lauren’s classes offer up the warmth and compassion of a yoga sanctuary, a safe place to grow from the inside out. Her classes include postures to help open, strengthen, tone, calm,and detoxify the body; breath control; guided meditation; and inspirational messages applicable to everyday life to help expand the yoga practice beyond the mat.

Injured Cities: Urban Afterlives, an international conference, October 14-15, 2011, at Columbia University. Please visit our conference website (http://socialdifference.org/injuredcities/) for schedule and registration details (registration required; no registration fee).

Sponsored by the Engendering Archives Project of the Center for the Critical Analysis of Social Difference, this conference is convened on the tenth anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001. In a series of presentations and conversations, an international group of artists, writers, activists and individuals directly affected by urban injury will imagine creative modes of reinvention in response to urban disaster. Together our participants ask, what are the effects of catastrophe on cities, their inhabitants, and the larger world? How can we address the politics of terror with which states react to their vulnerability? What enduring wounds does catastrophe leave on urban life, and how can they be mobilized and transformed in the aftermath of injury to enable the imagination of new modes of social life and to thwart impending forms of social death?

Sponsored by the Engendering Archives Project of the Center for the Critical Analysis of Social Difference, this conference is convened on the tenth anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001. In a series of presentations and conversations, an international group of artists, writers, activists and individuals directly affected by urban injury will imagine creative modes of reinvention in response to urban disaster. Together our participants ask, what are the effects of catastrophe on cities, their inhabitants, and the larger world? How can we addressthe politics of terror with which states react to their vulnerability? What enduring wounds does catastrophe leave on urban life, and how can they be mobilized and transformed in the aftermath of injury to enable the imagination of new modes of social life and to thwart impending forms of social death?

An intergenerational, interracial group of over 20 artists examine race relations between the Hasidic Jewish community and the diverse Black community of Crown Heights since the riot of 1991.

You do not want to miss out on this opportunity to hear from the featured artists as well as the curator, Dexter Wimberly, as they discuss the importance behind the exhibition. Head to their website for more information about this phenomenal exhibition.

At UN Headquarters in New York City, commemoration activities will be held from 2:30-6pm in the Economic and Social Council Chamber of the North Lawn Building. The program will include a panel discussion on “Indigenous designs: Celebrating stories and cultures, crafting our own culture”, followed by a screening of the film “Harmony of culture and nature”. The day is co-organized by by the Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Division for Social Policy and Development, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the Department of Public Information and the NGO Committee on the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People.

All are invited to attend. If you are in the New York area and would like to attend but do not have a UN Grounds Pass, please register your name, affiliation, and contact information to aragonm@un.org by12 noon on Thursday 4 August 2011.

To read more about the day & registration, click here: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/news_internationalday2011.html

Aboriginal teenagers Samson and Delilah live in an isolated community outside Alice Springs, about 1,500 kilometers south of Darwin. Delilah spends her days caring for and painting with her Nana, Samson is a chronic petrol sniffer who has cast his eyes on Delilah. When Delilah is blamed by community women for her Nana’s death and violence intervenes in the teenagers’ lives, they steal a communal car and head for Alice Springs, a place no safer than their community. They shelter under a bridge in the town’s dry river bed and Samson’s sniffing and isolation worsen. Delilah is traumatized by two terrible events and their future seems bleak. As they discover how harsh life can be for a pair of homeless kids, they also fall in love. Samson & Delilah resonates with truth and will open the eyes of all those who mistakenly believe the hard-won apology given by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made life better for the first inhabitants.

Showtimes: 11:00am 1:00pm 3:00pm 5:00pm

Sistagirl is the story of photographer Bindi Cole’s next artistic project – an intriguing story that delves into a community of Aboriginal Transgender women’s world that most of us will never experience, asking a series of difficult overriding questions – how much is identity a matter of personal choice and how do each of our characters fit, or not fit, into the notion of an Aboriginal identity?

Showtimes: 11:00am 12:30pm 2:00pm 3:30pm 5:00pm

Join us for the outdoor screening of art + soul: A Personal Journey Into the World of Aboriginal Art, directed by Warwick Thornton. Follow Australian Aboriginal curator Hetti Perkins as she explores the contemporary practices of Indigenous Australian artists.

Movie Screening

After a long and deadly struggle between opposing political camps, post-election Cote d'Ivoire was expected to settle down and rebuild its democratic institutions, its industries, and smooth the way for economic growth. But with the departure of U.N. peacekeepers, Ivorians have yet to find peace on the streets of Abidjan. Street youth recruited into the urban militia are now frustrated, jobless and unpaid. Illegal roadblocks and racketeering have been maintained in some areas

Reconciliation or revenge? Development or destruction? Hear the views of guest speakers and community members Eric Edi, Sylvestre Kouadio, and Gnaka Lagoke

Please join the Center for the Study of Human Rights and Human Rights Watch (HRW) for lunch and discussion with the 2007 HRW Human Rights Defender Awardees, Sunila Abeysekera of Sri Lanka and Hollman Morris of Colombia. Food and beverages will be provided.

Chris Albin-Lackey, Africa Division, Human Rights Watch will speak

Film panel with Robbie Barnett (Columbia University) Zhang Zhen (NYU Cinema Studies) and Angela Zito (NYU Centre for Religion and Media)

Human Rights Institute Practitioner Brown Bag Speaker Series

Tutu Alicante, Echoing Green Fellow, Equatorial Guinea Rights and Democracy Network will speak

Speaker: Ralph E. Gomory, President, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

This talk, which reflects joint work with W.J. Baumol, will make two points: (1) Globalization does not have, even in theory, the benign properties that theory ascribes to free trade. (2) In the present globalizing world the interests of global corporations and their home countries can easily diverge.

RSVP to Matt Winters ASAP for dinner at 6:00. Dinner location TBA.

Human Rights Institute Practitioner Brown Bag Speaker Series

Nicolas Burniat, Pennoyer Fellow, Crimes Against Humanity Program, Human Rights First, will speak

Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh will speak

The Institute of African Studies (IAS) presents a lecture entitled, "Islam and Democracy in Nigeria," with the Sultan of Sokoto, Nigeria. Co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR). The Sokoto Caliphate, established in 19th Century West Africa, was one of the largest pre-colonial political systems in Africa, and has been part of the political/cultural experience of 14 of the current 36 states in Nigeria. The new Sultan of Sokoto, in this historic visit to the US, will focus on the lessons of the Sokoto experience in areas of rule of law, federalism, conflict reslution, and consultative mechanisms.The Sultan, who spent 31 years in the Nigerian Army prior to his selection at the 20th Sultan in November 2006, will make initial remarks, followed by questions and discussion.

A talk in English by Françoise Vergès

More than a century after the abolition of slavery in the French colonies (abolition of slavery on April 27th 1848), forty years after the end of the colonial empire, debates about slave trade, slavery and colonialism continue to be controversial in France. The semantic field has been occupied on the one hand with terms like repentance, apologies, responsibility and on the other hand with demands for a revision of the national narrative. The controversy has marginalized the political debate.

The Institute of African Studies (IAS) presents its annual Africa Diplomatic Forum entitled, "Uniting Africa: Ways Forward, Challenges Ahead."Co-Sponsored with the SIPA Pan African Network (SPAN). The conference will include several notable African diplomats and scholars from around the world discussing issues related to the continent.

Joanna Levitt, Director of Programs, International Accountability Project, will speak on the urgent need for new policies and paradigms to address the global crisis of development-induced displacement.

India Untouched: Stories of a People Apart is perhaps the most comprehensive look at Untouchability ever undertaken on film. It exposes the continuation of caste practices and Untouchability in Sikhism, Christianity and Islam, and even amongst the communists in Kerala. Dalits themselves are not let off the hook: within Dalits, sub-castes practice Untouchability on the 'lower' sub-castes.

The 2007 Third Annual Equity Symposium will consider the implications for the vision of equal educational opportunity articulated in Brown v. Board of Education in light of recent legal developments, especially the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Seattle/Louisville voluntary integration cases, as well as the continuing success of civil rights advocates in state court education adequacy cases.

The 2007 Third Annual Equity Symposium will consider the implications for the vision of equal educational opportunity articulated in Brown v. Board of Education in light of recent legal developments, especially the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Seattle/Louisville voluntary integration cases, as well as the continuing success of civil rights advocates in state court education adequacy cases.

The 2006/2008 series of colloquia titled Eurasian Pipelines – Road to Peace, Development and Interdependencies hosted by Harriman Institute examines five (5) transnational gas and oil pipeline systems in or linked to the Eurasian space. After two colloquia in spring and fall 2006, the third colloquium entitled Eurasia versus Iran in supplying energy to Pakistan and India via gas pipelines will take place at Columbia on November 12 and 13, 2007.

The 2006/2008 series of colloquia titled Eurasian Pipelines – Road to Peace, Development and Interdependencies hosted by Harriman Institute examines five (5) transnational gas and oil pipeline systems in or linked to the Eurasian space. After two colloquia in spring and fall 2006, the third colloquium entitled Eurasia versus Iran in supplying energy to Pakistan and India via gas pipelines will take place at Columbia on November 12 and 13, 2007.

freeDimensional does a variety of advocacy work and one of the new pilot areas we are developing is "critical pairing" by which we initiate interaction between artists and activists from the same region and/or working on the same issues. The first such pairings we have begun focuses on the CONGO, broadly defined (Congo Brazzaville, Congo Kinshasa, a conceptual Congo that conjures an image of a place w/ a shared name.) The two individuals involved in this dialogue are Pierre Mujombo and Christian Mounzeo.

Human Rights Institute Practitioner Brown Bag Speaker Series

Paul Hoffman of Schonbrun, De Simone, Seplow, Harris and Hoffman LLP will speak.

The Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health Fall 2007 Seminar Series presents a discussion with Helen dePinho, MD, MBA, and Assistant Professor of Clinical and Population Family Health. Drinks will be provided. Please bring your own lunch.

Adam O'Brien, International Crisis Group's Uganda analyst will lead a discussion.

Want to learn more about what's going on with the LRA-Ugandan peace talks? What are the implications of the ICC indictments? That is going on with consultations and the third agenda point?

The Weatherhead East Asian Institute (WEAI) presents a Brown Bag Lecture with Wang Hui, Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at Tsinghua University in Beijing, author of China's New Order: Society, Politics, and Economy in Transition and Visiting Professor at New York University.

Human Rights Institute Practitioner Brown Bag Speaker Series

Nicolas Burniat, Pennoyer Fellow, Crimes Against Humanity Program, Human Rights First

The Middle East Institute (MEI) presents a lecture with David L. Phillips, Visiting Scholar, Center for the Study of Human Rights, and Project Director, National Committee on American Foreign Policy

This August six Barnard undergraduates traveled to Ghana to document an historic conference on the legacy of Abolition. On November 13th, the Barnard College Middle Passage Initiative will launch their exciting website, Ghan, mete wo nne, which documents the conference and the trip from a unique student perspective.

When her young nephew hears a sermon in Cairo encouraging religious war, Nadia Kamel, long-time assistant to the legendary Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine, takes it upon herself to acquaint him with the history of his maternal grandmother Maria (Naela). Incorporating footage of visits by Maria and her husband to relatives in Italy, Israel, and Palestine, this documentary tells the story of a remarkable woman who is part Jewish, part Christian, part Muslim—and all at once a feminist, a communist, an Italian and an Arab. Her history poignantly reveals the tensions and disfigurements brought about in a culture forced to accommodate the arbitrary boundaries of politics.

The Institute of African Studies (IAS) presents a brown bag lecture entitled, "New challenges for prevention of Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission in Africa," with Louise Kuhn (Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health). Dr. Louise Kuhn is an epidemiologist, who has developed and manages an active research program primarily focused on aspects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Her work is focused on mother-to-child HIV transmission, particularly in the international arena. Central to her research endeavors is focus on translation of scientific findings into effective HIV prevention and treatment programs in low resource settings.

Human Rights Institute Practitioner Brown Bag Speaker Series

Denise Bell, Sudan Country Specialist, Amnesty International USA (Campaign to Save Darfur) will speak

The Conflict Resolution Working Group (CRWG) at the School of International and Public Affairs presents a lecture entitled, "Never Again & the Responsibility to Protect: Making the End of Genocide a Reality," with Professor Ed Luck, adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Responsibility to Protect; Ricken Patel, Executive Director of Avaaz; Professor Elisabeth Lindenmayer, Acting Director of the UN Studies Program at SIPA; and Professor Robert Jervis, Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Affairs. The Responsibility to Protect doctrine (R2P), adopted at the 2005 UN General Assembly, seeks to redefine state sovereignty as including a duty of every state to protect its own populations from atrocities including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Where states fail to do this, the international community must step in, using all appropriate means. This round table is an opportunity to discuss the importance and effectiveness of R2P as well as the role of civil society in its maintenance.

The Middle East Institute (MEI) welcomes speaker Joost R. Hiltermann, Deputy Director of the Internaional Crisis Group, Middle East and North Africa Program.

The Center for Brazilian Studies presents talks from Leona Forman, President of the Brazil Foundation and Paulo Silva, a Ph.D. candidate at Teachers College.

Join Global Justice for a dinner-and-discussion this Wednesday with Katherine Marx, NP. She will speak about her work with HIV/AIDS patients in Brooklyn. The discussion will focus on adolescent care, medication adherence, HIV-related stigma, family issues, incarceration, pregnancy and parenting, and transition to adult care. It will be a wonderful opportunity to engage with a health practitioner who also is involved with local community health initiatives. Dinner will be served.

The Weatherhead East Asian Institute (WEAI) presents a Brown Bag Lecture with Professor Michael Pinces, Chair of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Western Australia entitled, Neoliberal Apartheid? Segregation and Urban Governance in the Philippines.

A presentation by Anthony Dworkin, Executive Director, Crimes of War Project

This autumn the Crimes of War Project will bring out a revised and updated edition of its flagship book Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know. The new edition contains a great deal of new material addressing the many significant developments that have taken place in the last eight years, written by leading journalists and scholars.

The first edition of Crimes of War was described as "a book of landmark importance" by Aryeh Neier of the Open Society Institute. Appearing at a time when the laws of armed conflict are at the center of public debate as never before, and when questions about such subjects as the treatment of detainees, the prevention of genocide and the morality of occupation fill the media, this new edition aims to be an essential resource for anyone who cares about preserving humane values in the face of today’s new and challenging threats.

Human Rights Institute Practitioner Brown Bag Speaker Series

Elavarthi Manohar, Director, Campaigns of Sangama will speak.

The Middle East Institute (MEI) presents a talk with Yael Dayan, Deputy Mayor of Tel Aviv-Yafo.

The Institute of African Studies presents a roundtable discussion entitled, Biko: I Write What I Like, a discussion of the writings and life of Steve Biko.

Committing Poetry in Times of War, winner of the 2007 Best Human Rights Film Award at the Taos Mountain Festival, is a poetic glance at a community¹s response to a series of teacher firings, taking place in the context of police brutality and restrictive free speech zones - a nation at war abroad and with its people. Discussion with Bill Nevins to follow.

The Economics and Political Development (EPD)Concentration at SIPA invites you to joing Professors Enrique Deamonica (EPD Policy Analysis) and Sanjay Reddy for a discussion of Professor Delamonica's new book, Elimnating Human Poverty.

Wetback (2004) is Arturo Perez Torres's heartbreaking tale of Central American border crossers.

An evening with Alan Van Capelle, the Executive Director of the Empire State Pride Agenda. Wine and cheese reception to follow the lecture.

The Program for the Study of Sexuality, Gender, Health, and Human Rights presents a lecture by Manohar Elavarthi, Director (Campaigns) of Sangama, Bangalore, India, and Human Rights Advocate at the Center for the Study of Human Rights with Discussant Svati P. Shah, Ph.D., Visiting Assistant Professor, Women's Studies, Wellesley College

The Columbia University Seminar on Globalization, Labor and Popular Struggles is pleased to announce its next meeting with speaker Stephen Coats, Executive Director of the U.S. labor Education in the Americas Project (US/LEAP).

The Human Rights Film Series presents Lumo, an Official Selection at the Human Rights Watch Documentary Film Festival. A discussion led by Human Rights Advocate Christian Mounzeo will follow the film.

The Humanitarian Affairs Working Group (HAWG) at SIPA invites you to attend a conference entitled, "The Politics of Aid: Sri Lanka, Sudan and Iraq." The conference provides a forum for UN officials, academics, and NGO representatives to discuss the changing roles of international agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), who have always been at the forefront of numerous domestic and international humanitarian disasters.

Human Rights Institute Practitioner Brown Bag Speaker Series

Larry Garber, CEO, New Israel Fund will speak.

Gamal Al-Ghitani is one of the Arab world's most renowned and accomplished authors of his time. Al-Ghitani has lived through some of the most turbulent and defining moments of Egypt's history, including the wars of 1967 and 1973 and as such often touches on the cultural, social and political. Al-Ghitani is seen as one of the genuine custodians, innovators and embodiments of the Egyptian cultural experience

Daniel Wolfe will speak about his cutting edge efforts at the Open Society Institute, which has funded much work in this and related areas. Refreshments will be served!

The Harriman Institute presents a moderated discussion on the new book,Chechnya:The Case for Independence, by Tony Wood.

A documentary screening and a reception and discussion with journalist David Enders and filmmaker Richard Rowley, who reported this summer from Iraq and the region on a Pulitzer Center grant. They produced articles and broadcasts for more than a dozen outlets. Their reporting on the Shia-Sunni conflict, ethnic cleansing and Iraq's refugee crisis challenged official statements and conventional journalism alike.

To celebrate the launch of the UNICEF-Cambridge University Press publication and to mark the 18th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), UNICEF's Global Policy Section will host a roundtable discussion between expert respondents and the four contributors to the book.

A talk with Human Rights Advocates:

John Caulker
Executive Director of Forum of Conscience
Sierra Leone

Christian Mounzeo
President of Meeting for Peace and Human Rights
Congo-Brazzaville

Sandeep Pattnaik
Research Associate for the National Center for Advocacy Studies
India

The University Human Rights Seminar will present a talk by J. Paul Martin, senior scholar at the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University.

Peter Salama, MD, MPH, Director of Health at UNICEF lead a discussion.

Despite the availability of effective tools and proven solutions, the state of child survival and health in developing countries continues to pose one of the greatest concerns and challenges to global public health of our time. While the epidemiology of child mortality and morbidity and the evidence for effective solution is fairly established, Dr. Salama will discuss why the critical task of translating knowledge into actions through effective country-level policy and programming remains a major challenge.

The TMF Fellowship is open to graduate students and graduating undergrads and provides one year of financial support to work six months at an NGO in the Global North and six months at an NGO in the Global South

The Undergraduate Human Rights Program presents a dinner and discussion with Human Rights Advocates Ly Pisey, Junior Program Officer at Women's Agenda for Change in Cambodia, and Elavarthi Manohar, Director of Campaigns of Sangama in India.

The screening kicks off the event Get Informed: Looking at U.S. Sponsored Torture, two days of discussion on United States sponsored torture from multicultural and multi-philosophical perspectives.

Two days of discussion on United States sponsored torture continue with information and urgent action distribution on Low Plaza.

The Political Science Department of Barnard College will sponsor a presnentation by Professor Roger Berkowitz, Assistant Professor in Political Theory and Human Rights at Bard College.

The Weatherhead East Asian Institute presents a special roundtable discussion with Gordon Flake, Executive Director of the Mansfield Foundation; Scott Snyder, Senior Associate, International Relations, Asia Foundation; and Charles Armstrong, Associate Professor of History and Director, Center for Korean Research, Columbia University.

The Insitute of African Studies (IAS) presents a brownbag discussion with Andrew Okolie, Senior Advisor to the President of Nigeria and Professor at Teacher's College.

The Southern Asian Institute presents a brown bag session on the program being implemented in the tsunami affected areas in Sri Lanka, India, Maldives, Thailand, Somaliland and Indonesia. Its focus is on sustainable livelihood, land rights, prevention of violence against women and disaster risk reduction. In this discussion the senior-most members of the team will share their experiences.

The Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS) presents a discussion with Mario Pecheny, Former Visiting Tinker Professor, Mark Padilla, Assistant Professor of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan and Richard G. Parker, Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociomedical Sciences in the Mailmas School of Public Health at Columbia University

The panel, including AIUSA Torture Specialist Jumana Musa, Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster from Rabbis for Human Rights, and CAIR's Legislative Director, Corey Saylor, concludes two days of discussion on United States sponsored torture.

A Panel Discussion Featuring Human Rights Fellows at Columbia University, moderated by Dr. Andrew Okolie

Panelists:

John Caulker: Executive Director of Forum of Conscience, concerned withcivil society and diamond mining in Sierra Leone.

Christian Mounzeo: President of Meeting for Peace and Human Rights, Vice President of the Observatory of the Fight Against Corruption in Central Africa.

Nzene Durrell Halleson: Policy Officer for Global Village Cameroon, monitors energy policy and projects supported by international aid institutions.

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This initiative explores ways to bridge the gap between current conditions and the post-conflict phase. The meeting identifies quick impact projects that can be implemented immediately in relatively stable parts of Darfur. It also focuses on development dimensions that can be incorporated into a peace agreement.

The East Central European Center (ECEC) presents a seminar entitled, "Hungarian-Jewish Responses to the Persecution, 1944-1945," with Professor Gabor Kadar (ELTE University, Budapest).

The United States Mission to the United Nations presents a panel discussion in observance of World AIDS day, withe Moderator Kelly C. Knight, U.S. Public Delegate to the 62nd General Assembly, and a panel that includes activists, medical specialists, and women living with AIDS.

Durrel Nzene Halleson, Policy Officer from Global Village Cameroon and Christian Mounzeo, President of Meeting for Peace and Human Rights in Congo-Brazzaville, will discuss electricity privatization in Cameroon and the impact of the aluminum industry on human rights in that country.

Please join us as we bid farewell to the twelve human rights advocates who have been in residence with the Center for the Study of Human Rights (CSHR) this past semester. The Advocates have come together from around the world and we celebrate their time with us. Upon departure, they will continue their human rights work in their home countries.

The talk at the Farrell Clinic will focus on the work of Centro Mujeres in La Paz, Baja California Sur on sexual and reproductive rights.

Wanda Nowicka will discuss the predicaments of reproductive rights and health activism in Poland where abortion became illegal in 1993 as a result of the increased power of the Catholic Church. In response to these restrictions, Polish NGOs under Nowicka's leadership have been conducting assertive advocacy and lobbying for reproductive health and rights. Their activism is increasingly turning to transnational actors, especially the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights, to compel reproductive justice locally.

The Religion and World Community seminar series examines the ways in which the world's major religiouns define their relationships, roles and responsibilities towards one another and the world at large. Reverand Terry Provance, Executive Director of Oikocredit USA, will speak.

Ms. El Abnoudy is an award winning Egyptian documentary filmmaker, whose work examines gender, class and race marginalization in Egyptian society. The African Diaspora Film Festival will be screening her classic film Democracy Days (1996), tracing the role of women in the 1995 Egyptian parliamentary elections as well Nubia train/ Ktar el Noba, a rare revealing film focusing on the realities of the daily life experiences of Black Egyptians in Nubia, Ethiopia Through Egyptian Eyes, a documentary about Egyptians traveling to Ethiopia for a NGO, and Diary in Exile, a film which explores the lives of Sudanese emigrants in Egypt.

The Weatherhead East Asian Institute presents a brown bag lecture with Ren Wanding, China Human Rights Activist.

Speaker Lynn Freedman,JD,MPH, Director of the Averting Maternal Death and Disability Program, will speak.

Sheldon Scheps Library with the New York Academy of Sciences, Cordially invite you to attend a lecture by Avram Bornstein, Associate Professor of Anthropology, John Jay College, CUNY, and Aseel Sawalha, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Pace University.

Dinner Reception: 6:30-7:30pm in The Robert F. Murphy/Morton H. Fried Lounge, Room 465 Schermerhorn Extension

The speaker will be Lisa Forman, who is currently a Canadian Institutes of Health Research postdoctoral fellow with the Comparative Program on Health and Society at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. Her research explores the interactions between human rights and trade on medicines, and how the right to health in particular can be used to mitigate the restrictive impacts of trade on access to medicines in developing countries.