Sramana Majumdar

"Violence, Identity and Self-determination: Narratives of conflict from the Kashmir Valley" 4:15 PM, Monday 18 Nov Room 239, BYC Bryn Mawr College

Exposure Index

Tired of paper and pencil questionnaires about integration and intergroup contact? Try the new and improved EXPOSURE INDEX (click tab above on this page).

Culture and Belonging in Divided Societies: Contestation and Symbolic Landscapes

click on image for more information

From cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper to displays of the Confederate battle flag over the South Carolina statehouse, acts of cultural significance have set off political conflicts and sometimes violence. These and other expressions and enactments of culture–whether in music, graffiti, sculpture, flag displays, parades, […]

Apologies and International Reconciliation – Asch seminar Monday 3/23/09

Jennifer Lind Dartmouth College

Governments increasingly offer or demand apologies for past human rights abuses, and it is widely believed that such expressions of contrition are necessary to promote reconciliation between former adversaries. Lind challenges the conventional wisdom by showing that many countries have been able to reconcile without much in the […]

Kaufmann on partition

Chaim Kaufmann, from Lehigh University’s International Relations department, spoke at Asch on February 24th. Here is a brief summary:

Academia, human rights organizations, and governments agree: partition is no solution to communal conflict. Indeed partition is just another name for ethnic cleansing Chaim Kaufmann has a radically different view, based on years of study of […]

Political Radicalization: Are We Winning the War of Ideas Against Jihadi Terrorism?

President Jane Dammen McAuliffe cordially invites you to a lecture by The Rachel Hale Professor in Science and Mathematics Clark R. McCauley “Political Radicalization: Are We Winning the War of Ideas Against Jihadi Terrorism?”

Tuesday, March 3, 2009 4 p.m. Thomas 110 – Bryn Mawr College

Reception to follow in […]

Chaim Kaufmann on Iraq after U.S. occupation

Expectations for what will happen if U.S. troops leave Iraq on schedule in 2011 range from a functioning federal Iraq to a client state of Iran to an even larger civil war to genocide. These expectations are based on different understandings of Iraq’s path from the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in April 2003 to where […]

Sri Lankan War Nears End, but Peace Remains Distant

Asch Summer Fellow Alan Keenan, who lives in Colombo and works for the International Crisis Group, is quoted in a February 18 New York Times article by Thomas Fuller.

Displaced ethnic Tamils, Feb 7, 2009.

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka — Just north of here, after a string of recent victories, the Sri Lankan military […]

Insider information on the Gaza War

The author of this Jerusalem Post column is Gershon Baskin, Co-CEO of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information. Excerpt:

Several weeks ago I wrote that the war in Gaza “may have really been a ‘war of no choice.’” Following the recent leaks from the talks about the “imminent” release of Gilad Schalit, I […]

How words could end a war

Jeremy Ginges, Asch Summer Fellow, with Scott Atran has contributed an op-ed piece in the New York Times (Sunday, January 25) on the importance of symbolic gestures in international relations. “There is a moral logic to seemingly intractable religious and cultural disputes. These conflicts cannot be reduced to secular calculations of interest but must be […]

“Whatever it takes”

Asch Summer Fellow Diane Perlman’s open letter to President Obama regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict has been published in the Huffington Post. She is organizing a group, CONFLICT ANALYSIS PROFESSIONALS FOR ENDURING SECURITY, to develop interdisciplinary strategies and communicate with the media and policymakers. Her website is www.consciouspolitics.org.

Dr. Perlmans can […]

South Asia after Mumbai

Major General Muniruzzaman, former Chief of Staff in Bangladesh, speaks to David Frost on political and security issues in South Asia. The interview begins at 5:30 on the video: