Previous Events
Digitised Visual Archives, AI and the Uses of the Past
26 September 2024 13:00 - 17:30
What practical and ethical challenges arise from the mass digitisation of European visual archives documenting sensitive, contested histories of colonialism, war and violence in the twentieth century? This question will be discussed in this public symposium.
Digitised archives now have the potential to build sustainable connections with source and stakeholder communities well beyond Europe, as well as within it. Stakeholder sensitivities, copyright laws, and restitution agreements regulate the use of archives. Yet social media and AI have opened up new ways of circulating digitised archive materials in ways that are hard to regulate. Meanwhile, historians, memory and media scholars are still grappling with the ‘analogue’ complexities of reconstructing historical contexts and explaining the contested use of visual sources in the present.
Mass digitisation of visual archives and the proliferation of AI raises the questions: who are digital archives for? What social and ‘scientific’ purposes do visual AI tools serve? And how might this impact how images are used as representations of the past? To what extent are AI tools actually driving digitisation of visual archives rather than serving this process? Computational methods have great potential for generating new taxonomies and turning ‘primary sources’ into ‘data’ that can be analysed at scale. But is a technology-driven framework producing ‘better’ history, and who is it improving accessibility for? Generative AI already has applications to harvesting ‘stock’ web-based images to produce new or edited visual icons of violence, atrocity, genocide, colonialism or war. If the extant icons of violence already circulate free from historical context, and constitute a narrow range of examples to begin with, what will new ‘averages’ produce, and what does that mean for the way these histories are perceived?
Attendance is free, but registration is required or email m.a.van.maanen@vu.nl.
Supported by: CLUE+ (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and The History, Memory and Decolonial Futures Collective.
Programme
13.00 Professor Susie Protschky (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Welcome and Introduction
13.15 Professor Kim A. Wagner (Queen Mary University of London), Through the Perpetrator’s Eye: The Bud Dajo Massacre (1906) and Atrocity Photography
13.45 Professor Daniel Foliard (Université Paris Cité / LARCA), Binarized and Polarized? Contested Pasts and their Photographic Legacy in the Digital Age
14.15 Professor Kees Ribbens (Erasmus University Rotterdam / NIOD), AI Meets the Holocaust: History by Popular Demand?
15.30 Tea and coffee
15.30 Associate Professor Ana Dragojlovic-Éclair (University of Melbourne), Mending Matrilineality: Re-presencing Indigenous Foremothers
16.00 Dr Tintin Wulia (University of Gothenbug), Future Pasts: Revisioning Archival Aesthetics in the Age of Fungibility
16.30 Professor Karen Strassler (City University of New York), Demanding Images in the Public Archive
17.00 Questions and discussion
17.30 Close of symposium, drinks
Book Launch: Punishment in International Society: Norms, Justice, and Punitive Practices
22 March 2024, 14.00-16.00
The book "Punishment in International Society" is co-edited by a team of PACS scholars (Linet Durmusoglu, Barbora Hola, Ronald Kroeze, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, Wolfgang Wagner and Wouter Werner) and will come out with Oxford University Press in February 2024.
Susie Protschky (Professor of Global Political History at VU) and Paul van Lange (Professor of Psychology) will comment on the book, followed by discussion and drinks.
A description and a table of contents of the book can be found here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/punishment-in-international-society-9780197693483.
Nomination for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize
20 December 2023, 15.00
The Nobel Peace Prize Working Group of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam has nominated Women of the Sun, Women Wage Peace and EcoPeace Middle East for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize.
Between September and December 2023, this working group was chaired by Wolfgang Wagner and Marije Luitjens (both department of Political Science and Public Administration and active in the peace and conflict studies program) under the auspices of the VU Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS). The group discussed the history and politics of the Nobel Peace Prize and our understanding of peace with a small group of four students from the Political Science Master program: Fabiënne Blom, Paul Frigger, Melissa Gerritsen, and Annelies Reefman.
After a series of discussions and video-conversations with the candidates, the group decided to nominate Women of the Sun, Women Wage Peace and EcoPeace Middle East because they are bringing communities together to build peace in the Middle East with a special focus on the role of women and climate justice.
Our motivation for the nomination, as submitted to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee reads as follows:
The Nobel Peace Prize of 2024 should go to representatives of civil society in Israel, Palestine and Jordan who have continued their work to bridge the deep divide between communities in the Middle East. They have resisted pressures to choose sides and have shown empathy and compassion at a time when they lost loved ones in the recent escalation of violence. They remind us of our shared humanity and show the way to a peaceful and better future in the Middle East. In addition, the three NGOs also point to two important dimensions of any future peace in the Middle East: the role of women and climate justice. “Women of the Sun” was founded in 2021 and since then their goal has been to foster peace and the equality of women. Together with Women Wage Peace they are collaborating to promote women’s rights. Women wage peace, was founded in the aftermath of the 50-day Gaza War/Operation Protective Edge of 2014) and has grown to 45,000 Israeli members, making it the largest grassroots peace movement in Israel today. Both not only advocate for more attention on the well-being of youth and children, but also for a gender equal peace building process. Women of the Sun’s work includes psychological counseling, fostering economic equality between men and women and creative projects. Women wage peace is focused on changing refracts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and its resolution, through a gendered lens. They demand for diplomatic negotiation, with full representation of women, to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ecopeace Middle East has been promoting collaboration to protect the environment in Jordan, Palestine and Israel. They seek to create the necessary conditions for lasting peace in the region. Next to their projects regarding the environment, they are also big on educating youth and connecting different people. They have shown continuous efforts regarding their mission of regional integration, sustainable management and water security.
On 20 December 2023, a nomination ceremony is held at the VU with representatives of the three NGOs present online.
What about the people? Providing historical and regional context to the current war in Israel-Palestine
November 20th, 16:00 - 17:30
The roundtable event was chaired by Miranda van Holland, Programme Coordinator of the 3D Debate Centre at the VU, while the speakers will include Associate Professor of Anthropology from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) Dr. Erella Grassiani, Lecturer in the Faculty of Religion and Theology at the VU Dr. Janneke Stegeman, Lecturer and Senior Researcher at Access to Justice in Hogeschool Leiden Dr. Dina Zbeidy, Associate Professor of International Criminal Law at the UvA and Maastricht University Dr. Sergey Vasiliev, and PhD candidate from the Amsterdam School for Regional, Transnational and European Studies (ARTES) Esther Schoorel, MA.
Dictators and Dissidents
November 6th, 13:00 - 17:00
With Barbora Holá, Fatma Zaki Khalil, Kjersti Lohne, Stephen McLoughlin, Edin Mujkic, Willemijn Born, Maartje Weerdesteijn
Speakers will shed light on the difficulty of resistance to dictatorships, with topics ranging from the influence of international justice advocacy and the decision making process of the dictators, to the motivational dynamics and resistance movements in Zambia and Serbia.
Due to limited capacity, signing up for the event is required. You can sign up through https://forms.gle/WDvaxhSncCAefctJA
Steven Pinker: Human Nature and the Future of War
October 10th, 15:00 - 17:00
Auditorium, Symphony Offices
Gustav Mahlerlaan 3-177, Amsterdam
With his beselling book “The Better Angels of Nature” (2011), Havard scholar Steven Pinker has become one of the most important voices in the debate of a decline of violence and in the tradition of the enlightenment. Reviewing data on many types of violence including wars, murders, or lynchings, Pinker argued that there is a long term trend towards lower levels of violence. More than a decade after its publication and in light of the war in Ukraine, Steven Pinker in his talk addressed the human disposition to violence and the potential to overcome it.
The event has been recorded and can be watched here: https://youtu.be/ktXJyE4NrZ8
The War in Ukraine and European Security
May 9th, 15:00 - 17:00
Aurora room, VU Main Building
Speakers
Prof. Jolle Demmers
Professor in Conflict Studies and Head of Section
History of International Relations, Utrecht University
Isabelle Duyvesteyn
Professor of International Studies and Global History Institute of History, Leiden University
Wolfgang Wagner (Chair)
Professor of International Security, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Resisting Mr. Putin’s War
April 26th, 15:00 - 17:00
Aurora room, VU Main Building
Join us for an expert roundtable. After our speakers have kicked-off the discussion, there will be time for a Q&A too!
Speakers
Dr.Maartje Weerdesteijn
Assistant Professor, Criminal Law & Criminology
Researcher, Center for International Criminal Justice
Willemijn Born
PhD candidate, Criminal Law & Criminology
Wolfgang Wagner (Chair)
Professor of International Security
PACS September 2021 conference
On September 23rd 2021 PACS held an event with the following program:
Part 1: Mapping peace and conflict studies
Presentation of research report: "Mapping Peace and Conflict Studies in the Netherlands
Part 2: Rountable discussion
"The Future of Peace and Conflict Studies in the Netherlands"
The event has been recorded and can be watched here: https://vimeo.com/event/1263229/embed.
Talk by Giovanni Mantilla
On Monday 8 March, Dr. Giovanni Mantilla (University of Cambridge) will give a talk on “Lawmaking under Pressure. International Humanitarian Law and Internal Armed Conflict”. The talk will be online via zoom. To register and obtain the login data for the videoconference, please contact w.m.wagner@vu.nl.
Public Lectures on Peace-Theology 2021: POST-COLONIAL APPROACHES to building Just Peace
Building Peace with Justice constantly investigates power relations, asks for the different perspectives involved in a conflict, and strives to pay specific attention to those, whose voices are usually silenced. In this regard, postcolonial studies provide indispensable knowledge and wisdom.
Postcolonialism is the academic study of the cultural legacy of colonialism, focusing on the human consequences of the control and exploitation of colonized people, their lands, their bodies. It is a critical theory analysis of the history, culture, literature, and discourse of European imperial power. The ambiguous term colonialism refers to a world view underlying that system.
In general, postcolonialism represents an ideological response to colonialist thought. On a simple level, it may seek to build a better understanding of colonial life from the point of view of the colonized people, based on the assumption that the colonial rulers have produced “unreliable narrators”. On a deeper level, postcolonialism examines the social and political power relationships that sustain neocolonialism, including the social, political and cultural narratives surrounding the colonizer and the colonized. This approach may draw examples from history, political science, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, human geography – and theology!
Christian theology and theological ethics are in fact a late comers in the broad research on postcolonialism. But certainly, the de-colonization of theology has become one of the most progressive and revealing attempts of our times.
This series of public lectures intends to provide some more general ways of thinking as well as presenting examples from specific contexts. The discussions following the lectures will seek to explore the implications for building just peace.
Tuesday / Thursdays, 13.30-15.15 h
Location: online (Zoom)
- April 2021 “Epistemic Violence” – Revisiting Just Peace from Postcolonial Perspective(s)
Prof. Dr. Fernando Enns & Friederike Cord
Fernando Enns holds the chair for (Peace-) Theology and Ethics at the VU Amsterdam. He is also the director of the Amsterdam Centre for Religion and Peace & Justice Studies, and the director of the Center for Peace Church Theology at the University of Hamburg. Fernando's research focuses on peace and justice from a theological and ethical perspective.
Friederike Cord is the Research Assistant and PhD candidate the Center for Peace Church Theology at the University of Hamburg/Germany.
- April 2021 Theologising Brexit: A Liberationist and Postcolonial Critique
Prof. Dr. Anthony G. Reddie
Anthony Reddie is the director of the Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture. Anthony is also Professor Extraordinarius in the Department of Philosophy, Practical and Systemic Theology at the University of South Africa.
- April 2021 Healing or Haunting? Towards a Postcolonial Theology
Prof. Dr. Judith Gruber
Judith Gruber is a Research Professor at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, at KU Leuven. She is also the coordinator of the Centre for Liberation Theologies, which carries out academic research at the interface of Systematic Theology and significant challenges of the contemporary societies.
- April 2021 Modernidad/Des-colonialidad en los procesos de construcción de paz de las mujeres afrocolombianas¨/“Modernity/Decoloniality in the Peacebuilding Processes of Afro-Colombian Women”Dr. Betty-Ruth Lozano
Dr. Betty Ruth Lozano Lerma is Director of Research in the Fundacion Universitaria Bautista (Baptist University Foundation) of Cali (Colombia).
- April 2021 Civil Disobedience and Theological Reflections on Hong Kong Anti-Extradition-Bill Movement – from a Post-Colonial Perspective
HsinYin Yu
HsinYin Yu is a Research-Master Student of “Peace, Trauma, and Religion” at the VU-Faculty of Religion and Theology at VU Amsterdam, and currently working on her thesis regarding this topic.
- April 2021 Is God a White Racist? Wake work for Theology
Prof. Dr. Robert Beckford
Robert Beckford is professor of Black Theology at The Queen's Foundation, and Associate Professor of Black Theology at the VU Amsterdam. He is also a BAFTA award winning documentary filmmaker. He has written and presented over twenty films for the BBC, Channel 4 and Discovery USA.
Registration
To attend these lectures, please register by filling in the following form:
https://forms.gle/BEEUXrZQxbc5yghu5
You will receive the ZOOM invitation by Email before each lecture.
Workshop on 'Prototype Warfare: New Regimes of Computation, Experimentation and War'
On 25 and 26 March, 15.00-18.00, Marijn Hoijtink organizes an academic workshop on 'Prototype Warfare: New Regimes of Computation, Experimentation and War'. The workshop will be online. People who are interested can register via M.Hoijtink@vu.nl.
Talk by Séverine Autesserre
On Thursday, 20 May, 16.00 to 17.30, Séverine Autesserre (Columbia University) will present her book “The Frontlines of Peace”.
On 12 December 2019. Prof. Scott Shapiro (Yale University) presented and discussed his book “The Internationalists” (co-authored with Oona Hathaway).
In the spring of 2018, PACS organized and video-recorded a series of lectures on key issues in peace and conflict research that can be viewed here: