Previous Events
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:
