IPCR Weekly Bulletin
Call For Papers
The Journal of International Service
The Journal of International Service, the School of International Service's premier academic journal, is
now accepting submissions for the Fall 2015 Issue. The Journal is published biannually, with a fall and
spring edition, and consists of competitively selected articles written by SIS graduate students.
Submissions are blind peer-reviewed, selected, and edited by the Journal of International Service editorial
staff. The Journal is distributed widely both on campus and the wider DC area. Submissions of 50008000 word papers from any concentration are candidates for publication. Citations should use footnotes
and adhere to Chicago Manual of Style guidelines.
The submission deadline for the Fall 2015 Issue is Sunday, February 15, 2015. Please send all
submissions to americanujis@gmail.com with the subject: “ATTN: JIS FALL 2015 SUBMISSION." so
that we don't miss your submissions! Be sure to include a short biography and abstract in a separate
document. If you have previously submitted to the journal, you are encouraged to resubmit your paper at
your discretion.
We are also accepting staff applications for junior editor positions. Alumni are also welcome to apply! If
interested, please send a resume, a 5-10 page writing sample, and a short paragraph on why you are
interested in the position to americanujis@gmail.com by 5 pm on Friday, February 13. Please don't
hesitate to contact us at americanujis@gmail.com with any inquiries. Also, be sure to visit us online at
http://www.american.edu/sis/jis/ and at https://www.facebook.com/AUSISJournalofInternationalService.
Trainings
Mountain Justice Spring Break, March 7-14, 2015
Mountain Justice Spring Break creates a space for sharing radical knowledge, fostering Earth care and
self-care, cultivating creative solutions to environmental injustices, and creating community based on
justice and solidarity. Nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, Mountain Justice Spring Break brings
people together to confront the destructive practice of mountaintop removal coal mining. You will learn
how to identify and use organizing to overcome extreme extraction issues, like mountaintop removal. We
believe that all social and environmental injustices are interconnected - thus, many of the workshops,
trainings and activities address/apply to racism, hetero-sexism, classism and ableism.
For registration information, please visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mountain-justice-spring-break2015-tickets-15139525729.
Events
Can Hawkish Leaders Make Peace? Israeli Prime Ministers and Middle East Peacemaking,
February 5
SIS Professor Guy Ziv will discuss his recently published book on how leaders’ personalities impact their
states’ foreign policies. Ziv’s work focuses on Israeli elder statesman Shimon Peres’ dramatic shift from
hawkish strategist to dovish peacemaker. He will apply his research findings to other leaders, including
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and discuss the relevance of his work on the upcoming
Israeli elections and their implications for Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. This event will not count for
credit.
The event will be on February 5 from 4-5:30pm in the Abramson Family Founders Room. To RSVP,
please visit http://www.american.edu/cas/israelstudies/rsvp/rsvp1.cfm.
Book Talk: Civil Resistance and Conflict Transformation: Transitions from Armed to Nonviolent
Struggle by Veronique Dudouet, February 10
This book investigates the decision-making process, rationale and determining factors which underlie the
strategic shifts of armed movements from violent to nonviolent resistance.
The revival of global interest in the phenomenon of nonviolent struggle since the 2011 Arab Spring offers
a welcome opportunity to revisit the potential of unarmed resistance as an alternative pathway out of
armed conflicts, in cases where neither military (or counter-insurgency) nor negotiated solutions have
succeeded. This volume brings together academics from various disciplinary traditions and offers a wide
range of case studies – including South Africa, Palestine and Egypt – through which to view the changes
from violence to nonviolence within self-determination, revolutionary or pro-democracy struggles.
While current historiography focuses on armed conflicts and their termination through military means or
negotiated settlements, this book is a first attempt to investigate the nature and the drivers of transitions
from armed strategies to unarmed methods of contentious collective action on the part of non-state
conflict actors. The text concentrates in particular on the internal and relational factors which underpin the
decision-making process, from a change of leadership and a pragmatic re-evaluation of the goals and
means of insurgency in the light of evolving inter-party power dynamics, to the search for new local or
international allies and the cross-border emulation or diffusion of new repertoires of action.
This book will be of interest to students of security studies, peace and conflict studies, political sociology
and IR in general. This event will not count for credit.
Human Rights Defender Series – Zin Mar Aung: Promoting Women’s Political Empowerment in
Burma, February 11
As a NED fellow, Zin Mar Aung is developing a roadmap for women’s political empowerment in Burma,
with recommendations for how women may participate effectively in political life. She spent 11 years in
prison for participating in the student-led democratic uprisings against Burma’s military regime. After her
release, she co-founded many activist groups promoting democracy and women’s rights, including the
Cultural Impact Studies Club, the Yangon School of Political Science and RAINFALL.
The event will be held at the Kay Spiritual Life Center Downstairs Lounge on February 11 at 12:00pm. A
pizza lunch will be provided. Please RSVP to KSLC@american.edu.
"Stealing a Nation": An Exiled People Struggle for Justice, February 11
Stealing a Nation, written and directed by John Pilger, tells the story of the Chagossian people – a group
of islanders forcibly exiled from their ancestral home in the late 1960s by the governments of the United
States and the United Kingdom. In their place, one of the most strategically important U.S. military bases
was established and remains there to this day on the island of Diego Garcia. Since that time, the
Chagossians have been fighting for their right to return home; meanwhile both governments abdicate
responsibility for their crimes. This film features interviews with first-generation Chagossians recounting
the initial forced-relocation and the subsequent years they have spent fighting for justice.
The UNROW Human Rights Impact Litigation Clinic in AU’s Washington College of Law, along with
the graduate students in the Anthropology of Militarism Clinic, present this film, followed by a panel
discussion and Q&A. The panel will feature David Vine, AU anthropology professor, Ali Beydoun, WCL
professor and Executive Director/Supervising Attorney at UNROW, and Sean Goldhammer, AU law
student and student of the UNROW clinic, and is moderated by graduate students in the Anthropology of
Militarism clinic. Snacks will be provided. This event will not count for credit. The event will be held on
February 11 at 7pm in MGC 4. For more information, please visit
https://www.facebook.com/events/677769642334015/?notif_t=plan_user_joined.
Criminal Suspect: The Criminalization of Muslim Youth in Post-9/11 America, February 11
In this talk Dr. Arshad I. Ali will explore how police surveillance programs impact the lives of young
Muslims in the United States. Drawing upon five years of ethnographic research in Southern California
and New York City, Dr. Ali will examine how the context of state surveillance altered and re-figured the
way young Muslims understand their participation in community, political and social life. He will also
discuss how young people use language to construct, re-imagine and re-figure lexicons of social practice
and identity formation between racial, gender and religious narratives of self.
Dr. Ali will elucidate how the figure of the Muslim helps develop a more robust discussion of racial
otherness through examining intersectional formulations of Muslimness as an emergent racial identity.
Through this research he will discuss local formations of Muslim identities and the ways macro political
discourses and histories mediate the everyday practices of Muslim youth. As an example, he will consider
the way the youth he worked with constructed the notion of ummah as a de-colonial challenge to national
identity and traditional notions of race within the US cultural economy. The event will be held on
February 11 at 12:30pm in ICC 270 at Georgetown University. This event will not count for credit.
For more information, please visit http://acmcu.georgetown.edu/about/contact/.
Additional opportunities and information can be found on the IPCR website:
www.american.edu/sis/ipcr and SIS Events: http://www.american.edu/sis/events/index.cfm.