is willing to stick her hand in the sizzling-hot fire of political discussions in a deeply polarized America.
The Notre Dame political scientist is more courageous than most, but her research has found surprising results—that people who have cross-partisan discussions often feel more positive about the other side after their experience. Still, the experiment is likely safer under her supervision than trying it at your extended family dining table at Thanksgiving.
Rather than survey people on how they feel about their own political discussions, Rossiter matches people from different political beliefs for online chats. Then she can analyze the discussions to see how they unfold and gauge the participants’ reactions afterward.
]]>On a typical gray, rainy day along Ireland’s west coast, Tom Nee leads a group of Notre Dame students around the grounds of his sheep farm along the Killary Fjord. On the far side of the inlet are steep hills, with hints of jagged stone peeking out through a blanket of green. On the near side, the students watch as Nee leads a sheepherding demonstration. He gently vocalizes commands to his sheepdog, Holly, who in turn jogs on either side of the herd, moving and coaxing the animals into the desired position.
When the demonstration is over, Nee guides the group over a gentle incline some 200 yards away, stopping at a small cliff that looks as though it had been chiseled into existence. Layer upon layer of dark matter is exposed beneath the green of the topsoil. As the spongy ground beneath them likely signaled, this is a bog. The near-black soil is peat.
There are peculiar rectangular indentations cut into the earthen wall, and soon Nee shows how those features came to be. He takes a tool known as a slean — a sort of mix between hoe and shovel and post digger — and pushes it into the soil. When Nee draws the slean from the earth, he deposits a rectangular log of peat onto a pile. The logs are stacked by the pit to dry.
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]]>The schedule is as follows. It will be updated as more information becomes available.
This weekend, the ScreenPeace Film Festival will explore strategic peace building around the world through five free film screenings, running Friday-Sunday (Feb. 9-11) atthe Browning Cinema of the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center on the University of Notre Dame campus.The festival is co-sponsored by Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace 91Ƶ and the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.
The annual festival will showcase five recent, critically acclaimed films that present compelling models of peace building in the face of injustice or violent conflict. The films and their subjectsspan the globe, featuring stories from Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, France, Guatemala, Greece and Iraq, among others, and address wide-ranging themes including human displacement, migration and immigration; indigenous movements for justice; former combatants speaking out for peace; politics and peace building; gender, race and movements for justice; and more.
This year’s films were selected by a six-person committeechaired by Patrick Regan, professor of political science and peace studies. Regan was joined by Jennifer Betz,assistant director of the master’s program at the Kroc Institute;Richard Herbst,cinema program director for the DeBartolo Center;Olivier Morel,assistant professor of Romance languages and literatures and film, television and theaterat Notre Dame;and two Notre Dame students, John Haley and Eric Ways.
Each film will be introduced by a Notre Dame faculty member, and two of the screenings will feature a special eventto promote further conversation about the film’s themes. On Saturday (Feb. 10), following the film "Disturbing the Peace," which profiles the role of former combatants and soldiers in advocating for peace around the world,David Cortright,director of policy studies and the Peace Accords Matrix project at the Kroc Institute, will facilitatea Skype conversation with American Friends of Combatants for Peace board memberNizar Farsakhand Combatants for Peace co-founderElik Elhanan.
On Sunday (Feb. 11), "Human Flow," a filmexploring themes of human displacement and migration around the world, will be followed by a panel conversation facilitated by Regan and featuring Kevin Appleby, senior director of international migration policy for theCenter for Migration 91Ƶ;Lisa Koop, associate director of legal services at the National Immigrant Justice Center; and YidiWu, assistant professor of history atSaint Mary’s College, South Bend, Indiana.
All ScreenPeace film screenings arefree of charge, but require tickets. To order tickets, call the DeBartolo Center ticket office at 574-631-2800 or purchase them online at
The full film schedule is as follows:
6:30 p.m. Feb. 9:Canceled due to weather
9:30 p.m. Feb. 9:Canceled due to weather
6:30 p.m. Feb. 10:
9:30 p.m. Feb. 10:
3 p.m. Feb. 11:
The Kroc Institute for International Peace 91Ƶ is part of the at the University of Notre Dame.
Originally published by at on Jan. 15.
]]>Each year, this intensive programbrings together teams of academics (minimum three from each college or university) who want to launch a peace studies program; strengthen or develop a new dimension of a peace studies program; or move an established peace studies program to the next level of design and rigor.
George A. Lopez, former vice president at USIP and Hesburgh Chair Emeritus at the Kroc Institute, an internationally recognized authority on peace studies program development, leads the program. The Summer Institute is staffed by a dozen faculty and staff from the Kroc Institute and USIP.
Mark your calendars!
Contact: Lisa Gingerich, 574-631-9370, lgallag3@nd.edu
Originally published by at on October 16, 2017.
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