Archive: Gandhi Events and Alternatives to Violence

Gandhi Jayanti Yearly Program and the Thakore Visiting Scholar Award

Annual event

Sponsored jointly by the India Club of Vancouver, the Thakore Charitable Foundation and the Institute for the Humanities

For current program details, please visit www.gandijayanti.com.

The name and legacy of Mahatma Gandhi has been honoured at Simon Fraser University since the unveiling of his memorial bust in the Simon Fraser Peace Square in l970. Each year, on his birthday (October 2), the Gandhi Jayanti celebration brings members of the local Indo-Canadian community together with others who wish to salute his memory and honour his ideals.

Along with its local focus, this celebration also has a national and international orientation. Simon Fraser University, since l99l, has presented the Thakore Visiting Scholar Award to outstanding persons who have made the well-being of society their lifetime work. Recipients to date include Edward Broadbent, Douglas Roche, Ovide Mercredi, Ursula Franklin, Aung San Suu Kyi, George McRobie, Mary-Wynne Ashford, Marta de la Vega Torres, Thomas Berger, Medha Patkar, Lloyd Axworthy, Reverend James Lawson, Dr. Samantha Nutt and Dr. Eric Hoskins of War Child Canada, and Marilyn Gullison. All have been influenced by Gandhi and respect his contribution to the world.

For the current student awards topic, open to both Secondary School and SFU students, please visit www.gandijayanti.com.

Peace Ed 2004: Building a Culture of Peace

October 1–3, 2004

For more information on this conference, please visit www.bc-peace-ed.org

Violence and its Alternatives Lecture Series

SFU researchers concerned with issues related to violence and its alternatives presented their findings in presentations, lectures, and discussions hosted by the Institute for the Humanities at SFU's Burnaby campus. Lectures were free and open to all.

Spring 2004: Restorative Justice

Judge Barry Stuart (ret.): Peacemaking Circles

Rev. James Scott: Restorative Justice and Residential School Claim

Liz Elliott: Responding to Violence: The Problem of Punishment

2002–2003: Violence and its Alternatives

Robert Hackett: Violence and the Media

Margaret Jackson: Race and Gender: Perceptions of Girls about Violence in their Lives

Marlene Moretti: Aggression and Violence in Girls

Stephen Kline and Kym Stewart: Evaluating a Media Risk Assessment Strategy for Children and Adults

Ehor Boyanowsky: Hitting, Hurting and Having Fun

Michael Fellman: Twisting the Cross: Terrorism and the Construction of American Society

Douglas Cousineau: Structuring Violence: the Interaction among religion, Economics, War and Conquest

Stephen Ogden: The Necessity of Literature for a Humane Science

Kate Scheel: Violence and the Literature of War

Douglas Ross: Weapons of Mass Destruction and the End of War?

Joanne Brown Symposium: Violence and its Alternatives

Annual event held on Bowen Island

October 2003

Exile as a Response to Violence and as an Alternative to Violence

Participants gathered to explore issues related to "Exile as a response to violence and as an alternative to violence." Invited speakers included David Kettler, from Bard College, and formerly Professor of Political Science at Trent, who delivered a presentation on the German-speaking exile as a contemporary paradigm, and Martha Langford. Martha Langford has published on memory, displacement and the photographic representation of memory. She and Jerry Zaslove (Emeritus, Director of the Institute for the Humanities) made presentations on the consequences of Vietnam draft resisters on the art, culture and society of Vancourer and Canada.

October 2002

Technology and Violence

In the third annual Joanne Brown symposium to take place on Bowen Island in October of 2002, 16 participants gathered to explore issues related to "Technology and Violence." Invited presenters included Richard Lee, professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto, Joy Parr, holder of the Farley Chair and a member of the Department of the Humanities, and Robert Menzies of the school of criminology at Simon Fraser University.

October 2001

The 2001 symposium featured Stephen K. Levine from the faculty of Social Science and the program in Social and Political Thought, York University. Professor Levine brings a background in social thought, arts therapy, philosophy and anthropology to the questions of violence and poesis in the arts and trauma in life. His background in poetics and the theatre provided a foundation for fifteen invited academics, psychologists and and social praxis individuals to discuss violence and its alternatives.

October 2000

Systemic Violence: An Interdisciplinary and Comparative Approach to Understanding, Experiencing and Responding to Violence

The first of what is to be an annual "Joanne Brown Symposium" (named for a generous benefactor of the Institute for the Humanities) was held at the Lodge at the Old Dorm on Bowen Island. Thirteen people attented the symposium. Three individuals were asked to prepare papers; John O'Neill from York University (Sociology), WolfDieter-Narr from the Free University of Berlin, and Debra Pepler from York University (Director of the LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence and Conflict Resolution). These papers along with the Introduction to the seminar by Jerry Zaslove (Institute for the Humanities, SFU) provided the substance around which the discussion and debate took place. The format meant that each paper could be presented and discussed at length and the speakers had the opportunity to prepare responses to the discussion. Two points seemed to be salient in terms of where the Symposium should go in its commitment to engaging with the issue of systemic violence. First, there was the feeling that such a phenomenon cannot be understood in the abstract. While it is important that we attempt to create and sustain a theoretical perspective on violence, that attempt needs to be enriched by analyses of specific types or case studies. Second, we must be aware of the danger that 'understanding' violence can often lead to excusing or condoning it and hence the very practice of studying violence with the aim of understanding can have violent implications.

photo of Gandhi Jayanti bust at SFU