The annual Hesburgh Lecture in Ethics and Public Policy, established by the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies in 1995, honors the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., president emeritus of Notre Dame, a global champion of peace and justice, and the founder of the Kroc Institute.
The 2015 lecture, “Seeking Peace in Wartime; Opposing War in Peacetime,” will feature Sidney Tarrow, Emeritus Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Government at Cornell University.
Historian Mary Dudziak, in her 2010 book, describes the current epoch as “War-Time.” From the Ukrainian war to the violent outcome of the Arab Spring to the ISIS takeover of parts of Iraq and Syria—nothing that has happened since softens this perspective.
The United States has been involved in conflicts for most of its history. But what is unique to the current epoch is that we are making war in what is legally a time of peace, and fighting against non-state actors in conflicts that elude the laws and practices of war.
These wars in peacetime have had contradictory effects on the peace movement, a movement that was formed to seek peace in wartime. This lecture will explore these contradictions and propose a path for the American peace movement to oppose war in peacetime.
This lecture is free and open to the public.
Originally published at al.nd.edu.