Understanding Violence Seminar Series

The Understanding Violence Seminar Series explores the drivers of violent and peaceful behaviour, with a focus on the impact of trauma in conflict-affected states. Throughout 2020-21, we will be inviting a range of speakers including diplomats, academics, activists, journalists, and policy practitioners, who will bring new disciplinary insights and inspire new ways for thinking through the challenges of armed conflict and its aftermath.

The series is led by Dr Christine Cheng, Lecturer in War Studies, and Pauline Zerla, PhD student, Department of War Studies.

Event Calendar:

DATE	TITLE	SPEAKERS
28 Oct 15:00 – 16:30	Visual Investigations in Conflict Zones	Christiaan Triebert, Journalist at the New York Times
4 Nov 15:00 – 16:15	Violent Extremist Disengagement and Reconciliation	Chris Bosley, Senior Program Officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace
11 Nov 15:00 – 16:30	Victims and Transitional Justice in Columbia	Dr Lina Malagón, Research Associate at the Transitional Justice Institute (TJI) at the University of Ulster
2 Dec 15:00 – 16:15	What Works? Creative Approaches to Transitional Justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina	Professor Rachel Kerr, Professor of War and Society, King's College London Dr Tiffany Fairey, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, King's College London
9 Dec 15:00 – 16:15	Understanding the Current Dynamics of Eastern Syria: Tribes, Islamists & Kurdish Autonomy	Hassan Hassan, Director, Nonstate Actors Program, Center for Global Policy
6 Jan 15:00 – 16:15	When Bad Things Happen to Good Brains: The Effects of Early Life Stress and Adversity	Dr Charles Nelson, Professor of Paediatrics and Neuroscience at Harvard Medical School, Director of Research in the Division of Developmental Medicine at Boston Children's Hospital
13 Jan 15:00 – 16:15	Violence and Peace through the lens of health and trauma	Professor Richard Sullivan, Director, Institute of Cancer Policy
20 Jan 15:00 – 16:15	Getting involved in Political Violence: Irish Stories	Dr Neil Ferguson, Professor of Political Psychology, Liverpool Hope University
27 Jan 15:00 – 16:15	Addressing cycles of violence in (post-)conflict regions from a clinical perspective	Dr Anselm Crombach, University of Konstanz
4 Feb 15:00 – 16:15	Lives and Violence	Mareike Schomerus, Busara Center, Nairobi and Research Director of the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium at ODI, London
10 Feb 15:00 – 16:15	Reducing Fragility & Conflict: Emerging Insights from Impact Evaluations	Aprille Knox, Policy Manager, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab
17 Feb 15:00 – 16:15	No safe place: Prevalence and correlates of violence against conflict-affected women and girls in South Sudan	Mary Ellsberg, Founding Director, Global Women’s Institute, George Washington University
3 Mar 15:00 – 16:15	How my understanding of participating in violence changed: Reflections from research and practice	Dr Rebecca Wolfe, Assistant Instructional Professor, Harris School for Public Policy, University of Chicago
10 Mar 15:00 – 16:15	Peace as Violence	Professor Brandon Hamber, John Hume and Thomas P. O'Neill Chair in Peace, International Conflict Research Institute (INCORE), Ulster University
17 Mar 15:00 – 16:15	Prisons and Terrorism	Rajan Basra, PhD student, International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), Department of War Studies
24 Mar 15:00 – 16:15	War and Genocide in South Sudan: A Book Talk by Clemence Pinaud	Clemence Pinaud, expert on South Sudan, African civil wars and genocide
5 May 15:00 – 16:15	No peace without peace of mind: An integrated approach to mental health and psycho-social support and peacebuilding	Friederike Bubenzer, Senior Project Leader, Institute for Justice and Reconciliation
12 May 15:00 – 16:15	The Islamic State’s Pattern of Sexual Violence: Ideology and Institutions, Policies and Practices	Mara Redlich Revkin, National Security Law Fellow, Georgetown University Law Center Elisabeth Jean Wood, Crosby Professor of the Human Environment and Professor of Political Science, International and Area Studies, Yale University.
26 May 15:00 – 16:15	The long shadow of conflict: Unexpected links between war, interpersonal violence and social cohesion	Dr Jocelyn Kelly, Director for Harvard Humanitarian Initiative’s (HHI) Gender, Rights and Resilience (GR2) program
2 June 15:00 – 16:15	Masculinity, Ideology and Change in the People’s War in Nepal	Heidi Riley, Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin and interim Survey Director, XCEPT Project, Kings College London
9 June 15:15 – 16:30	Traumatic Violence and Violent Trauma	Renos K. Papadopoulos, Professor of Analytical Psychology, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies and Director of the ‘Centre for Trauma, Asylum and Refugees’
16 June 15:00 – 16:15	Reflections on Governance and Taxation by Armed Groups	Zachariah Mampilly, Marxe Endowed Chair of International Affairs, City University of New York
23 June 15:00 – 16:15	Is Violence Ever Right? Violence and developmental pathways in Brazil and Colombia	Sandra Jovchelovitch, Professor of Social Psychology, London School of Economics and Political Science
30 June 15:00 – 16:15	Ex-combatants’ Counter-Stigma Strategies and the Stigmatising Politics of Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration	Jaremey McMullin, Senior Lecturer, School of International Relations, University of St Andrews