Gene Sharp, an international proponent of nonviolent warfare, will be the featured speaker at the University of Notre Dames eighth annual John Howard Yoder Dialogues on Religion, Nonviolence and Peace on Friday (Sept. 22) at 11 a.m. in the auditorium of Notre DamesHesburghCenterfor International Studies. The event is free and open to the public.
Sharps presentation, titledPrincipled Non-Violence: Options for Action,is part of the Yoder Dialogues sponsored by Notre Dames Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.The lecture series was established in honor of the late John Howard Yoder, a Mennonite theologian, Notre Dame faculty member from 1977 to 1998, and founding fellow of the institute.
A senior scholar at the Albert Einstein Institute inBoston, Sharp founded the institution in 1983 to promote research, policy studies and education on the strategic uses of nonviolent struggle in the face of dictatorship, war, genocide and oppression.He held research appointments inHarvardUniversitys Center for International Affairs for nearly 30 years and is a professor emeritus of political science at theUniversityofMassachusetts,Dartmouth.Sharp earned his bachelors and masters degrees fromOhioStateUniversityand a doctorate in political theory fromOxfordUniversity.
Sharp maintains that the major unsolved political problems of our time – dictatorship, genocide, war, social oppression and popular powerlessness – can only be remedied if people rethink politics in order to develop fresh strategies and programs.He is convinced that pragmatic, strategically planned, nonviolent struggle can be made highly effective as a means of lifting oppression.
_ Contact: Julie Titone, director of communications at the Kroc Institute, 574-631-8819, jtitone@nd.edu_
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