Forging Lasting Peace: Movements for Justice in a Pluralist World (Bartels World Affairs Lecture)

In our ethnically, racially, linguistically, and religiously diverse world, how do we find common ground? Amid ongoing conflict and violence, how do we foster lasting peace? In our world full of inequalities, what practices of activism and solidarity lead to transformative change? Drawing on her experiences of mobilizing, demanding, and brokering peace, 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee shares how action and activism can shape a just world.

A book signing and reception with refreshments will follow the lecture.

Lecture: 5:00–6:30 p.m. | Alice Statler AuditoriumBook signing and reception: 6:30–7:30 p.m. | Park AtriumFree ticket required for in-person attendance: Reserve your ticket. Join the lecture virtually by registering at eCornell.

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Learn more about our distinguished speaker by reading her book, Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War. Pick up your copy from The Cornell Store and bring it to the book signing! Buffalo Street Books will also have copies for sale at the event.

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How did Leymah Gbowee's protests lead to lasting peace? Read a Bartels explainer by Naminata Diabate.

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About Leymah Gbowee

Nobel Peace laureate Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist, trained social worker, and women's rights advocate. She currently serves as executive director of the Women, Peace, and Security Program at Columbia University's Earth Institute and is the founder and current president of the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa, founding head of the Liberia Reconciliation Initiative, and cofounder and former executive director of the Women, Peace, and Security Network Africa. She is also a founding member and former Liberian coordinator of Women in Peacebuilding Network/West Africa Network for Peacebuilding.

Host and Sponsors

The Bartels World Affairs Lecture is a signature event of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. Part of Einaudi's work on Inequalities, Identities, and Justice, this year's lecture is cosponsored by Einaudi's Institute for African Development and Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, in cooperation with Peace is Loud. To learn more about Peace is Loud and discover other empowering women peacebuilders, visit www.peaceisloud.org.

Bartels World Affairs Lecture

The Einaudi Center’s flagship event brings distinguished international figures to campus each academic year to speak on global topics and meet with Cornell faculty and students, particularly undergraduates. The lecture and related events are made possible by the generosity of Henry E. Bartels ’48 and Nancy Horton Bartels ’48.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell (2008) is the inspiring account of a group of ordinary women—Muslim and Christian, rich and poor, urban and rural—who came together to bring peace to their beloved but war-torn Liberia. The story of their protest's historic achievement is suspenseful and ultimately incredibly satisfying. According to Desmond Tutu, the film “eloquently captures the power each of us innately has within to make this world a far better, safer, more peaceful place.”

Join the Institute for African Development (IAD) at Cornell Cinema for a free screening of this documentary about the women's peace movement led by Leymah Gbowee, Nobel Peace laureate and speaker at this year's Bartel's World Affairs Lecture. Part of the Einaudi Center's work on Inequalities, Identities, and Justice, this year's lecture and film screening are cosponsored by Einaudi's IAD and Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies.

Find out about the Bartels lecture and reserve your ticket to see Leymah Gbowee in person on May 3.

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How did Leymah Gbowee's protests lead to lasting peace? Read a Bartels explainer by Naminata Diabate.

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Discussants:

N’Dri Thérèse Assié-Lumumba, Director, Institute for African Development; Professor, Africana Studies and Research Center, College of Arts & Sciences

Muna B. Ndulo, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of International and Comparative Law; Elizabeth and Arthur Reich Director, Leo and Arvilla Berger International Legal Studies Program, Cornell Law School

w/post-screening discussion with Denise Green (Director, Cornell Fashion & Textile Collection) and filmmaker Katherine Sender (Dept of Communication/FGSS)

2022>Directed by Katherine Sender and Shuchi Kothari

Threads: Sustaining India’s Textile Tradition is a documentary film that follows the stories of fashion designers and fabric artisans as they transform traditional textile practices for contemporary fashion markets. After decades of decline in demand for legacy fabrics, these stories demonstrate that committed, collaborative relationships between designers and artisans can innovate traditional practices. We meet Chanderi Master Weaver Bhagwandas who describes how Sanjay Garg (Raw Mango) refined motifs and color in Chanderi weaving. We explore Rahul Mishra’s collaboration with bandhani Master Craftsman Jabbarbhai to innovate tie-dyeing processes in merino wool. We watch Aneeth Arora (Péro) as she works with artisans and craftspeople to modernize traditional silhouettes. And we discover how Rahul and Shikha Mangal (Vrisa) marry handmade with machine-made processes to sustain artisans and appeal to contemporary consumers. The film features interviews with designers in Delhi and Jaipur; hand weavers in Chanderi, 350 miles south of New Delhi; bandhani tie-dyers in Bhuj, in India’s north west; and block printers near Jaipur in Rajasthan. The clothes they produce appeal to an increasingly affluent Indian middle class and global diaspora by using textiles that reference traditional techniques in a contemporary way. Threads argues that sustainability involves more than environmental stewardship and improved economic circumstances for workers: Designers and artisans collaborate in ongoing creative relationships to reinvigorate both traditional textile techniques and the communities who produce them.

In English, Gujarati, Kutchhi, and Hindi.

58 minutes

Graduating soon?

Cornell is offering a virtual International Career Fair for international undergraduate and graduate degree students graduating before September 2022. Employers attending the fair are seeking students for opportunities in their international offices and locations.

Eligible students are F-1/J-1 seniors, master’s, and PhD students graduating before September 2022.

Hosted by Cornell Career Services and the Office of Global Learning, the fair will be held on Handshake’s Career Fair platform from 8:00–noon ET. It is important to register for the fair and employer sessions in advance.

2021 > India > Directed by P.S. Vinothraj
With Chellapandi, Karuthadaiyaan, Philip Arulodss
"India's nominee for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars is P. S. Vinothraj's first feature, set in a remote Tamil Nadu village, where a rage-filled man uses his young son as a pawn to force his estranged wife to return. Vinothraj films their journey in elaborately nuanced detail and dramatizes women's and children's sly and bold forms of resistance to patriarchal violence." (Richard Brody, The New Yorker) Subtitled.
1 hr 15 min

2019 > France > Directed by Ladj Ly
With Damien Bonnard, Alexis Manenti, Djebril Zonga
Inspired by the 2005 riots in Paris, Les Miserables follows Stephane, a recent transplant to the impoverished suburb of Montfermeil, as he joins the local anti-crime squad. Working alongside his unscrupulous colleagues, Stephane struggles to maintain order amidst the mounting tensions between local gangs. Subtitled. More at lesmiserables.movie/home
1 hr 44 min