Historians Against the War

The New Faces Of War 
A Conference for Historians and Activists 

Baltimore, Maryland 
5-7 April 2013 

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Historians Against The War
National Conference
5-7 April 2013
Baltimore, Maryland

“The New Faces Of War”
A Conference for Historians and Activists

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Conference Schedule, April 5-7, 2013

Friday, April 5*

7:00 - 9:00 p.m.: Keynote session at St. John’s Methodist Church, 2640 St. Paul St., Baltimore. Speakers:

Saturday, April 6

All Saturday and Sunday sessions take place in the College of Liberal Arts Building, Towson University, (see last page for directions). These sessions are co-sponsored by the Towson University College of Liberal Arts.
8:00 - 9:00: Registration; continental breakfast (covered by registration fee)
9:00 - 9:45: Welcoming plenary: Brief greetings by Baltimore activists Ellen Barfield, Max Obuszewski, Barbara Larcom, Mark McCulloch; music by singer-songwriter Ryan Harvey [audio, 18MB]; poetry by Kim Jensen; orientation to the conference.
10:00 - 11:45: First set of breakout sessions (details later on this page)
11:45 - 1:00: Lunch break (box lunches and coffee included in registration fee)
12:15: Lunchtime talk by Prof. Rashid Khalidi, Columbia U., author of new book entitled Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East. Title of talk: “The US as a Dishonest Broker over Palestine”
1:00 - 2:45: Second set of breakout sessions (details later on this page)
3:00 - 4:45: Third set of breakout sessions (details later on this page)
4:45 - 5:15: Snacks (covered by registration fee)
5:15 - 6:45: Plenary, with Nick Turse (author of new book Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam), John Prados of the National Security Archive, and Prof. Carolyn Eisenberg of Hofstra University. Title: “‘Where Have All the War Crimes Gone’: Reflections on Historical Amnesia”

* The Friday keynote event is co-sponsored by Red Emma’s Collective, the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, the Johns Hopkins Human Rights Working Group, the Pledge of Resistance, Baltimore Phil Berrigan Memorial Veterans for Peace, Casa Baltimore/Limay, the Baltimore Higher Education Alliance for Real Democracy, andthe Baltimore College Peace Network.

Sunday, April 7

In College of Liberal Arts Building, Towson U. (see above, under Saturday)
8:00 - 9:00: Continental breakfast (covered by registration fee)
9:00 - 10:45: Fourth set of breakout sessions (details on p. 5)
11:00 - 12:45: Plenary discussion: “Building on the Conference: New Faces of Anti-War Activity”

Breakout Sessions

SESSION #1 (Saturday 10:00 - 11:45 a.m.)

The New Conscientious Objectors: Solders Who Refuse to Commit War Crimes in a Particular War [audio, 94MB]
Carl Mirra, Adelphi University (“A Popular War? Military Censorship and the Underreporting of Antiwar Resistance in the 1991 Persian Gulf War”)
Luke Stewart, University of Waterloo (“Let Them Stay: Iraq War Resisters in Canada, 2004- Present”)
Staughton Lynd (via Skype) (“Sometime They’ll Give a War and Nobody Will Come”)
Bill Galvin, Center on Conscience and War (“Conscientious Objection: Then and Now”)
Chair: Marc Becker, Truman State University

Workshop: “Teaching the War on Terror”
Our conversation will link theory and pedagogical practice as we explore content, assignments, and approaches that may help our students become critical and self-reflexive participants in the production and consumption of various kinds of narratives about the War on Terror.
Rebecca Adelman, University of Maryland Baltimore County
Laura Browder, University of Richmond
David Kieran, Franklin and Marshall College

Law and the New Faces of War
David Swanson, RootsAction (“War, Illegal for 85 Years, Now Illegal in New Ways”)
Matthias Maass, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea (“Targeted Killings, Drones, and International Law”)
Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center (“Going to Court as a Civil Resister to Uphold the Law”)

Beyond The Front: Militarism and America’s Economy
Ian Proctor, American University (“World War II: A Shift to Totality”)
Nils Kruse, American University (“Korea: The Emergence of the Military-Industrial Complex”)
Caroline Larsson, American University (“The Vietnam Nexus”)
Nicole Longobardo, American University (“The Entrance into the Gulf”)
Maggie Mergen, American University (“The War on Terror and its Ramifications”)
Chair: Andor Skotnes, The Sage Colleges

The Casualties of Drone Warfare
Col. Ann Wright, Voices of Conscience
Ed Kinane, Upstate (New York) Drone Action
Noor Mir, Code Pinkstaff member from Pakistan
Chair: James Swarts, SUNY Geneseo

“Plus ça change”: Old Habits concerning Torture, Sex and Imperialism in the “Global War on Terror”
Melissa Ptacek, University of New Brunswick (“Algeria Forever: On War, Torture, and Counterinsurgency in the War on Terror”)
Alice Bullard, Georgetown University Law School (“Sex, Gender and the Global War on Terror”)
Elizabeth F. Thompson, University of Virginia (“Deja vu in the Middle East: The Not So New Face of War”)

 

SESSION #2 (Saturday 1:00 - 2:45 p.m.)

Distancing Acts: Imperial War from Counterinsurgency to Drones
Jeremy Kuzmarov, University of Tulsa (“Police Training and the Mercenarization of US Warfare in the War on Terror”)
Hannah Gurman, NYU (“Constructing the Grand Narrative of COIN”)
Paul Joseph, Tufts University (“The Impact of Human Terrain Teams on the Military’s Use of ‘Kinetic Force’”)
Patrick Deer, NYU (“Fail Better: The Costs of Military Futurism in the Drone Era”)
Chair and commentator: John Prados, National Security Archive

[Two complementary roundtables]

1:00 - 1:50: Al Carroll, Northern Virginia Community College (“Survivors: Family Histories of Colonialism, Genocide, and War”)

2:00 - 2:45: Mimi Yahn, Muriel Shockley, Bob Buchanan, all at Goddard College (“The New Faces of War Demand New Methods of Learning and Resistance”)

Workshop: “Understanding and Responding to the Asia-Pacific Pivot”
With the United States’ misnamed “Pivot” from Iraq and Afghanistan to Asia and the Pacific, and China’s rise, the world again faces the prospect of catastrophic great power war. This workshop will explore the escalating tensions from Northeast Asia to the South China Sea, impacts of the “Pivot,” and forces seeking peaceful solutions.

Kevin Martin, Peace Action, chair
Joseph Gerson, American Friends Service Committee
Hyun Lee, Nodutdol for Korean Community Development
Dante Simbulan, KATARUNGAN Center for Peace, Justice and Human Rights in the Philippines
Sponsored by the Working Group for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific

Political Impacts of Modern Warfare
Sahan Savas Karatasli, Johns Hopkins University (“US ‘War on Terror’ and the State-
Seeking Nationalisms of the 21st Century”)
Sefika Kumral, Johns Hopkins University (“War, Militarism, and the Far Right”)
Chair: David Woodard, Concordia University

Militarism, gender, and sexual violence
Ariel Spierer, Tufts University honors graduate (“When Protectors Become Perpetrators: Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in UN Peacekeeping Missions”)
Ellen Barfield, Veterans for Peace, on sexual exploitation and abuse in the US military

“How War Creates Political Prisoners: Criminalizing Dissent”
This workshop will focus on ways in which the “War on Terror” has brought increased repression to African American and Muslim communities in the US.
Stephen Downs, attorney, Project Salam, Albany, NY
Hany Massoud, cameraman for Democracy Now
Marlene Jenkins, Muslim community activist, Albany, NY

 

SESSION #3 (Saturday 3:00 - 4:45 p.m.)

Moving the Money: Can We Change National Spending Priorities?
Business and good union jobs in our communities should not be dependent on wars. We need an economy that is sustainable and not at the beck and call of what President Eisenhower called the “military industrial complex.” The transition will only be achieved if we build a politically empowered grassroots movement.
Judith Le Blanc, Peace Action
Chris Hellman, National Priorities Project
Jean Athey, Maryland Coalition to “Fund Our Communities, Bring the War Dollars Home”
Sponsored by Peace Action and the National Priorities Project

US Soldiers and the Vietnam War Experience
Harry Haines, Montclair State University (“Aboveground and The Ally: Soldier Opposition to the Vietnam War”)
Jerry Lembcke, College of the Holy Cross (“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Historical Antecedents and Social Construction”) DOC / PPT
Tim Bagwell, Indiana University ("An Old Face Of War Talks Softly To The Choir")
Jim Baldridge, Veterans for Peace

Varieties of Intervention [audio, 84MB]
Roger Peace, Tallahassee Community College (“The U.S. as World Policeman: The Roosevelt Corollary Era, the Cold War, and the War on Terrorism”)
Nathan Christensen, NYU (“Foreign Military Intervention in Yemen during the 1960s Civil War and the Post-2001 US ‘War on Terror’”)
Chair and commentator: Michael Sullivan, Drexel University

[Aspects of antiwar activism]
Carolyn Eisenberg, Hofstra University
Claire Magliola, Georgetown University (“The Patriotism and Antiwar Paradox”)
Thomas R. Guarrieri, University of Missouri-Columbia (“Foreign Policy Decision Making and Antiwar Lobbying”)
Fran Shor, Wayne State University (“Grieving U.S. Mothers and the Political Representations of Protest During the Iraq War”)
Seth Kershner (Mass. College of Liberal Arts) and Scott Harding, University of Connecticut (“Preventing Wars of the Future: Four Decades of Organizing for Military-Free Schools”)

Palestinian and Israeli Wars: New and Old Faces
Irene L. Gendzier, Boston University (“US Policy in the Israeli/Palestine Conflict in 1948
and Its Bearing on ‘New Faces of War’ in 2013”)
Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies
William Gueraiche, American University in Dubai (“Information Manipulation, the Israeli Case Study”)
Chair: Rosalyn Baxandall, CUNY Labor School

 

SESSION #4 (Sunday 9:00 - 10:45 a.m.)

Indefinite Detention and War against Iran: How Are These Strands of US Foreign Policy Connected?
A national security state in and out: History will not be kind
Ray McGovern, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (“Attack Iran? Who Dares Quibble?”)
H. Candace Gorman, esq. (“Like Sisyphus: Defending Men in Guantanamo”)
Thomas A. Drake, ex-National Security Administration executive (“Perversion of Power: Perfect Storm”)
Moderator: Debra Sweet, World Can’t Wait
Sponsored by World Can’t Wait

The Politics of Drone Warfare and the University
Derek Denman, Johns Hopkins University (“Drone Research at the Johns Hopkins University
Applied Physics Laboratory”)
Joel Andreas, Johns Hopkins University (“Making Drone Research Controversial at Johns Hopkins”)
Timothy Vasko, Johns Hopkins University (“Territory, Distinction, Humanity: Drones and the Neocolonial Administration of Life and Death”)

Workshop: “Standing for Civil Freedoms on Crumbling Constitutional Ground”
Why does this look so familiar? Workshop will expose current efforts to strip individuals and communities of constitutional rights and place them in a historical context; share organizing strategies to challenge repression; and include a Know Your Rights training that attendees can bring back to their classrooms and communities.
Sue Udry, Defending Dissent Foundation; member of National Lawyer’s Guild, DC
Naji Mujahid, co-host and producer of Voices with Vision on WPFW-Pacifica and organizer with the Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Zainab Chaudry,
Vice-President of CAIR-MD (Council on American-Islamic Relations of Maryland)
Melinda Power, attorney representing activists and protesters, Chicago

 

Driving Directions to the Towson U. College of Liberal Arts Building
If driving to the Marriott hotel, follow these directions but keep going to the end of University Ave., then turn right on West Burke; the hotel will come up very soon on your left.
From South of Baltimore
I-95 North (if coming from the airport, take I-295 North instead of I-95)
I-695 West to Towson
Exit Charles Rd./139 South
Travel on Charles for a mile
Left onto Towsontown Blvd
Travel on Towsontown for about a half mile
Enter campus by taking a right onto University
Parking is to the left and the CLA Building is on your right

From the Northeast
I-95 South
I-695 West
Exit Charles Rd./139 South
Travel on Charles for a mile
Left onto Towsontown Blvd
Travel on Towsontown for about a half mile
Enter campus by taking a right onto University
Parking is to the left and the CLA Building is on your right

From Baltimore City
I-83 North
I-695 East
Exit Charles Rd./139 South
Travel on Charles for a mile
Left onto Towsontown Blvd
Travel on Towsontown for about a half mile
Enter campus by taking a right onto University
Parking is to the left and the CLA Building is on your right
OR
Charles Rd./139 North
Right onto Towsontown Blvd
Travel on Towsontown for about a half mile
Enter campus taking a right onto University
Parking is to the left and the CLA Building is on your right

Here's a link to an interactive campus map
http://www.towson.edu/main/maps/

By Local Bus: Five different Maryland Transit Authority bus routes (#3, 8, 11, 12, and 48) come to Towson University. To find the appropriate route, see http://mta.maryland.gov/local-bus. (The university's address is 8000 York Rd., Towson). Eligible students, faculty, and administrators can also ride the College Town Shuttle.

Click here for a printable (pdf) version of the schedule.


Historians Against the War is a network of history teachers, scholars, and activists seeking to bring historical analysis to bear on U.S. foreign policy and its social/political impact. To find out more, visit the HAW website at www.historiansagainstwar.org.

The first HAW conference "Empire, Resistance, and the War in Iraq: A Conference for Historians and Activists" was held at the University of Texas, Austin, February 17-19, 2006.

The second HAW conference "War And Its Discontents: Understanding Iraq And The U.S. Empire" was co-sponsored with the Peace History Society and held in Atlanta, Georgia, April 11-13, 2008.


www.historiansagainstwar.org