It would benefit and uplift every student of nonviolence to read Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener (1853) and Benito Cereno (1855.) Bartleby, a law clerk, answers every unwelcome request with a calm “I would prefer not to.” This resistance disconcerts his boss, who frets, “Had there been the least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in… Read More »
Yikes! It’s been a long time since this blog was updated. We’ve been busy working on editing new peaceCENTER books. Visualize Whirled Peas: vegan cooking from the San Antonio peaceCENTER is now available on Amazon.com. It includes 116 recipes that will help you create peace, salad, compassion, potatoes, community, and soup. We discuss the relationship… Read More »
The death penalty has been added as lesson seven in the new 16-week “university” Class of Nonviolence. There are many good documentaries on capital punishment, but these two online videos would work well with this lesson. The first is an hour-long TV program hosted by the Harris County, Texas Green Party. In a classroom situation… Read More »
The Class of Nonviolence, alas, does not address the environment directly – we typically stuff environmental issues into lesson eight, which is about animals. Another approach could be to look at the life and works of Edward Abbey, an author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues. He fits in well with lesson… Read More »
A Peace Media Clearinghouse launched this morning, a joint project of the US Institute of Peace Center of Innovation for Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding and the Georgetown University Conflict Resolution Program. You can find documentaries, films, shows, podcasts, songs, video games, and other multimedia about peace and conflict management; use them in your work as… Read More »
With all the coverage of tea parties it is an excellent teaching moment to talk about the revolutionary roots of the real Boston Tea Party and initiate a discussion about whether Britain could have been removed from the American colonies nonviolently. (This is one of Colman McCarthy’s discussion questions in lesson 6 of the Class… Read More »
On the American RadioWorks website you can listen online, download, or read the transcript of a story about a young American soldier, Sergeant Gray, who served in the Iraq war for a year, but died a strange death once he got back from Iraq. The story details his mother’s search for the cause of death… Read More »
The 16-week “University” Class of Nonviolence contains a Darrow essay, “Resist Not Evil,” an early argument for restorative justice rather than the more typical vengeful justice. A temptation would be to augment this essay by showing a video clip from “Inherit the Wind,” the excellent play based on the Scopes Monkey Trial, but this does… Read More »
On Public Radio’s “Selected Shorts” yesterday Diana Ivey read Saki’s short story “The Toys of Peace“: “Harvey,” said Eleanor Bope, handing her brother a cutting from a London morning paper of the 19th of March, “just read this about children’s toys, please; it exactly carries out some of our ideas about influence and upbringing.” “In… Read More »
PDF File (1.3 MB, 40 pages): Eleven Tolstoy Short Stories Yesterday I noted that I find the two “War and Peace” extracts in the 16-week “University” Class of Nonviolence uninspiring: neither useful for the study of nonviolence nor interesting when divorced from the magnificent novel. Yet, it would be absurd to assign Tolstoy’s “War and… Read More »