Discern public lecture

The Institute for Research on the Signs of the Times (Discern) is organising a public lecture on ‘Religion, Conflict and Violence in Contemporary and Historical Perspective’. The guest speaker will be Prof. Kevin Avruch from George Mason University, Virginia.

Avruch is the Henry Hart Rice professor of conflict resolution and professor of anthropology in the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, and faculty and senior fellow in the Peace Operations Policy Programme at George Mason University.

He has published more than 60 articles and essays and is author and editor of six books, including Critical Essays on Israeli Society, Religion, and Government (1997), Culture and Conflict Resolution (1998) Information Campaigns for Peace Operations (2000), and Context and Pretext in Conflict Resolution: Essays on Culture, Identity, Power and Practice (2011).

His other writings include articles and essays on culture theory and conflict analysis and resolution, third party processes, cross-cultural negotiation, nationalist and ethnoreligious social movements, human rights, and politics and society in contemporary Israel.

Avruch has lectured widely in the US and abroad, and his work has been recognised by the International Association of Conflict Management and the United States Institute of Peace, where he spent a year as senior fellow in the Jennings Randolph Program for International Peace.

He was the Joan B. Kroc Peace Scholar at the Kroc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego in Spring, 2009.

This event will be held at Palazzo De Piro, Mdina, on May 16 at 7 p.m.