David Cortright, peace studies scholar, to lecture on campus

On Thursday, March 7, at 4:15 p.m. peace scholar, teacher, and activist David Cortright will give a lecture titled "Prospects for Peace in the Second Obama Administration" in ARH Room 302 on the Grinnell College campus. His wife, Karen Jacob, national chair of Women's Action for New Directions, will join Cortright as she will meet with students for International Women's Week.

David Cortright, director of policy studies at Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, has a long history in peace-related issues. As an active duty soldier during the Vietnam War, he spoke against that conflict, and in 1978 he became executive director of SANE, the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. He was active in the nuclear freeze movement of the 1980s, and in 2002 helped to create Win Without War, a coalition of national organizations opposing the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He has served as director of the Fourth Freedom Forum and continues to serve as chairman of the Forum's board of directors. Cortright has also provided research services to the foreign ministries of Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland, and has served as consultant and advisor to agencies of the United Nations, the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, the International Peace Academy, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Cortright has written widely about nonviolent social change, nuclear disarmament, and the use of multilateral sanctions and incentives as tools of international peacemaking. In total, he has authored and edited 17 books, most recently Ending Obama's War (May 2011, Paradigm) and Towards Nuclear Zero (Routledge, 2010). In addition, he is the editor of Peace Policy, the Kroc Institute's online journal. He blogs at davidcortright.net.

The Alumni Recitation Hall is located at 1226 Park St. on the Grinnell College campus. Grinnell welcomes the participation of people with disabilities. Information on parking and accessibility is available on the college website. Accommodation requests may be made to Conference Operations at 641-269-3235 or calendar@grinnell.edu.

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