Dear Friends,

Summer is upon us here at the Kroc School. Whether you are an alumni, a returning student, or will be joining us for the first time, we’d love to invite you to connect with what we’ve been up to lately. In particular, our faculty and faculty-affiliates will be hosting discussions of the following books:

Ronald Niezen, The Memory Seeker (Black Rose, 2023) [Bookshop.org, Amazon]
When Dutch-Canadian Peter Dekker is hired as an investigator by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, he has no inkling of the war crimes that lie in his own family’s history. His work takes him to Timbuktu, where he collaborates with Malian colleagues to document war crimes from a recent and only partly-ended civil war. While he is on assignment, his live-in girlfriend, Nora, gets to know Peter’s estranged aunt living in the Hague and uncovers a dark history of murder, revenge, and collaboration with the Nazi occupiers. As the stories of his family under Nazi rule unfold and the intrigues multiply, Peter is confronted with a war crime in which he finds himself next-of-kin rather than an investigator. The Memory Seeker takes on the experiences of war violence and its aftermath, the vagaries of memory, and the incompleteness of courtroom justice pitted against the temptations of revenge.
Reading group: Tuesday, July 25 at 2:00 PM PDT
Register here

Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Wicked Problems (Oxford University Press, 2022, Publisher Discount Code: ASFLYQ6 [also available on Amazon]).
Ethical action requires more than a catch-phrase. While a generation of changemakers and peacebuilders have set out to Be the Change!, a thousand cautionary tales from the frontlines of social, economic, climate and racial justice work suggest that deep ethical dilemmas don’t always have easily actionable answers. Drawing on the lived experiences and real expertise of activists, educators and researchers, Wicked Problems explores how doing the work – around the world and in one’s own community – often requires tough decisions: between peace and justice, revolution and reform, violence and nonviolence, and between means and ends. Learn more about the book in this podcast or this short video clip.
Reading group: Tuesday, August 1 at 10:00 AM PDT
Register here.

May Farid, The World, Richard Haass (Penguin, 2020) [ABE Books, Amazon]
May will facilitate a conversation about Haass’s new book The World, which is one of the course readings for Kroc’s Foundations of Peace and Justice course. The book’s sections review global history, regions of the world, globalization and global challenges, and world order to provide readers with the essential background and building blocks necessary to make sense of this complicated and interconnected world.
Reading Group: Tuesday, August 15 at 4:00 PM PDT
Register here

Sarah Federman, Transformative Negotiation (University of California Press, 2023, Publisher Discount Code: save30)
Transformative Negotiation advances an understanding of power and oppression as core to negotiation, arguing that negotiation is central to social mobility and social change.
Reading Group: Thursday, August 24 at 5:30 PM PDT
Register here

Looking forward to seeing you all then!

Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, PhD
Professor
KROC 500 Faculty Member