Swarthmore College and the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies are proud to host the 2025 Annual Conference of the Peace and Justice Studies Association (PJSA), to be held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from October 9-12, 2025. The conference will welcome as keynote speakers Kazu Haga, Dr. Rachel Elizabeth Harding, and Dr. Atalia Omer, each a leading voice in peace studies, nonviolent activism, and social justice.
Kazu Haga brings over 25 years of experience as a nonviolence trainer, educator, and restorative justice practitioner. Drawing from his Buddhist practice and trauma healing work, Haga is the author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm and the forthcoming Fierce Vulnerability: Healing from Trauma, Emerging from Collapse. As a core member of the Fierce Vulnerability Network and founding member of the Ahimsa Collective, Haga teaches nonviolence and conflict reconciliation in prisons, schools, and activist movements nationwide.
Dr. Rachel Elizabeth Harding, a poet, historian, and scholar of Afro-Atlantic diaspora religions, is associate professor emeritus and former chair of the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado Denver. Her acclaimed works include A Refuge in Thunder and Remnants: A Memoir of Spirit, Activism and Mothering, co-written with her mother Rosemarie Freeney Harding—a book recognized by Duke University Press as one of the most influential of the decade (2010-2020). Dr. Harding also co-directs the Veterans of Hope Project, an initiative focused on religion, grassroots democracy, and healing.
Dr. Atalia Omer is a Professor of Religion, Conflict, and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and the Keough School of Global Affairs. A 2017 Andrew Carnegie Fellow, Dr. Omer’s groundbreaking work examines the intersections of religion, violence, and peacebuilding. She is the author of several influential books, including Decolonizing Religion and Peacebuilding (2023), Days of Awe: Reimagining Jewishness in Solidarity with Palestinians (2019), and When Peace is Not Enough (2015).