Greetings from the Chair

Dear Peace and Conflict Studies Community,

Thank you for another wonderful academic year! As I close out my three-year term as Chair, I’d like to once again express my appreciation for all of the wonderful students, staff, and faculty whose hard work and boundless curiosity fuel the Department’s work.

Our day-to-day operations continued to thrive thanks to Israa Al-Helli’s contributions as Administrative Assistant, Dr. L Fahn-Lai’s creative direction as Communications Consultant, and colleagues within our department and from across the College whose work expanded our understanding of peace and conflict studies.

This spring brought a moment of bittersweet transition. On May 8, PCS co-hosted a celebration honoring Dr. Ellen Ross, the Howard M. and Charles F. Jenkins Professor of Quakerism and Peace Studies, on the occasion of her retirement. We are profoundly grateful for everything she has given to PCS and to Swarthmore.

The centerpiece of our year was hosting the Peace and Justice Studies Association Annual Conference on campus October 10–12. It was a joy to welcome over 400 students, scholars, practitioners, and policymakers from across the country, and to see our department’s commitment to research, education, and action made visible. Our Palestine/Israel event series returned in the fall with paired panels on the Future of Israel and the Future of Palestine, bringing together leading scholars and practitioners for meaningful conversation. The spring brought us Professor Susannah Heschel on the legacy of Rabbi Abraham Heschel, and the 2026 Rose Public Health Lecture by Dr. Arthur Kleinman reflecting on five decades of meaning-centered medical anthropology at Harvard. Throughout the year, our community gathered for book talks with Dr. Abdulhamit Arvas, Dr. Christopher Dole, Anton Flores-Maisonet, Dr. Zainab Saleh, and Drs. Rebecca Buxton and Samuel Ritholtz; and for a talk by Dr. Pedro dos Santos on research and activism in Minnesota.

Our community life thrived in other ways as well. Professor Michael Wilson Becerril organized a fall film series, Dinner and a Movie, built around Patricio Guzmán’s The Battle of Chile. We joined Swarthmore Friends Meeting and partner Quaker organizations in co-hosting a Quaker Trans Day of Visibility. And the department gathered over sushi and ice cream for our third annual fall study break in the Intercultural Center.

Our students continue to make us deeply proud. For instance, Mina Bakhshi ’26 received the 2025 PJSA Next Generation Peacemaker Award in the fall, while this spring we celebrated our two senior honors majors, Katie Kerman ’26 and Nikos Manganiotis ’26, both of whom earned High Honors. The 2026 PCS Departmental Awards recognized Nikos Manganiotis ’26 (Outstanding Senior), Gabriella Vasquez ’27 (Outstanding Junior), Joe Fox ’27 (Elise Boulding Award), and Chung Sze Kwok ’27 (Bayard Rustin Award). We are delighted that Chung Sze was also selected as a student representative on the search committee that will choose Swarthmore’s next president.

I will spend my 2026–2027 sabbatical year as a Visiting Scholar at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford. Please be in touch if you find yourself in or near London.

And I’m grateful to my colleague, Dr. Lee Smithey, who will serve as Department Chair starting July 1, 2026.

As we look toward the fall, we are excited about the Fall 2026 course slate and the continued growth of our department’s community. Please enjoy this collage of events and announcements as a look backward on our year, and have a relaxing summer.

Warmest wishes,
Sa’ed Atshan