Meanings of War: Its Technologies and Aftermaths

FAIN: AC-253408-17

CUNY Research Foundation, LaGuardia Community College (Long Island City, NY 11101-3007)
Naomi J. Stubbs (Project Director: June 2016 to March 2021)

A project on the topic of war designed to integrate course content and to strengthen faculty collaboration across divisions.

LaGuardia Community College proposes a project connecting liberal arts faculty, the college community, and our diverse student body,through interdisciplinary study and curriculum development inspired by visiting scholars and readings on the theme of meanings of war.

Associated Products

The Age of Hate (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: The Age of Hate
Abstract: The seizure of government by corporate power has paralyzed the mechanisms by which piecemeal and incremental reform is possible. Year after year, month after month, working men and women are endure chronic underemployment and unemployment, mounting debts and the collapse of the infrastructures in their communities often because they are privatized. Rising up across the country is an inchoate hatred and what sociologists call diseases of despair seen in the widespread opioid crisis, the suicide rates, mass shootings and far-right hate groups. None of these ills will diminish until we reestablish social bonds and reintegrate people back into an economy where they can have security, including health insurance and pensions, and a living wage.
Author: Chris Hedges
Date: 10/17/2017
Location: LaGuardia, CUNY, NYC

Justifying Torture in the Public Sphere (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Justifying Torture in the Public Sphere
Abstract: By the late twentieth century, opposition to torture was accepted as an almost universal principle. Yet after 9/11, the permissibility of torture suddenly burst onto the scene as an open question. This presentation analyses how justifications of torture entered the American public sphere via the mainstream media after 9/11, largely ignoring the possibility that torture was already occurring and framing it in hypothetical terms. Rather than grappling with the possibility that the U.S. was already torturing prisoners, media commentators posed the justification of torture as a moral and legal concern with regard to potential future action. In addition, much of this early public debate focused on the fantasy scenario of the “ticking time bomb,” in which it is imagined that a terrorist has been captured and will not reveal the location of a ticking bomb set to go off.
Author: Dr. Lisa Stampnitzky
Date: 04/10/2018
Location: LaGuardia Community College, NYC

Weaponized Software and Social Responsibility in War (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Weaponized Software and Social Responsibility in War
Abstract: A brief history of cyber and autonomous weapons, discussion of the moral benefits and risks of cyber and autonomous weapons, and an examination of how emerging technologies involve civilians
Author: Lt. Col. (Retired) Pete Kilner
Date: 3/14/2018
Location: LaGuardia Community College, New York City

Trauma in the Flesh: Veterans, Zoos, and the History of Destruction (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Trauma in the Flesh: Veterans, Zoos, and the History of Destruction
Abstract: What is trauma? How do past injuries continue to shape the present? And what does it mean to study the history of destruction? John M. Kinder grapples with such questions in a wide-ranging discussion of two research projects. The first is Paying with Their Bodies: American War and the Problem of the Disabled Veteran (University of Chicago Press, 2015), a history about how World War I transformed American attitudes and policies toward disabled veterans. The second is his current book project, a global history of zoos and zoo animals during World War II. Both projects suggest that war trauma has left its mark on American bodies, institutions, and ideas in profound and unexpected ways.
Author: Dr John M. Kinder
Date: 4/16/2019
Location: LaGuardia Community College, New York City

That the Past may Yet have a Different Future: Gesture in the Times of Hands Up (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: That the Past may Yet have a Different Future: Gesture in the Times of Hands Up
Abstract: Building upon her work on US Civil War reenactments, Dr. Schneider examines performative gestures of resistance or refusal, such as the gesture of raising two hands in the "Hands Up, Don't Shoot!" protests of the Movement for Black Lives, or Black Lives Matter. Can actions in the present call out and change the future of the past? How have some artists sought to move the violent past toward alternative or "otherwise" futures?
Author: Dr. Rebecca Schneider
Date: 10/23/2018
Location: LaGuardia Community College, New York City

Meanings of War (including all assignment prompts) (Web Resource)
Title: Meanings of War (including all assignment prompts)
Author: Bethany Holmstrom (developer)
Author: Naomi J. Stubbs (content)
Abstract: This site contains information about the seminars, including readings, schedule, and the final assignment prompts
Year: 2017
Primary URL: https://meaningsofwar.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

Moral Transformation and War/Meanings of War (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Moral Transformation and War/Meanings of War
Author: Karen Miller
Abstract: Dr Miller presented on the "Meanings of War" project and participated in a roundtable discussion.
Date: 04/27/2018
Primary URL: http://www.roosevelthouse.hunter.cuny.edu/events/moral-transformation-war-conference/
Conference Name: Moral Transformation and War

Circulation as Solution: Rural Insurgency and Christian Filipino Homesteading in the Colonial Philippines (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Circulation as Solution: Rural Insurgency and Christian Filipino Homesteading in the Colonial Philippines
Author: Karen Miller
Abstract: Building on her research on conflict and the Philippines, Dr. Miller presented this paper and chaired a panel at the Association of Asian Studies annual meeting
Date: 03/21/2019
Primary URL: http://www.asian-studies.org/Portals/55/Complete%20Program%20for%20website-compressed-v4jy.pdf?ver=2019-02-08-153503-183
Conference Name: Association of Asian Studies

Sitio Campo, “Land Grabbing,” and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in the Philippines (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Sitio Campo, “Land Grabbing,” and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in the Philippines
Author: Karen Miller
Abstract: Building on her research on conflict and the Philippines (a topic examined during the seminars), Dr. Miller presented her research at the annual meeting of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations
Date: 06/20/2019
Primary URL: https://shafr.org/conferences/annual/2019-annual-meeting
Conference Name: Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations

CovertAction: Persistent U.S. Attacks Against ‘Democracy and Freedom,’ Past and Present (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: CovertAction: Persistent U.S. Attacks Against ‘Democracy and Freedom,’ Past and Present
Abstract: While a Visiting Scholar at LaGuardia and a participant in the grant-funded seminar, Dr. Sarah Raymundo was a facilitator and participant of this public panel.
Author: Sarah Raymundo
Date: 06/02/2018
Location: John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, New York
Primary URL: https://www.leftforum.org/events/covertaction-persistent-us-attacks-against-democracy-and-freedom-past-and-present

War and the Environment/Opening Sessions (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: War and the Environment/Opening Sessions
Author: Miller, Karen
Author: Clark, Stephen
Author: Imamichi, Tomo
Author: Tally, Rebecca
Author: Tenenbaum, Laura
Abstract: A presentation on the achievements of the grant held at our on-campus annual "Opening Sessions" event
Date: 09/09/2019

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