Event Tackles 'War and Peace as Liberal Arts'

The 12th annual Conversation on the Liberal Arts, “War and Peace as Liberal Arts,” features speaker and noted political theorist Michael Walzer Thursday, Feb. 21, at 3:30 p.m. in Winter Hall’s Darling Foundation Lecture Hall (Room 210) at Westmont. The lecture, “What is Just War Theory About?” is free and open to the public.

The conference, Feb. 21-23 at Westmont, is sponsored by the Gaede Institute for the Liberal Arts, which promotes the continued vitality of the liberal arts tradition in American higher education.

Walzer, professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, N.J., has written more than two dozen books on political theory and the ethics of war, including “Just and Unjust Wars” in 1977.

“That book brought just war theory back to prominence in American political thought and shaped public debates over the use of American military force for three decades,” says Gaede Institute director Christian Hoeckley.

This year’s conference will bring together scholars and academic leaders from around the world to address issues of peace and conflict and how a liberal arts education can equip students to address these critical social issues.

Other speakers include Sherman Jackson, noted scholar of Muslim thought, Duncan Morrow, Northern Ireland peace worker, and philosophers Jean Bethke Elshtain and Helen Frowe.

“As American higher education faces major changes, this conference offers scholars and academic administrators a place to gather to address challenges and opportunities facing liberal arts education,” Hoeckley says.

Past conference themes include “The Gendered Liberal Arts?” “The Liberal Education of Students of Faith,” and “Globalizing the Liberal Arts.”

For a complete schedule of lectures open to the public, please visit the conference program page at http://westmont.edu/gaede-conference.