News & Archive

(November 30, 2004)

Dutch Society And Possibilities For Dialogue Following the Murder of Theo Van Gogh

Thursday, December 2
7:30 pm
Pound Hall 101
Harvard Law School
(click for map)

Co-sponsored by the Harvard Law
School Islamic Legal Studies Program.

The murder of Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh has unsettled a country which has long prided itself on its liberal values. The cycle of violence and retaliation has many Dutch people fearful that they now live in a place where violence has become a way of settling differences of opinion. These events have also triggered public reflection on how differences between ethnic groups in Holland should be discussed.

Peri Bearman, Associate Director of the HLS Islamic Legal Studies Program, and Elora Shehabuddin, Visiting Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and World Religions at the Harvard Divinity School, will discuss the context of the Van Gogh killing as it relates to gender, politics, and Islam.

MIT Lecturer David Laws along with HMS faculty, Jenai Wu, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, and Kimberlyn Leary, Visiting Associate Professor of Psychiatry, will discuss how conflict resolution professionals can contribute to this discourse and promote dialogue.

Van Gogh’s controversial 15 minute film Submission will be shown as part of the discussion.

Light refreshments will be served.