Mark Juergensmeyer is director of the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, professor of sociology, and affiliate professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is an expert on religious violence, conflict resolution and South Asian religion and politics, and has published more than two hundred articles and twenty books, including the recently-released Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State. His widely-read Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, is based on interviews with religious activists around the world--including individuals convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, leaders of Hamas, and abortion clinic bombers in the United States--and was listed by the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times as one of the best nonfiction books of the year. 

One of Juergensmeyer's earlier books, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State, covers the rise of religious activism and its confrontation with secular modernity. It was named by the New York Times as one of the notable books of the year. 

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

Abstract: In the lecture I will address the criticism that is current among some soldiers and academic strategists these days that if you try to fight an asymmetric war in accordance with the US rules of engagement or the requirements of just war theory, you will lose the war. I will argue that the good guys can win (not that they will certainly win) without adopting the methods of the bad guys.

One of America’s foremost political thinkers, Michael Walzer has written about a wide variety of topics in political theory and moral philosophy, including political obligation, just and unjust war, nationalism and ethnicity, economic justice, and the welfare state. He has played a critical role in the revival of a practical, issue-focused ethics and in the development of a pluralist approach to political and moral life. 

Walzer’s books include Just and Unjust Wars, On Toleration, and Arguing About War. He has served as editor of the political journal Dissent for more than three decades. Currently, he is working on issues having to do with international justice and the new forms of welfare and also on a collaborative project focused on the history of Jewish political thought.

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

Avishai Margalit is one of the foremost thinkers and commentators on the contemporary human condition, the moral issues of our time, and current problems facing Western societies. In addition to his influence as a philosopher, he is highly regarded for his profound and cogent observations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the broader struggle between Islam and the West. As the author of Idolatry (with Moshe Halbertal), The Decent Society, Views in Review: Politics and Culture in the State of the Jews, The Ethics of Memory, Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies (with Ian Buruma), and On Compromise and Rotten Compromises , Margalit has transformed philosophical perspectives on a range of political and societal issues.

For additional information, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

"Restrepo" is a feature-length documentary that chronicles the deployment of a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. The movie focuses on a remote 15-man outpost, "Restrepo," named after a platoon medic who was killed in action. It was considered one of the most dangerous postings in the U.S. military. This is an entirely experiential film: the cameras never leave the valley; there are no interviews with generals or diplomats. The only goal is to make viewers feel as if they have just been through a 90-minute deployment. 

The film was creaetd by Sebastain Junger and Tim Hetherington, both of whom were embedded with battle company of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, in the remote and heavily contested Korengal valley of eastern Afghanistan. Reporting on the war from the soldiers’ perspective, they spent weeks at a time at a remote outpost that saw more combat than almost anywhere else in the entire country. 

Following the screening, Junger will be in conversation with Kristine Samuelson (Art and Art History).

On February 21, Junger is in conversation with Professor Tobias Wolff.

Watch the trailer.

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

"The Fixer:The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi" is a feature-length documentary that follows the relationship between an Afghan interpreter and his client, American journalist Christian Parenti. This intimate portrait of two colleagues shifts dramatically when Ajmal is kidnapped along with an Italian reporter. The situation goes from bad to worse as foreign powers pressure for fast results, the Afghan government bungles its response and the specter of Taliban power looms in the background. What follows is the tragic story of one man forgotten in the crossfire: a brutal allegory of the proud land and perilous misadventure that is Afghanistan.

Following the screening, Ian Olds (the film's Director) will be in conversation with Robert Crews (History, Stanford).

This event is sponsored by the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREEES). It is free and open to the public. 

The Fixer / View the trailer

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

Priya Satia's research interests span modern British cultural and political history, colonialism and imperialism, the experience and practice of war, technology and culture, human rights and humanitarianism, the state and institutions of government, arms trade, political economy of empire, and environmental history.

Satia was raised in Los Gatos, California and educated at Stanford, the London School of Economics, and the University of California, Berkeley where she earned her Ph.D. in 2004.  She is currently Assistant Professor of History at Stanford where she teaches courses on modern Britain and the British Empire.

Satia's latest book Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain's Covert Empire in the Middle East has been the recipient of several book prizes including the 2009 AHA-Pacific Coast Branch Book Award, the AHA Herbert Baxter Adams Book Prize in 2009, and the 2010 Pacific Coast Conference of British Studies Book Prize.

Her work can also be found in academic journals such as the American Historical Reviewand Past and Present. Her article, “The Defense of Inhumanity: Air Control in Iraq and the British Idea of Arabia” won the Article Prize of the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies for 2005-2006 and the 2007 Walter D. Love Prize of the North American Conference on British Studies. 

Satia is currently researching the manufacture, trade, and use of small arms in the British empire for her book project, "Guns: The True History of the British Empire."

More information TBA. 

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

"Beyond Terror: America After bin Laden"

Lawrence Wright is an author, screenwriter, playwright, and a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. His history of al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, was published to immediate and widespread acclaim, spending eight weeks on The New York Times best seller list and being translated into twenty-five languages. It was nominated for the National Book Award and won the Lionel Gelber Award for nonfiction, the Los Angeles Times Award for History, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. The NYU School of Journalism recently honored the book as one of the ten best works of journalism in the previous decade.

Wright will be in conversation with Tobias Wolff (English) and Martha Crenshaw (Center for International Security and Cooperation).

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

Performance of Michael Frayn's 1998 play. Scott Sagan will introduce the Saturday, December 3 performance.

Open to the public, requires a ticket purchase at:http://www.stanford.edu/dept/drama/1112_events/copenhagen.html. 

• Winner of three 2000 Tony Awards, including Best Play
• Winner of the Drama Desk Award for Best New Play
• Winner of the New York Drama Critics' Circle for Best Play

Presented by McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society as part of the Ethics & War Events Series, in collaboration with Stanford Summer Theater and Stanford Drama. Directed by Stanford Summer Theater Artistic Director and Stanford Professor of Drama and Classics, Rush Rehm. Starring Bay Area professionals Julian Lopez-Morillas, Peter Ruocco, and Courtney Walsh. 

In 1941, German physicist Werner Heisenberg visited his Danish counterpart Niels Bohr in Nazi-occupied Copenhagen, where they discussed the development of nuclear weapons. What really happened in their encounter? Given the unreliability of memory, the indeterminacy of personal motives, and the uncertainty at the core of things, how can we ever know? Frayn’s Copenhagen asks impossible questions, and – with the nuclear threat still over us – demands that we find the answers.

This production is made possible in part by the Stanford Institute for Creativity in the Arts (SiCa) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).

• "The most invigorating and ingenious play of ideas in many a year. An electrifying work of art." -The New York Times
• "Superb. Dynamic." -The New Yorker
• "Gripping. A brilliant play." -London Guardian
• "The word 'tremendous' is often used but seldom deserved. In this case it is. Copenhagen is an intellectual and theatrical tour de force." -London Times

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.