In the category called, things that make me wish I were in New England this weekend, this has to be at the top of the list. Check out the topic, the length of the program (two days!!!) and, last but not least, the all-star cast who'll be participating.
The Watson Institute for International Studies, a part of ivy league Brown University in Rhode Island, is sponsoring a two day upcoming seminar on "Front LIne, First Person: Iraq War Stories" from those who served. Click here for the link. Cosponsored by Brown University's Nonfiction Writing Program and The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities. The conference will be held at the the Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, located at 111 Thayer Street, Providence, RI 02912. A live web stream of this event will be available, and archived video will be available shortly after the event. (A later blog entry of ours references some blogger first person reports about the conference itself. Click here for that link.)
Here's what the conference brochure has to say:
Over the past four years, the conflict in Iraq and the “war on terror” have divided public opinion in the United States. They have also created a less obvious divide – between the general public and the individuals, families, and communities touched directly by the experience of war. In this climate, voices representing the direct experience of war are often stifled or misheard or hijacked by those who seek to polarize the debate over the war.
Front Line, First Person: Iraq War Stories is a two-day conference that aims to create bridges for conversation across these new fault-lines and to understand better the capacities of different forms of storytelling to reach across boundaries and build connections at the human level.
Featured speakers include Colby Buzzell, the blogger and best-selling author of "My War: Killing Time in Iraq"; Matthew Burden (aka Blackfive), a leading military blogger and author of "The Blog of War: Frontline Dispatches from Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan"; former US Senator Lincoln Chafee ’75; Deborah Scranton ’84, the award-winning director of the documentary “The War Tapes”; and Newsweek Senior International Photo Editor Jamie Wellford ’84.
Friday, October 19
| 2:00pm |
The Ground Truth from Iraq to the Beltway and Back |
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| 4:15pm |
What Stories Do and Don’t Get Told and Why |
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- Podcast with SFC Nunn, author “Northern Disclosure” & soldier currently serving in Iraq, Iraq veteran
- Deborah Scranton (filmmaker) “The War Tapes”
- Col. David Lapan, USMC, Deputy Director, HQMC Public Affairs, Iraq vet
- Matthew O'Neill (filmmaker) HBO's "Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq,” "Baghdad ER."
- Jason Christopher Hartley (blogger, author) "Just Another Soldier"
- Moderated by: Keith Brown
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Saturday, October 20
| 9:00am |
Reporters and Rapport |
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| 11:30am |
Amplifying Voices and Activism part I |
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- Prof. Matthew Gutmann, Brown University "Breaking Ranks: An Oral History Project on Iraq War Veteran Dissent"
- Erin Solaro, author "Women in the Line of Fire: What You Should Know About Women in the Military"
- Paul Rieckhoff (soldier, author, activist) Founder, Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) & author "Chasing Ghosts", Iraq Vet
- Col. (Ret.) Greg Gardner, served with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq as Chief of Staff for the Senior Advisor, Ministry of National Security and Defense, Iraq vet, military analyst for FOX News.
- Moderated by: Catherine Lutz
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| 2:30pm |
Amplifying Voices and Activism part II |
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- Prof. James William Gibson (California State University, Long Beach) "The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam “
- Mitty Mirrer (filmmaker)
- Andrew Woods, Lecturer at Harvard Law School & founder “Soldier's Stories” project
- SSG Christopher Loverro (soldier, filmmaker) “Hidden Casualties”, Iraq Vet
- Moderated by: Elizabeth Taylor
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| 5:15pm |
Citizen/Soldier Roundtable Dialogue |
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Facilitated by Lorelei Kelly, a national security specialist working to educate elected leaders and the public about the national security challenges revealed by 9/11. Her central focus in 2008 will include civil-military dialogue and educating the public about the role of the military in US democracy.
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Conference Participants
Keith Brown is a sociocultural anthropologist. He is the co-founder of the Institute's Cultural Awareness and the Military Project, tracing the development of US military interest in culture since the 1990s. He also specializes in the study of twentieth-century Macedonia.
Matthew Currier Burden ("Blackfive") enlisted in the military at age seventeen. He served first as an Army aircraft crew chief, then a paratrooper, before joining Special Operations. After receiving a commission as a cavalry officer and serving in Europe and Asia, he later became an intelligence officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). He left the military in July 2001 as a major in the U.S. Army Reserve. He is now an IT executive in Chicago, and author of the popular military blog, Black Five. He has released a book, “The Blog of War: Front-Line Dispatches from Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan”, which captures some of the best blog posts that have been written by active-duty service members in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families. As Mr. Burden says in the introduction, "military blogs were ideal for filling in the gaps that both the media and the military left out."
Colby Buzzell is an Operation Iraqi Freedom Combat veteran, was an infantryman in the United States Army, served in the Stryker Brigade Combat Team out of Fort Lewis Washington. Served a year in Iraq, from 2003-04, where he started a web-log, and has published a book on his experiences entitled, My War: Killing Time in Iraq, combining narrative, blog entries, and emails that evolved from his blog over time. Referring to My War: Killing Time in Iraq, Kurt Vonnegut said “My War” is nothing less than the soul of an extremely interesting human being at war on our behalf in Iraq”. In 2004, Buzzell was profiled in Esquire magazine's "Best and Brightest" issue and has since contributed regularly. In 2007, Buzzell received the 2007 Lulu Blooker Prize for My War: Killing Time in Iraq.
Lincoln Davenport Chafee ’75, a former United States senator, was a distinguished visiting