WORCESTER, Mass. – The Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at the College of the Holy Cross invites public participation in “Moral Responsibility for the Legacies of War: Vietnam to Iraq,” a four-part symposium and online forum to be held between Feb. 3-19.
The four-part symposium will center on post-war ethics and policy, including two case studies: the lasting ramifications of Agent Orange use during the Vietnam War; and post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health risks among veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The talks will be recorded for podcast and available at www.holycross.edu/crec. Beginning Feb. 4, a corresponding web log will invite an international dialogue to continue online.
“Just War theory, a doctrine of military ethics that developed out of Catholic tradition, offers articulate perspectives on when it is allowable to go to war, and how one ought to behave in war, but it has far less to say about what obligations follow afterwards,” said Thomas M. Landy, interim director of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture. “The campus symposium is an opportunity to think about those moral obligations, and to address specific legacies of war, such as the environmental impact of Agent Orange and forms of post-traumatic stress.”
Each event in the series is free and open to the public:
- Tuesday, Feb. 3; 7:30 p.m., Rehm Library Moral Frameworks for Thinking About the Legacies of War — Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Religion and Public Life at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and former dean of the Harvard Divinity School, will provide an overview of current ethics and policy perspectives on post-war obligations.
- Tuesday, Feb. 10; 7:30 p.m., Rehm Library Agent Orange: Consciousness and Conscience — Diane Fox, visiting professor of history and anthropology at Holy Cross, will discuss the use of the chemical defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam war and how that treatment continues to affect the lives of the Vietnamese people and U.S. veterans today.
- Tuesday, Feb. 17; 7:30 p.m., Rehm Library U.S. Veterans Returning from the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — This panel discussion on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other mental health risks associated with wartime service will feature Brian P. Marx, a behavioral scientist for the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; Bryan P. Shea, a psychologist at St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center in New York who has just returned from a tour of duty in Iraq as a military psychologist seeing soldiers in the field; and Bryan Adams, an Iraq War veteran and Purple Heart recipient who is the face of a public awareness campaign for PTSD.
- Thursday, Feb. 19; 7:30 p.m., Rehm Library “Where do we go from here?” — Margaret A. Post, director of the Donelan Office of Community Based Learning at Holy Cross, will moderate a dialogue of reactions and ideas with a student panel and audience members.
To learn more about this symposium and to sign up for email updates from the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, visit www.holycross.edu/crec.
About The Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture:
Established in 2001 and housed in Smith Hall, the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture provides resources for faculty and course development, sponsors conferences and college-wide teaching events, hosts visiting fellows, and coordinates a number of campus lecture series. Rooted in the College's commitment to invite conversation about basic human questions, the Center welcomes persons of all faiths and seeks to foster dialogue that acknowledges and respects differences, providing a forum for intellectual exchange that is interreligious, interdisciplinary, intercultural, and international in scope. The Center also brings members of the Holy Cross community into conversation with the Greater Worcester community, the academic community, and the wider world to examine the role of faith and inquiry in higher education and in the larger culture.
