Carter School Affiliate Faculty

Shannon Fyfe

Paul Snodgrass — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 14:07:56 +0000

Shannon Fyfe Paul Snodgrass Thu, 09/29/2022 - 10:07

Affiliate Faculty, Raphaël Lemkin Genocide Prevention Program, Carter School
Director of Graduate Programs, Philosophy
Assistant Professor, Philosophy

Contact Information

sfyfe2@gmu.edu
703.993.6267
Horizon Hall 6258

Personal Websites

Profile in the Philosophy Department

Biography

Shannon Fyfe is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and a Fellow in the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at ��AV. Her previous work includes a fellowship with the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre (2014), where she advised the organization regarding best practices for collecting evidence of sexual and gender-based violence in Syria, the American Society of International Law’s Arthur C. Helton Fellowship (2010), where she provided legal assistance to Tanzanian officials, policymakers, and the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance to implement national laws that promote human rights for albino persons in accordance with international legal standards, and an internship with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda’s Office of the Prosecutor (2008). Dr. Fyfe has provided pro bono representation for wounded veterans applying for medical benefits, and she has also spent time volunteering on death row in Tennessee. She holds both a Ph.D. in philosophy and a J.D. from Vanderbilt University.

Dr. Fyfe’s research interests are in political philosophy, ethics, and legal philosophy, with a focus on philosophy and international conflict, particularly international criminal law. Her work in this field seeks to provide a philosophical framework for defending and criticizing current practices of holding individuals legally and morally accountable for their participation in mass atrocities. She has published articles that engage with international criminal law, speech act theory, just war theory, and moral psychology, and she recently co-authored a book responding to criticisms of international criminal courts and tribunals.

Selected Publications

International Criminal Tribunals: A Normative Defense, co-authored with Larry May. Cambridge University Press, March 2017.

“Tracking Hate Speech Acts as Incitement to Genocide in International Criminal Law,” Leiden Journal of International Law, vol. 30, iss. 2, 2017.

“The Challenge to the Laws of War by Islamic Jihad,” in Cambridge Handbook of the Just War, edited by Larry May with assistant editors Shannon Fyfe and Eric Ritter. Cambridge University Press, February 2018.

“Prosecutorial Ethics and Preliminary Examinations at the ICC,” co-authored with Alexander Heinze, in Quality Control in Preliminary Examination: Reviewing Impact, Policies and Practices, co-edited by Morten Bergsmo and Carsten Stahn, Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher, September 2018.

“Objective and Subjective Blame After War,” co-authored with Amy McKiernan, Essays in Philosophy, vol. 18, iss. 2, art. 6, 2017.

Courses Taught

Philosophy of Law

Punishment and Mass Incarceration

International Criminal Law

Responsibility and Mass Atrocities

Local and Global Migrations

Introduction to Ethics

Joe Camplisson (1929-2021): An Appreciation

Nora Malatinsky — Fri, 23 Jul 2021 17:53:39 +0000

Joe Camplisson (1929-2021): An Appreciation Nora Malatinsky Fri, 07/23/2021 - 13:53

In This Story

Christopher Mitchell

Susan Allen

Joseph Scimecca

Students and faculty from the early days of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (CCAR), the center that later became the Carter School, will undoubtedly recall Joe Camplisson, who passed away in his native Belfast on Friday, July 9, 2021, at the age of 92. Joe was the very first of CCAR’s planned series of annual “Practitioners in Residence,” followed subsequently by scholar activist Helena Cobban and then by Ambassador John W. McDonald. They all brought practical experience of peacemaking to CCAR and introduced the realities of practical peacebuilding in a wide variety of settings to the campus world.

Joe was able to bring home to the CCAR community what it was like to be raised in a large Catholic family in a small house in a highly divided city. Joe grew up in part of a volatile province that could explode again into major violence and did so in 1968, at the start of the 30 yearlong “Troubles.”

Joe had originally left Catholic school (education in Northern Ireland was divided along sectarian lines) at the age of 14 and one of his early jobs was working in a butcher’s shop. By the mid-1960s he was working as a television repairman, travelling all over the city - and crossing sectarian lines as part of his work. This made him a familiar figure in many parts of Belfast. He and his family were also living in a house in a small Catholic enclave bordering a larger, mainly Protestant and Unionist district, so that when the sectarian violence began in 1968-9 and many living in mixed areas began fleeing to safer areas within their own religious community, Joe found himself and his family on the frontline of this process of “flight.” In this way, he started his career as intermediary, go-between, and bridge builder by setting up an information and tracing service, focused on who had fled from where, and who could therefore be found by concerned relatives and friends, who themselves were often displaced by bombings, burnings, or threats.

Subsequently, Joe was active in organizing grassroots meetings across the sectarian divide, usually involving members of the local clergy and community leaders, often hosted in a local synagogue, but often involving members of rival, paramilitary organizations - the Official IRA, the UDA, the Provisionals, and the UVF. He became a field officer for the newly formed Community Relations Commission (CRC) and in that capacity met John Burton who was acting as a consultant to the head of CRC, Maurice Hayes.

That established the first partnership between Joe and John Burton, working together as local, grassroots bridge builders. Much later, when Joe was on a visit to the United States, he ran into Bob Reid, then taking the new Master’s degree at CCAR at ��AV, and the contact between the former television repairman and the former head of the Australian Department of External Affairs was renewed. For Burton, Joe was an obvious choice for the first CCAR “Practitioner in Residence,” and this was duly arranged by CCAR’s Director, Joe Scimecca, in Academic Year 1988-89. The link was thus established between Joe Camplisson, eventually working from FARSET in Northern Ireland, and CCAR, which later became ICAR in Virginia - a link which later involved Joe in carrying across some of Burton’s problem-solving ideas into other situations, most notably the conflict between Moldova and Transniestria in the former Soviet Union.

That, as they say, is another story. During his semester at CCAR, Joe had a major impact on a cohort of M.S. students and our first PhD class, while the Center at Mason made a lasting impression on Joe in his later work. The partnerships involved joint conflict resolution work with Jim Laue, Chris Mitchell, Susan Allen (MS ’95, PhD ’00), Kevin Avruch, Landon Hancock (PhD ’03), Tim Plum (MS ’16), and a number of ICAR students who undertook fieldwork in Northern Ireland over the next 20 years, many taking advantage of Joe’s local knowledge and contacts.

Joe always remained a staunch friend - and fan - of CCAR, ICAR, and later of S-CAR and the Carter School. But we might, in turn, best remember him as an ordinary bloke who turned out to be extraordinary in his ability to build bridges across daunting divides, to get people to listen to the other side, to understand the other’s pain and what caused it, and to look at, and into themselves as players in an often destructive game. Above all, he knew the people who lived, worked, and clashed at the real grassroots, because he was one of them. And, as Susan Allen said, “He had a big heart.”

CRM

Topics

Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution

Carter School Affiliate Faculty

Carter School Faculty

From Jerusalem to DC, Mason alumna dedicates her life to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Mariam Aburdeineh — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 05:00:00 +0000

From Jerusalem to DC, Mason alumna dedicates her life to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Mariam Aburdeineh Wed, 09/23/2020 - 01:00

After graduating from Mason, Fakhira Halloun returned to Jerusalem, where she works as a civil society and peacebuilding consultant at the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. Photo provided.

Fakhira Halloun holds two contradictory identities: She is Palestinian and an Israeli citizen.

It wasn’t until she began facilitating peace dialogues between Israelis and Palestinians in Jerusalem in 2000, that she realized Palestinian citizens of Israel could be the missing link in bridging ties between the two groups.

“Palestinian citizens of Israel have an important role to play in solving the conflict,” said Halloun, a 2019 PhD graduate of ��AV’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. “We know the mindset of the Palestinians in the West Bank and share the same national identity and culture; at the same time, we know the Jews in Israel because we live with them and a lot of relationships are built there.”

That realization inspired her studies at Mason and life goal of bringing about peace, she said.

After graduating from Mason, Halloun returned to Jerusalem, where she works as a civil society and peacebuilding consultant at the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.

“This was my dream work,” Halloun said. “I’m helping civil society organizations engaged in peacebuilding work on both sides to reexamine and redefine their work in order to make a difference.”

Though she is overseas, Halloun’s impact in the Washington, D.C., area remains.

Halloun was part of a team that established the D.C.-based Museum of the Palestinian People, which highlights the history, identity, culture and achievements of Palestinians.

Fakhira Halloun (left) shows a guest around the Museum of the Palestinian People, which she helped establish. Photo provided.

“Usually the story about the Palestinian people is very narrow, and it’s linked with the conflict,” Halloun said. “We wanted to expand their narrative and bring out the complexity of it so that Americans and others can see themselves through the stories of the Palestinian people.”

Halloun has also stayed connected to Mason.

Since 2019, she has been co-teaching a study-abroad course with professor Marc Gopin that takes students to Israel and Palestinian territories to understand the conflict from both sides.

It’s an enlightening course, Halloun said, and one she also took as a student.

“Fakhira is an extraordinary peacemaker who understands intellectually and personally the power of compassion and the heart to heal wounds of war and conflict,” Gopin said. “She combines that with reasoning and strategy to build bridges across lines of adversaries.”

“I brought my passion, commitment and persistence to impact my reality, but professors like Dr. [Kevin] Avruch and Dr. Gopin equipped me with a deep lens in conflict resolution through their knowledge, analysis and approaches to understand,” Halloun said. “I couldn’t be successful now where I work in the UN without their contribution to who I am.”

Creating a better future is Halloun’s top goal, she said. According to her professors, she has what it takes.

“If peace with justice is ever to have a chance, it will be people like Fakhira—on all sides—who will commit to seeing it through, and bring it about,” Avruch said.

Fakhira Halloun (far right) with her students in Jerusalem. Photo provided.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution

Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution

Carter School Affiliate Faculty

peacemaking

peacebuilding and analysis

Tojo Thatchenkery

admin_alpha — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 23:30:01 +0000

Tojo Thatchenkery admin_alpha Tue, 10/20/2015 - 19:30

Affiliate Faculty, Carter School
Professor and Director, M.S. in Organization Development & Knowledge Management, Schar School of Policy and Government, ��AV, Carter School

Contact Information

Biography

Tojo Thatchenkery (Ph.D. Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University) is featured as one of the leading change thinkers in the Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers. He is professor & director of the Organization Development and Knowledge Management program at the Schar School of Policy & Government. He is also a member of the NTL Institute of Applied Behavioral Science, and the Taos Institute. Tojo is the author of over a dozen books and hundreds of articles. One of them, Appreciative Intelligence: Seeing the Mighty Oak in the Acorn was a Harvard Business Review recommend book. In another book, “Making the Invisible Visible” Tojo introduced the concept of quiet leadership as a key driver for innovation in organizations. He has also written books on appreciative inquiry, knowledge management, sustainable development, social capital, postmodernism, and information technology and economic development. Tojo has extensive consulting experience in change management, leadership development, organization design and strategy, and knowledge management. Past and current clients include Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, IBM, Fannie Mae, Booz Allen, PNC Bank, Alcatel Lucent, General Mills, 3M, British Petroleum, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, USDA, EPA, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, Akbank (Turkey), and the Tata Consulting Services (India).

Tojo is on the editorial board of the Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences and the Journal of Organizational Change Management and is the past Program Chair of the Research Methods Division of the Academy of Management. He has published in journals such as Harvard Business Review. For more information about Tojo Thatchenkery, please visit his profile at the Schar School of Policy and Government.

Degrees

PhD, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University

Daniel Sklarew

admin_alpha — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 23:30:01 +0000

Daniel Sklarew admin_alpha Tue, 10/20/2015 - 19:30

Affiliate Faculty, Carter School
Professor of Applied Ecology and Sustainability Science and the Coordinator of Sustainability Initiatives at ��AV, Carter School

Contact Information

Personal Websites

Personal Website

Biography

Dann Sklarew is a Professor of Applied Ecology and Sustainability Science and the Coordinator of Sustainability Initiatives at ��AV. His research and teaching focus upon realizing ecological stewardship and sustainability at local to global scales. A CCRC- and IAP2-trained facilitator, Dr. Sklarew was pivotal in creating and co-leading Mason’s original Environmental Conflict Working Group and an associated graduate seminar course, a graduate certificate in Environmental Conflict Resolution, and the nation’s first Environmental Dispute Resolution e-forum. He has served as a University Dispute Resolution Project trainer and board member, a Conflict Analysis and Resolution guest lecturer, Dialog and Difference moderator, and committee member for Conflict Analysis and Resolution PhDs. Prior to joining Mason’s faculty, Dr. Sklarew served as an environmental management consultant for SAIC (now Leidos) and the Marasco Newton Group (now GDIT), then eight years as director of the United Nations’ project, “Global Environmental Facility International Waters: Learning Exchange and Resource Network (GEF IW:LEARN).” Dr. Sklarew received his bachelor’s degree in behavioral ecology from the University of Pennsylvania, his master’s in cognitive science from Boston University, and his Environmental Biology and Public Policy Ph.D. from Mason.

Degrees

PhD, Environmental Biology and Public Policy, ��AV
MS, Cognitive Science, Boston University
BS, Behavioral Ecology, University of Pennsylvania

Joseph Scimecca

admin_alpha — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 23:27:01 +0000

Joseph Scimecca admin_alpha Tue, 10/20/2015 - 19:27

Affiliate Faculty, Carter School
Professor of Sociology, ��AV., Carter School

Contact Information

Personal Websites

Department of Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Profile

Biography

A transplanted New Yorker, Joseph Scimecca received his B.A. in political science from Hunter College - CUNY; and his M.A. and Ph.D in sociology from New York University. Before coming to ��AV, as chair of the department in 1977, he previously taught at St. John's University, Upsala College, the University of Maine, and SUNY-Albany. He served as Chair of the department at George Mason from 1977 to 1987, Director of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Resolution from 1987 to 1990, and again as Chair from 1997 to 2002. His research interests are in humanist sociological theory, the sociology of higher education, and the intersection of social science and religion.

Scimecca was an original member of the Faculty Advisory Group at ��AV that founded the Center for Conflict Resolution, which became the Center for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, and now the Jimmy and Rosalynn Cater School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. He was the third Director of CCR after Byrant Wedge and Henry Barringer.

Degrees

PhD, Sociology, New York University
MAR, Sociology, New York University

Mark Katz

admin_alpha — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 23:24:01 +0000

Mark Katz admin_alpha Tue, 10/20/2015 - 19:24

Affiliate Faculty, Carter School
Professor of Government and Politics, Schar School of Policy and Government, ��AV, Carter School

Contact Information

Personal Websites

Bio at the Schar School of Policy and Government

Biography

Mark N. Katz earned his Ph.D. in political science at MIT in 1982. He has been teaching at ��AV since 1988. He has written primarily on Soviet/Russian foreign and military policy, especially toward the Middle East. Among other awards, he has received both a fellowship and a grant from the United States Institute of Peace. He has served on several Conflict Analysis and Resolution dissertation committees for the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution.

Degrees

PhD, Political Science, MIT