Steve Sharra's blog

The theme for this year's Peace and Justice Studies Association (PJSA) annual conference, held from October 8 to 10 at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, could not have been more apropos. Phrased as "The Power of Nonviolence," it compelled me to think about the ways in which Nonviolence theory and praxis could be brought to bear in the search for solutions to one of Africa's most intractable puzzles, the case of Zimbabwe.  read more »

Dear Malawian Voters: On the surface, Malawian women appear poised to transform the political landscape on Tuesday, May 19^th, when Malawians go to the polls to vote in presidential and parliamentary elections. For the first time in our country's 45-year history, a woman is running for president, and two women are running mates on presidential tickets, one of them on the incumbent's ticket.  read more »

Public Lecture presented as part of the Associated Students of Michigan State University (ASMSU) "Last Lecture Series." Following the "Last Lecture" given by the late Carnegie Mellon University professor Randy Pausch, the ASMSU, the university's student government, has invited Michigan State University professors to come up with their own versions of a hypothetical "last lecture." Steve Sharra's lecture is the third and last in the series for the 2008-2009 academic year.

   read more »

I was still digesting the news of Obama's Auntie Zeituni, living in the US illegally since 2004, when the doorbell rang. It was after 5pm on Saturday afternoon, and I wasn't expecting anybody on a cold November day at the onset of the Michigan winter. I went to see who it was, and was greeted by a tall elderly man, in a baseball cap. "I support Obama," he announced, "and I am here to ask you to vote for him on Tuesday. Are you registered to vote?" We talked a little bit, before I thanked him and wished him good luck in his efforts.  read more »

When I stumbled upon peace studies as an academic discipline in 2003, I saw the myriad questions I had developed over a life time, some of which I was unaware of, begin to gel into an intelligible, coherent pursuit. I wondered why it had taken me five years into graduate school to learn of the existence of peace studies as a discipline. And had it not been for a dissertation research fellowship, I can not tell whether I would have become acquainted with the discipline, and gone ahead to adopt it as an intellectual and activist framework.  read more »