Friday, January 27, 2012

Symposium on War Time today at USC

A symposium on War Time is being held at USC Law School on January 27.  Here's the program:


FRIDAY, JANUARY 27
"WAR TIME: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences"
Location: USC Law School, Faculty Lounge, Room 433
Time 1:00 – 5:30 followed by reception.
RSVP: Faculty Services at facserv@law.usc.edu
When is wartime? On the surface, it is a period of time in which a society is at war. But we now live in what President Obama has called "an age without surrender ceremonies," as the Administration announced an "end to conflict in Iraq," even though conflict on the ground is ongoing. It is no longer easy to distinguish between wartime and peacetime. In this inventive meditation on war, time, and the law, Mary Dudziak argues that wartime is not as discrete a time period as we like to think. Instead, America has been engaged in some form of ongoing overseas armed conflict for over a century. Meanwhile policy makers and the American public continue to view wars as exceptional events that eventually give way to normal peace times. This has two consequences. First, because war is thought to be exceptional, "wartime" remains a shorthand argument justifying extreme actions like torture and detention without trial. Second, ongoing warfare is enabled by the inattention of the American people. More disconnected than ever from the wars their nation is fighting, public disengagement leaves us without political restraints on the exercise of American war powers.
Principal Presenters:
Elaine Tyler May, Regents Professor of History and American Studies at University of Minnesota
Lynn Hunt, Professor of History, UCLA
Mark Tushnet, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Reflections by USC Faculty:
Rebecca Brown, Newton Professor of Constitutional Law, USC
Patrick James, Professor of International Relations, USC
Hilary Schor, Professor of English, Comparative Literature, Gender Studies and Law, USC

Response:
Mary Dudziak, Judge Edward J. and Ruey L. Guirado Professor of Law, History and Political Science, USC

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