Overview of the Fellowship Program
In 2003 and 2004, the Slifka Program in Intercommunal Coexistence, a program of Brandeis University's International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public life, sponsored the third Brandeis International Fellowship Program themed Recasting Reconciliation through Culture and the Arts.
The Fellows participated in two week-long institutes from November 9 - 16, 2003 and from October 10-17, 2004 at Brandeis University. The institutes were conducted by Cynthia Cohen, director of Coexistence Research and International Collaborations at the Slifka Program in Intercommunal Coexistence and Jonathan Fox, founder of Playback Theatre. During the first institute, Farhat Agbaria, a Palestinian-Israeli coexistence facilitator and Director of Face-to-Face, a program of Givat Haviva, was also a core faculty member.
Over the course of the first week-long institute, the Fellows shared narratives about their lives and work with each other and in public presentations and workshops held at Brandeis. Core sessions focused on the meanings and ethical dilemmas associated with reconciliation, and the unique potential of the arts to restore capacities necessary for reconciliation. By the end of the week, the Fellows established a collaborative framework for the inquiry and a research agenda for the coming year. In the months between the institutes, each team built portfolios and/or wrote articles describing their on-going work of furthering processes of reconciliation through arts and culture.
During the second week-long institute, Fellows shared portfolios that documented their work throughout the year, and offered each other appreciative and critical inquiry on working papers that discussed their work. The primary purpose of the second institute was to provide opportunities to Fellows to deepen reflections on their own practice, on the meanings of reconciliation, and on how to the arts contribute. They were also able to collaborate, strengthen their working papers, and to support each other in their lives and work. The Fellows also joined the Brandeis community and local guests for the symposium Re-Imagining Self and Other: Creativity and Ethical Action in the Aftermath of Violence. The symposium provided an opportunity for the group to learn from and engage with some key individuals who are doing the work of reconciliation in different places in the world, both as artists and as peacebuilding practitioners.