First Post!

Welcome to my blog! My posts are one part reflective, one part observational, and one part long winded ramblings that may have little or nothing to do with the main points of the post, with terrible jokes and banter throughout. I am currently a graduate student in the Conflict Resolution program at Georgetown University. My academic interests include transitional justice, international law, human rights, and atrocity prevention. I also have a love-hate interest in American politics, and love nothing more than constructive dialouge and debate.

I am fortunate to have been connected with the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research in Braunschweig, Germany. They are a massive research facility focused on scholarly analysis of educational media across the world, in particular how education shapes a child’s perception of their own national, religious, and cultural identity, and how they learn to view people of different backgrounds than themselves. Educational materials, instructors, and curricula  play a substantial role in creating perceptions of the "other" from an early age.

The institute is quite large, with over 140 staff, interns, and visiting scholars. I will be working under a side program called the Georg Arnhold Program on Education for Sustainable Peace. The program was founded in 2013 by Henry Arnhold in honor of his Grandfather, who was a successful German businessmen and passionate advocate for peace education. The program has many endeavors, most notably an annual symposium in New York, houses visiting scholars, and holds an annual summer school for scholars focused on the intersection of conflict resolution and education. My work primarily revolves around preparation for the summer school, which will take place in the last week of June. The topic of this year’s summer school is "Transitional Justice and Education: Engaging Children and Youth in Justice and Peacebuilding through Educational Media." The selected students will join panel discussions and present their research related to the integration of transitional justice themes into educational curricula in post conflict regions.

Hope you enjoy my posts! I hope to post at least once a week, and who knows, some of them might even be worth reading.