The Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, The Human Rights Institute and The UNESCO Chair in Comparative Human Rights invite you to join us for a talk by Thulani Mabaso. 

“Struggle and Forgiveness in the South African Anti-apartheid Movement”
A Conversation with Thulani Mabaso

Thomas J. Dodd Research Center Public Lounge
Monday, April 21, 2008
4:00 PM
Reception to Follow

Thulani Mabaso will speak on his experiences in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and his imprisonment at Robben Island. Mabaso was imprisoned in 1984 for sabotage and was a contemporary of Nelson Mandela, Patrick Chamusso, and other important figures jailed during the struggles against apartheid.  Originally from Vryheid in Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa, Mabaso currently resides in the township of Khayaletsha in Cape Town, and tells his story on a regular basis as a tour guide at the Robben Island Prison Museum.

For more information, please visit the Dodd Center’s website.

The Dodd Center has a number of archival collections relating to South Africa and the anti-apartheid movement.  They include:

African National Congress Collection (a small collection of memorabilia collected as part of the UConn ANC Partnership in 1999)

African National Congress Oral History Transcripts Collection (133 transcripts of oral history interviews with leading anti-apartheid activists conducted between 2000 and 2006.)

Impact Visuals Photographic Collection (photographs and slides which document the anti-apartheid movement and 1994 democratic elections in South Africa)

Tambo (Oliver) Papers (microfilm copies of the papers of anti-apartheid activist, Oliver Tambo; original documents are located at the University of Fort Hare in South Africa)

Xuma (A.B.) Papers (microfilm copies of the papers of anti-apartheid activist, A.B. Xuma; original documents are located at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa)

The Department of History invites everyone to attend the 90^th Foreign Policy Seminar on Friday, March 7 at 5:00 PM in the Konover Auditorium.  Guest lecturer Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University, will present “Sowing Crisis: The United States and the Cold War in the Middle East.”  The lecture and reception are free. 

The Thomas J. Dodd Research Center and the Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut are hosting a symposium, “Human Rights Archives and Documentation:  Transforming Ideas into Practice” on March 3-4, 2008.

Patricia Wald, who served for two decades on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and also was U.S. Judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague, Netherlands, will deliver the 14th Annual Raymond and Beverly Sackler Distinguished Lecture in Human Rights.

My apologies for the infrequency of postings here– February and March are jam-packed with events and work deadlines, so I haven’t been posting here as much as I’d hoped! 

But there are lots of human rights events coming up, and I’ve been ordering new books for the library, so keep checking back for further information.

The 2007-2008 Human Rights Film Series, “A Cinematic Exploration through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” continues with our first film of 2008, Tying the Knot, on Tuesday, February 12, at 6 PM in Konover Auditorium at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. 

A description of Tying the Knot (2004) is below. 

“When a bank robber’s bullet ends the life of police officer Lois Marrero, her wife of thirteen years, Mickie, is honored as her surviving spouse but denied all pension benefits. When Sam, an Oklahoma rancher, loses his beloved husband of 22 years, long-estranged cousins of his late spouse try to lay claim to everything Sam has. As Mickie and Sam’s lives are put on trial, they are forced to confront the tragic reality that in the eyes of the law their marriages mean nothing. From an historical trip to the Middle Ages, to gay hippies storming the Manhattan marriage bureau in 1971, Tying the Knot digs deeply into the past and present to uncover the meaning of civil marriage in America today.”  (From the film’s website)
 

Human Rights Fellowship CompetitionThe Human Rights Institute announces a one semester Human Rights Institute Fellowship for tenure track faculty that will provide a two course remission over one academic semester during academic year 2008-9. The objective of this competition is to support and promote faculty research projects on human rights and to facilitate the writing of external grant proposals.

Faculty/Graduate Human Rights Research Grant Competition The objective of this competition is to support and promote research projects on human rights related questions. The program is open to all faculty and all masters and doctoral students from Storrs and regional campuses, in all disciplines.

Faculty Human Rights Workshops The Human Rights Institute will fund two faculty-led human rights workshops in AY 2008-2009. These workshops will bring to the campus 5-10 scholars from external institutions to interact with UConn faculty over a 1-2 day period on a substantive human rights theme.

The Thomas J. Dodd Research Center and the Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut would like to invite you to join us for a symposium, “Human Rights Archives and Documentation:  Transforming Ideas into Practice.”

The Center for Research Libraries Global Resources Network and the Center for Human Rights Documentation at Columbia University Libraries are co-sponsoring the event.  This one and a half day symposium will bring together archivists, librarians, and human rights scholars together to address specific needs and unique issues in human rights documentation and to create strategies for the future.  The keynote address for the symposium will be the Honorable Patricia Wald, who served on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.  The second day of the program will consist of working group sessions to share information and address issues specific to human rights documentation.  Trudy Huskamp Peterson, expert on preserving the records of Truth Commissions, and former Acting Archivist of the United States, will be our special guest.  Further information, a detailed schedule, and registration materials are available on our website:  http://www.lib.uconn.edu/online/research/speclib/ASC/events/human_rights_symposium.htmThe symposium will take place at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut, on Monday March 3, and Tuesday, March 4, 2008.  The event is free and open to anyone working with or interested in human rights collections, though there are a limited number of spaces available.   The deadline for registration is Friday, February 15.