Voices of Conscience Conference

Photo: The Harvey Richards Media Archive

Registration for this conference is now completed. Contact Lisa Gingerich with questions about the event.

The Kroc Institute is sponsoring the conference “Voices of Conscience” at the University of Notre Dame. The three-day conference, running May 22-24, will examine the history and moral and political implications of opposition to war within the military during the Vietnam and Iraq wars. 

View the full conference schedule. 

Confirmed participants in the conference include Madame Ton-Nu-Thi Ninh of the Ho Chi Minh City Development & Peace Foundation; historians Michael Kazin and Christian Appy; sociologist David Meyer; scholars David Cortright and Ann Mische of the Kroc Institute; and Veterans For Peace Executive Director Michael McPhearson, as well as veterans Skip Delano, J.J. Johnson, Fred Gardner, Jonathan Hutto, Jerry Lembcke, Camilo Mejia, Susan Schnall, Will Short, Michael Uhl, Jose Vasquez and others.

The program will feature literary readings from William Ehrhart, author of Vietnam-Perkasie: A Combat Marine Memoir; Roy Scranton, Iraq veteran and author of the book, War Porn; and others. 

The program will also include film presentations featuring Connie Field and her new film The Whistleblower of My Lai; Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple and the films Winter Soldier and Shelter; and David Zeiger and his film, Sir! No Sir!.

“Voices of Conscience” will launch the GI Press Project, the newly created digital archive of antiwar newspapers published by active duty GIs during the Vietnam War. The conference will also feature the exhibit Waging Peace, highlighting information on soldier and veteran opposition to the Vietnam War.

Panels at the conference will address the following topics:

• Historical perspectives and new research findings on the extent and impact of antiwar opposition within the military during the Vietnam War and the Iraq War;
• Conscientious objection, whistleblowing, and moral injury;
• Race, gender and class issues in military antiwar movements;
• And lessons for antiwar strategy now and in the future.

Registration for this conference is now completed. Contact Lisa Gingerich with questions about the event.

 

This research (event, creative work, etc.) is made possible in part by support from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, College of Arts and Letters, University of Notre Dame.

 

 

Conference Videos:

 

Voices of Conscience: Historical Perspectives on the Vietnam Antiwar Movement, May 2018

Featuring Asher Kaufman, Christian Appy, Madame Ton-Nu-Thi Ninh and Michael Kazin.

Voices of Conscience Conference: Conscience and Resistance from Vietnam to the Present, May 2018

Featuring David Cortright, Susan Schnall, Ms. Tran Xuan Thao, Jonathan Hutto, and Nathan Smith.