News and Events

By Margaret R. Sáraco (M.A. '95, Liberal Studies)

If There Is No Wind is a book of frank wonder—frank in its clear-eyed assessment of “human cruelty,” asking “What will become of us?”; wonder at the healing beauty of nature, family, art, “the ordinary, the lived in.” In taking all of this on, Sáraco reminds us that “We, the flawed, inherit the earth,” but this news should be as much comfort as indictment. After all, it suggests that “you are not alone,” and that “there can still be great//abundance.” These poems are, in a wounded time, a much-needed salve —David Ebenbach, author, What’s Left to Us by Evening

Co-edited by James Cuno

A pathbreaking call to halt the intertwined crises of cultural heritage attacks and mass atrocities and mobilize international efforts to protect people and cultures.
 
Intentional destruction of cultural heritage has a long history. Contemporary examples include the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, mosques in Xinjiang, mausoleums in Timbuktu, and Greco-Roman remains in Syria. Cultural heritage destruction invariably accompanies assaults on civilians, making heritage attacks impossible to disentangle from the mass atrocities of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. Both seek to eliminate people and the heritage with which they identify.
 
Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities assembles essays by thirty-eight experts from the heritage, social science, humanitarian, legal, and military communities. Focusing on immovable cultural heritage vulnerable to attack, the volume's guiding framework is the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a United Nations resolution adopted unanimously in 2005 to permit international intervention against crimes of war or genocide. Based on the three pillars of prevent, react, and rebuild, R2P offers today's policymakers a set of existing laws and international norms that can and—as this book argues—must be extended to the protection of cultural heritage. Contributions consider the global value of cultural heritage and document recent attacks on people and sites in China, Guatemala, Iraq, Mali, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen. Comprehensive sections on vulnerable populations as well as the role of international law and the military offer readers critical insights and point toward research, policy, and action agendas to protect both people and cultural heritage. A concise abstract of each chapter is offered online in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish to facilitate robust, global dissemination of the strategies and tactics offered in this pathbreaking call to action.

Co-authored by Georgia Winters (Ph.D. '18, Psychology)

This book provides an in-depth overview of the current research on sexual grooming. It explores the process by which an individual seeking to commit a sexual offense skillfully manipulates a potential victim into situations in which abuse can be more readily committed, while simultaneously preventing disclosure and detection. This volume addresses this understudied phenomenon and comprehensively examines what is currently known about the construct. It provides a thorough introduction to the sexual grooming literature, focusing on the history of the term and how sexual grooming strategies have become more publicly recognized through high-profile cases, as well as those in child-serving organizations (e.g., Catholic Church, Boy Scouts of America). The book reviews the various proposed models of sexual grooming – including the Sexual Grooming Model (SGM) – that detail the overarching steps or stages involved in the process. It discusses attempts to define the construct of sexual grooming and addresses potential consequences of sexual grooming, emphasizing how victims, families, and communities at large may be affected.