Erica Chenoweth Director of the Program on Terrorism and Insurgency Research and the co-author of Why Civil Resistance Works: the Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. Dr. Chenoweth will discuss nonviolence as a viable strategy for resolving conflict in today’s world.
Azar Gat Israeli author of War in Human Civilization. Dr. Gat will speak on war in ancient history and role of religious intolerance in war today.
Jane Goodall (archival) Jane Goodall is a primatologist and anthropologist renowned for her work in conservation and animal welfare issues. Ms. Goodall will discuss group violence among chimpanzees, a species that shares 98.7% of its DNA with human beings.
Sebastian Junger Author, journalist and documentarian. His 2010 nonfiction book War features dispatches from the war zone in Afghanistan. Mr. Junger will discuss male bonding as a prime motivator for the sacrifices of battle.
Sam Keen (archival) Author, Faces of the Enemy. Mr. Keen will discuss the role of demonizing the enemy in waging war.
Jon Krakauer Author, Where Men Win Glory; Under the Banner of Heaven. He will speak about the Just Cause, warriors as “heroes,” the myth of war’s benefits to men, and why men enlist.
Nicholas Kristof International reporter, New York Times. Kristof will provide commentary on the insurgency wars today in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Aun San Suu Kyi (archival) Burmese advocate for democracy and freedom and the winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. Aun San Suu Kyi will discuss the efficacy and importance of achieving peaceful ends through peaceful means.
Tim O’Brien Author, The Things They Carried. O’Brien will speak on the chaos of the war experience and how the fear of humiliation keeps men in battle.
Steven Pinker Evolutionary psychologist and author of The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011). Pinker will discuss the reasons for the decline of violence in the 21st century and the prospects for a future without war.
Malcolm Potts Author of Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World (1999). Potts will discuss the strategies – including the empowerment of women – that could lead to a “biology of peace.”
David Livingstone Smith Author, The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War. Mr. Smith will discuss the dual nature of the human mind that makes us both capable of group violence and strongly adverse to it.
Louisa Thomas Author of Conscience: Two Soldiers, Two Pacifists, One Family. Ms. Thomas will discuss the challenges pacifists have faced throughout history and the prospects of their effectiveness today.
Sheryl WuDunn Co-author (with Nicholas Kristof) of Half the Sky. WuDunn is an American writer, reporter and lecturer. She is the first Asian-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize. She will discuss the importance of empowering women politically for a more peaceful agenda.
Malala Yousafzai (archival) Ms. Yousafzai- survivor of a Taliban attack - will discuss the importance of educating women for world peace.