Bunting Peace and Justice Speaker Series

The Bunting Peace and Justice Speaker Series, made possible with a generous gift from Mary Catherine Bunting, hosts speakers and events that contribute to raising awareness about peace and justice issues.

"Haiti: Haitian's Responsibility"

Alexandrine Benjamin
April 3, 2025
McGuire Hall West

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Alexandrine Benjamin is a Haitian filmmaker with a master’s degree in film production from the University of Greenwich in England. Her works mostly focus on social justice issues such as human rights, gender violence, and insecurity. She recently directed N’Ap Boule, an award-winning short film that tells the heartbreaking story of a Haitian couple navigating blocked roads and murderous gangs during the treacherous socio-political movement “peyilòk” in their desperate search for a safe place to give birth.

For more than five years, Alexandrine acted as project manager for Lakou Kajou, an engaging media program produced by the small American media Blue Butterfly. This program raises awareness among Haitian children about literacy, math, and, more importantly, about how to solve problems.

Currently, Alexandrine is producing her first feature film, O Negatif, which promotes the full emancipation and inclusion of people living with HIV around the world. She believes that education is the path to a better future for her Haiti, and if her art can be a tool to this end, it is the way to go.

"In Conversation about Truth, History, and The 1619 Project"

Nikole Hannah-Jones
January 27, 2025
Reitz Arena

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Nikole Hannah-Jones is the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the 1619 Project and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine. The book version of The 1619 Project and as well as the 1619 Project children's book, Born on the Water, were instant #1 New York Times bestsellers. Her 1619 Project is now a six-part docuseries on Hulu. 

Hannah-Jones has spent her career investigating racial inequality and injustice, and her reporting has earned her the MacArthur Fellowship, known as the Genius grant, a Peabody Award, two George Polk Awards and the National Magazine Award three times. 

She also serves as the Knight Chair of Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she founded the Center for Journalism & Democracy. Hannah-Jones is also the co-founder of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which seeks to increase the number of investigative reporters and editors of color, and in 2022 she opened the1619 Freedom School, a free, afterschool literacy program in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa. Hannah-Jones holds a Master of Arts in Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned her BA in History and African-American studies from the University of Notre Dame. 

"Partnering for an End to War and a Just Peace in Israel/Palestine: An Evening with Combatants for Peace"

Keynote talk: November 14, 2025 at 6 p.m.
4th Floor Program Room of the Andrew White Student Center

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Combatants for Peace (CfP) is committed to joint nonviolence and uses civil resistance, education, and other creative means of activism to transform systems of oppression and build a free and peaceful future from the ground up. Launched in 2006, they are the only movement worldwide founded by former fighters on both sides of an active conflict. As a result, they were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 and 2018. Delivering the keynote talk will be 2 activists: Elie Avidor and Aziz Abu Sarah.

Elie Avidor is an Israeli engineer and former combatant who grew up in Haifa. He fought and was wounded during the Yom Kippur war at Mt. Hermon. He is a member of CfP’s bi-national activists leadership team and now focuses on helping Palestinian shepherd communities resist Israeli ethnic cleansing and settler violence in the Jordan Valley using “protective presence.” 

Aziz Abu Sarah is a Palestinian peacebuilder, author and mission-focused entrepreneur whose brother was killed by Israeli soldiers. His journey from revenge to peacebuilding has led him to implement mission-focused initiatives in Palestine, Israel and 60 other countries. Along with Maoz Inon and Combatants for Peace more broadly, Aziz is leading a movement calling for peace and reconciliation, rejecting vicious cycles of violence. Aziz has been named among the “500 Most Influential Muslims in the World” by the Royal Strategic Studies Centre in Jordan each year since 2010 for his work in cultural education and conflict resolution. He is a National Geographic Explorer and Ted Fellow. Harnessing the transformative power of travel, in 2009 Aziz co-founded MEJDI Tours, a leader of responsible travel pioneering the Dual Narrative™ method and innovative approaches to use travel as a peacemaking tool. He is co-founder of InterAct International, a non profit advancing sustainability, education, and cross cultural connections. Aziz has authored two books; Crossing Boundaries: A Traveler’s Guide to World Peace (2020) and Strangers, Neighbors, Friends: Muslim-Christian-Jewish Reflections on Compassion and Peace (2018). He has served as Executive Director at the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, as the Chairman for the Parents Circle–Family Forum, and as a board member of Combatants for Peace. He was also recognized by former United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon for his work in peacebuilding.

Film screening: There is Another Way
November 14, 2024 at 12:15 p.m.
Loyola Notre Dame Library Ridley Auditorium (L045)

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There is Another Way, directed by Stephen Apkon of Reconsider, builds on the award-winning film Disturbing the Peace (2016), which features Combatants for Peace members and documents “Israelis and Palestinians, born into conflict, sworn to be enemies, who laid down their weapons and challenged their fate—knowing that no one is free unless everyone is free.” The screening, which is free and open to the public, will be followed by a Q&A with the film director and two activists.

"Singing into the Wound: An Evening of Poetry & Conversation with Brian Turner"

Brian Turner
October 24, 2024
4th Floor Program Room of the Andrew White Student Center

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Brian Turner is an award-winning poet and memoirist. His keynote talk will explore conflict, love, and resilience through storytelling and verse. Turner is the author of five collections of poetry, including Here, Bullet, a first-person account of his experience as a soldier during the Iraq War, for which he received the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award. His poems and essays have been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, National Geographic, and Harper’s Magazine, among other journals, and he was featured in the documentary film Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, which was nominated for an Academy Award.  A Guggenheim Fellow, Turner has received a USA Hillcrest Fellowship in Literature, the Amy Lowell Traveling Fellowship, the Poets’ Prize, and a Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation.