Christian Matheis

Peace literacy shows why public philosophy and activism for peace and justice are better together while providing a practical framework designed to make the collaboration stronger and more effective. In this chapter, the authors begin with an overview of peace literacy and then show how it operates as an effective lens through which to read the strengths of various approaches to public philosophy and activism for peace and justice, from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries and into the contemporary period. Then, they turn to the development of peace literacy themes as we find them in the work of philosophers dedicated to publicly engaged activism for peace and justice, especially in American movements for the abolition of chattel slavery, anti‐war and nonviolence, and civil rights.

The Society for Philosophy in the Contemporary World maintains a commitment to pluralism in philosophical discourse by encouraging original, unconventional research with regard to contemporary concerns. Among our members, few have championed this commitment more steadfastly than the late Joe Frank Jones III who passed away in January 2015 while planning our annual meeting. Joe had spent a number of years advocating for and developing a graduate-level Bioethics Certificate at Radford University, his home institution. The certificate came to life in 2014, after which Joe and Christian Matheis proposed to co-host the next SPCW meeting on what would become this issue’s prototypical namesake: “America the Bioethical: Vitality, Trauma, and Questions of Bioethics in the 21st Century.” Following Joe’s death, both Christian and Charles W. Harvey carried on planning the conference with Joe’s vision as a guide.

Contemporary analyses of unmigration cannot accurately portray the realities of border crossing without paying attention to poverty as a common sense concern for citizens, just as the act of border crossmg must be understood from the perspective of people who face real decisions about crossing borders. Through a feminist analysis of common sense conceptions of poverty, this essay exposes the act of border crossing as conceived in the minds of those facing actual life and death situations. Situating this analysis primarily within U.S. American discourse, perhaps those best suited to explain the role that poverty plays are conmiunity organizers, public intellectuals and activists who unport notions of border crossings from theh experiences with impoverished communities in order to develop rich theoretical descriptions of border crossing. To that end, the essay considers the writing of Jane Addams, W.E.B. Du Bois, Suzanne Pharr and similar American thinkers.

A gap in critical border and migration scholarship has been that empirical and theoretical advancements are rarely translated into concrete proposals for critical interventions or practical solutions. Migration Policy and Practice fills this gap and is organized around the core argument that critical interventions and practical solutions must be developed to complement explanatory analyses. A multidisciplinary array of contributors provide practical and conceptual tools to engage the contemporary developments related to migration, borders, refugee issues, and citizenship. The contributors examine multiple national contexts, including Canada, the United States, the Schengen area, and Israel, and explore diverse policies and practices related to citizenship, refugees, and the treatment of particular ethnic groups at international, national, local, and urban scales. This book comes at a time when there is a historical and political need among policy makers, researchers, and activists for such interventions and solutions.

Contemporary analyses of unmigration cannot accurately portray the realities of border crossing without paying attention to poverty as a common sense concern for citizens, just as the act of border crossmg must be understood from the perspective of people who face real decisions about crossing borders. Through a feminist analysis of common sense conceptions of poverty, this essay exposes the act of border crossing as conceived in the minds of those facing actual life and death situations. Situating this analysis primarily within U.S. American discourse, perhaps those best suited to explain the role that poverty plays are conmiunity organizers, public intellectuals and activists who unport notions of border crossings from theh experiences with impoverished communities in order to develop rich theoretical descriptions of border crossing. To that end, the essay considers the writing of Jane Addams, W.E.B. Du Bois, Suzanne Pharr and similar American thinkers.