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What would prompt a college student to want to toss his cell phone in the trash?

New research by , known as a pioneer in the anthropology of war and peace, was powerful enough to inspire just that.

Delivering �IJʿ���’s third annual Schaehrer Memorial Lecture, sponsored by �IJʿ���’s Peace and Conflict Studies Program (), Nordstrom addressed the role of technology in conflict from unexpected angles, informed by what P-CON director Nancy Ries called “an anthropologist’s sensitivity to the way that technical, moral, and existential perceptions combine to create a vision of the future.”

P-CON major Dave Esber ’11 was moved. “We constantly celebrate new technology and cast to the side any qualms we have because it is so important to our daily lives,” he said, “but she gave us reason to question this. I know that after the lecture at least a few of us were tempted to toss our phones in the trash.”

Nordstrom, who studies war, conflict, and transnational crime in Africa and South Asia, had much to talk about with President Jeffrey Herbst, when the two met in �IJʿ���’s studio to record a Conversation on World Affairs.

Nordstrom is professor of anthropology at University of Notre Dame. Her books include Global Outlaws: Crime, Money, and Power in the Contemporary World, and Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the 21st Century.

Her full conversation with President Herbst can be found on , on �IJʿ���’s video , and soon on .

While on campus, Nordstrom met with PCONista students and faculty, as well as several of the alumni whose contributions established the Schaehrer lecture series in honor of the late Peter Schaehrer ’65. Over the past few years, these alumni — fondly referred to as “the Schaehrer Boys” — have formed an increasingly close bond with �IJʿ��� over their intellectual interests and the memory of their former classmate, who was a career educator and champion of civil rights.

The next day in Utica, Nordstrom delivered the keynote lecture at the inaugural UNSPOKEN Human Rights Conference, which featured panels on war, forced migration, refugee settlement, and community building. Faculty, students, and alumni participated along with many partners.

Ries said, “Because of her work on war spanning decades and many continents, Dr. Nordstrom provided the perfect bridge between our educational efforts at �IJʿ��� and the work at the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, which sponsored UNSPOKEN.”