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The Complex Ideas Required for Sustainable Peace: Video Series Launched by TC's Peter Coleman Features Experts in the Field

Peter Coleman, Professor of Psychology & Education at Teachers College and Columbia University, has launched a video series, "Big Ideas on Complexity Science and Sustainable Peace," with the posting of nine short talks by peace and conflict experts.

Peter Coleman, Professor of Psychology & Education at Teachers College and Columbia University, has launched a video series, “Big Ideas on Complexity Science and Sustainable Peace,” with the posting of nine short talks by peace and conflict experts.

To view the videotaped talks, go to: http://bit.ly/1Hfc17Y.

The talks explore the application of systems thinking to conflict in a variety of social environments. They were delivered by scholars and practitioners who view social issues not merely as a single problem to solve, but as a system of interconnected parts—people, institutions, rules, history, environment, and more—constantly interacting and changing, yet, in many ways remaining the same.

The talks were delivered at the 2015 Sustaining Peace Conference, which was hosted by the Advanced Consortium on Conflict, Cooperation and Complexity (AC4) and Columbia’s Earth Institute.

Eleven experts delivered the nine talks, about 10 minutes each, on leading-edge ideas on complexity and sustainable peace, at the 2015 Sustaining Peace Conference, held March 26 at TC. The conference was hosted by the Advanced Consortium on Conflict, Cooperation and Complexity (AC4) at the Earth Institute, Columbia University; and theMorton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (MD-ICCCR) at TC.

Coleman holds a joint appointment at Teachers College and The Earth Institute. He is Director of MD-ICCCR at Teachers College, and Executive Co-Chair of AC4 at the Earth Institute.

The third annual Sustaining Peace Conference, organized by AC4 and the Dynamical Systems Theory Innovation Lab(DSTIL), brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners to share leading-edge ideas, methods and practices, and to inspire and support innovative work in this area in an interdisciplinary space. Coleman and Beth Fisher-Yoshida, Ph.D., Director of the MS program on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at Columbia University, are key leaders of the DSTIL.

In a videotaped format similar to TED talks (although not associated with TED or TEDx), peace and conflict experts talk about insights that can be gained through using a complexity lens. They share their experiences in working with seemingly intractable challenges that persist, despite the efforts of many. Complexity science and thinking in terms of patterns, simple rules, infinite games, networks and dynamics offers an opportunity to understand the systems and plan interventions to affect lasting social change and sustainable peace.

Talks from future Sustaining Peace Conferences will be posted on the AC4 website. Talks from previous Sustaining Peace Conferences are posted here http://bit.ly/1dOJWeZ (2012), and here http://bit.ly/1Hfo44Z (2013).

Published Thursday, Jul. 30, 2015

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