Saturday, January 31, 2015
2:00pm – 4:00pm, with reception to follow
* The event was a big success on Saturday! *
Read an article about the event here
"Dignity is a human phenomenon. Our desire for it is our highest common denominator. We all want it, seek it, and...
Writing in Stride Toward Freedom, his 1958 account of the transformative events set in motion in Montgomery, Alabama, by Rosa Parks' refusal to move to the back of the bus, Martin Luther King, Jr., described his intellectual and ethical "pilgrimage to nonviolence." Gandhi was prominent among many influences on the young scholar and activist:
"Like most people, I had heard of Gandhi, but I had never studied him seriously. As I read I became deeply fascinated by his campaigns of nonviolent resistance. I was...
In the newest Dialogue Path Press title, Living As Learning: John Dewey in the 21st Century (Oct. '14), Daisaku Ikeda clarified the best way to comprehend the concepts of good and evil: "Even the worst person is not unconnected to good, nor is the best person unconnected to evil," he said. "Accepting this as a premise makes it impossible to claim that one side is always good, and everything opposed to it is always bad." He reflected further on good and evil, saying: "Anger, for instance, works for good if directed against whatever threatens human worth and dignity. If it is purely...
[Posted by M. Bogen, 12-23-14] Writing in the Afterward to A Forum for Peace: Daisaku Ikeda's Proposals to the UN (I.B. Tauris, 2014), book editor Olivier Urbain (left) identifies what he considers the three main factors motivating Daisaku Ikeda's lifelong devotion to creating a more peaceful world for all.
Ikeda's first motivation, says Urbain, flows from his experiences with World War II as a youth. The Ikeda family twice lost their home to air raids, and more devastatingly, his eldest brother died in action in Burma. His mother's grief at...
Donna Hicks, an associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, has two decades’ experience in the field of international conflict resolution and is author of Dignity: Its Essential Role in Resolving Conflict (Yale University Press, 2011). Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, who worked with Dr. Hicks to foster reconciliation in the aftermath of “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland, says of his friend: “Donna Hicks has a gift of opening to our sight a world where those most basic of human needs—appreciation, recognition, and the feeling of inherent worth...
[Posted by M. Bogen, 12-11-14] It's a pretty fair bet that very few people pursue a career in teaching because they want to administer high-stakes standardized tests. Ironically, though, such tests are the dominant reality today in public school teaching and learning. It's more likely that people go into teaching because of love — of subject matter, of young people and their potential, and for the process of learning itself.
A crucial dimension of love, or corollary to love, in educational settings is reverence, a topic that scholars A.G. Rud...
We are pleased to announce that from December 1, 2014, to March 1, 2015, we will again be accepting applications for our Education Fellows program. To learn more about the program and application instructions, please click the link below. The Education Fellows Program was established by the Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue in 2007. The program aims to advance research and scholarship on Soka Education, an emerging field of study in humanistic...
Professors Jim Garrison and Larry Hickman introduced their new dialogue book, coauthored with Daisaku Ikeda, at Teachers College, Columbia University on November 15, 2014. Living As Learning: John Dewey in the 21st Century, published by Dialogue Path Press, brings together the pragmatism of Dewey with the humanism of Soka education to look for new ways out of today’s educational stalemate. Sponsored by the Ikeda Center, the Arts & Humanities Program at Teachers College, and the Education Program at the college’s Gottesman Libraries, the book talk began with Ikeda Center...
[posted 11-17-14] Our detailed timeline of our history, originally created at the time of our 20th anniversary in 2013, has now been updated to include all our public activities for the last two years. While you are visiting this section, please take a look at some of other resources created to celebrate our anniversary, including a collection of reflections on our core convictions, contributed by many of our friends.
The best way to get a sense for the range and depth of the ideas that inform our work is to browse our Thinkers & Themes section.
Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue
396 Harvard Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: (617) 491.1090 Fax: (617) 491.1169