Helena Meyer-Knapp

Having an academic job at Evergreen, a university deeply committed to teaching, has liberated me from the a cade”mic publish or perish” system. Nonetheless, it is important for scholarly work to be open to scrutiny and comment.

My largest recent project, the study of how “history” becomes “heritage” is published in full in these pages. Various elements of the research were presented at conferences in Korea, Japan, the USA, China and Canada. The analysis gained particularly from comments and suggestions made at the 2009 meetings of the Asian Studies Conference Japan, and the Asia Pacific Network for Moral Education. One version also appeared as  “History becomes Heritage,” (2011) in ed. Tsyrlina, T. Humanitarian Review, Special Issue on Multi-cultural Education 5(48). Perm, Prikamsky Social Institute.

Other parts of my peace-related writing are also available in print. Some conference papers are available on this site at the page called “conference papers.”

My book, Dangerous Peacemaking, is description of the ways communities at war decide to end their fighting. It centers on events in the 1990s in Bosnia and Iraq, Chechnya and South Africa, Rwanda and the North of Ireland, and Israel/Palestine. If you want an actual book to hold, it is available through Amazon.com. If you are happy with a digital copy you can download it here: DangerousPeacemakingText

Improving International Relations at the Grass Roots: Japanese Student Attitudes to Japanese – Korean relations  Written with my research colleague Prof. Yoko Matsuda, was published in Japan Social Innovation Journal, 2013, vol. 3, issue 1, page 1.           Abstract: In late 2012, when international relations had deteriorated in NE Asia, 295 Japanese students at ten universities were surveyed. In response to various questions about the region, opinions varied in five arenas: travel, foreign language, history, current affairs and popular culture. Over 100 raised questions themselves, wanting to learn more about Korea, Japan or the relationship. We make two suggestions, as additions to existing education programs, to deepen Korean-Japanese mutual understanding.

In 2008 MIT Press published Liberating Voices, ed. Doug Schuler. The book applies Christopher Alexander’s vision of practice understood in terms of “patterns” to the practices of community engagement and mobilization. My contributions included patterns entitled “Truth and Reconciliation Commissions,” “Peace Education,” “Multi-party Negotiation for Conflict Resolution” and “Spiritually Grounded Activism.”

In 2009, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, the Institute’s journal Peace Forum published articles taking a retrospective look at peace in these times. My article in that issue compares inter-Korean conflict today with the Cold War. The next year, they published “The Rise of Protest Diplomacy: Populism and ‘audience costs’ international negotiations in Asia.”

Some of my earliest published work appeared as entries to the late and eminent Donald Well’s book An Encyclopedia of War and Ethics. My contributions covered Siege Warfare and Ceasefire, (two central topics in my doctoral dissertation) and The International Red Cross.