Peace Corps at 50: Legacies and Futures of International Civic Engagement
Sponsored by the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement, the Career Development Center, the Office of International Education, the Department of History, the School of Arts & Sciences and UR Museums, the event will be from 4-6 p.m. in the Carole Weinstein International Center Gallery.
A panel will discuss the history of the Peace Corps, its effects on international civic engagement and how students can get involved. The panel includes returning Peace Corps volunteer David Shame, UR Peace Corps recruiter Benjamin Burnes, history professor Nicole Sackley and anthropology professor Jan French.
David Shames graduated from the University of Richmond with a history degree in 2009 and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal between 2009 and 2011. Having recently returned to the United States, Shames now lives in Austin, Texas, where he works as a freelance marketing developer for several high tech companies. He is also launching a business that markets products made from the Moringa Oleifera plant, to which he was first introduced while living in Senegal.
Benjamin Burnes works as a recruiter for the Peace Corps and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania.
Jan Hoffman French is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Richmond. Her research focuses on Latin America, legal and political anthropology, human rights and anthropological theory. Her new book, Legalizing Identities: Becoming Black or Indian in Brazil’s Northeast, shows how law can successfully serve as the momentum for the transformation of cultural practices and collective identity. Before becoming an anthropologist, French practiced law.
Nicole Sackley is an assistant professor of history and American studies at the University of Richmond. She is the author of several articles on the history of international development and is currently completing a book, Development Fields: American Social Scientists and the Practice of Modernization in the Cold War.