2021 Fall Quarter World Issues Forum Forum Lineup

Fairhaven College launched the World Issues Forum, Western Washington University’s global justice speaker series in September 2001. Fall 2021 marks the twentieth anniversary of World Issues since it was begun and nurtured by Shirley Osterhaus with support from Fairhaven College and dean Ron Riggins.

The WIF challenges students, faculty, staff, and community members to be active and engaged global citizens. Distinguished guest speakers address urgent global justice topics including planetary survival; decolonization and anti-racism; human rights; migrations; and the world economy.

For Fall 2021 we have a fantastic line up of speakers appropriate to the twentieth anniversary of World Issues, and al-Qaeda’s attacks on the United States, and the failures of the global war on terror. We have two speakers on Indigenous Nations and settler colonialism, one on art and Islamophobia, a speaker on Afghanistan’s transitions, and an ACLU lawyer on racism in our immigration policies. Fairhaven professor, Yanara Friedland, will read from her new book Groundswell on border landscapes, and two historians will compare accountability for human rights violations in Latin America.

We gratefully thank our colleagues Pedro Cameselle, Ceci Lopez, and Robert Snyderman for speaker nominations. Thanks also to our cohosts: Canadian American Studies; Education and Social Justice; the Western Gallery and Art 109; Department of History; Latin American Studies; Salish Sea Studies; WWU Tribal Relations Executive; the Ray Wolpow Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity; and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.