David Anderson Hooker, J.D., newly appointed professor of the practice of conflict transformation and peacebuilding at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies within the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs, will deliver the lecture “Discovering and Embracing Narratives of Reconciliation” on March 9 at 2 p.m. in Goodson Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.
For more than 30 years, Hooker has practiced conflict transformation by serving as mediator, community builder, scholar, and advocate. Prior to his appointment at Notre Dame, he was a senior fellow for community engagement strategies at the University of Georgia’s J. W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development. He has also represented the State of Georgia as an assistant attorney general.
His lecture will discuss the role and power of narrative as an approach to reconciling small and large conflicts in our lives. Hooker describes conflict and broken relationships as a “clash of narratives,” arguing that reconciliation “can occur when individuals and communities can build and live into preferred shared narratives.” Grace Ji-Sun Kim, associate professor of theology at Earlham School of Religion will moderate the lecture; and Mary McClintock Fulkerson, professor of theology at Duke Divinity School, and Jesse James DeConto, a journalist and musician who resides in Durham, N.C., will offer responses.
The lecture is the third in the Reconciliation Conversations: Parts of the Whole lecture series, which commemorates the 10-year anniversary of the founding of the Center for Reconciliation (CFR) at Duke Divinity School. The goal of the series is to explore the idea of reconciliation and what it means in the life of a Christian from a variety of perspectives and to open up important conversations at Duke Divinity School and in the wider Durham community. The lectures are co-sponsored by Duke Divinity School groups including Asian Theology Group, Hispanic House of Studies, the Department of Ministerial Formation, Project BriDDDge, and Students Thinking Theologically about Reconciliation.
Additional CFR anniversary events include another upcoming lecture, a photography exhibition that commemorates important aspects of the center’s work, and a reception in June with CFR co-founders Fr. Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice.