Matt Meyer to Address ‘An Anti-Imperialist Approach to Liberation Struggles'

Matt Meyer, senior research scholar at the Resistance Studies Initiative (RSI), will speak on “Revolutionary Nonviolence – An Anti-Imperialist Approach to Liberation Struggles” on Tuesday, Sept. 25 from 3:30-5:30 p.m. in 145 Integrated Sciences Building.

The talk is part of the Resistance Studies Initiative Fall Speaker Series.

Meyer is an internationally recognized author, academic, organizer and educator who currently serves as National co-chair of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the oldest interfaith peace and justice group in U.S. history.

As former national chair of the War Resisters League, he is second only to A.J. Muste—“dean of the U.S. peace movement”—in having been elected to the top position of both organizations. Based in New York City, Meyer is the United Nations representative for the International Peace Research Association and the Africa Support Network Coordinator for the War Resisters International.

In this talk, the fundamental and existential questions – Resisting What? Resisting How? – come into focus in this overview of the field which serves as the formal launch of Meyer’s tenure as RSI senior research scholar.

While in the contemporary U.S., emerging movements seem clear in part on who needs to be resisted, Meyer will discuss the need to understand the U.S. more as an empire than a nation-state, one built and maintained on settler-colonial principles. These precepts, he says, underscore issues of class and identity in the development of civil society struggles and constructive work, often toxic if not properly understood.

Refreshments will be served. The talk is open to all