Annual Lewinson Center Theme
Each year, the Advisory Board, in consultation with the Director, decide on a theme related to labor, inequality, and social justice, as well as the life of Edwin R. Lewinson. This theme shapes the direction of the Annual Lewinson Lecture, the Film Screening, the Faculty Research Fellowship and the Faculty Teaching Fellowship.
2026–2027 Theme: Civil Rights, Human Rights and Economic Security in a Time of War
The last years have been marked by various conflicts and wars, involving numerous state and non-state actors in regions such as Gaza, Lebanon, Israel, Venezuela, Iran, Ukraine, Russia, Sudan and their environs. For 2026–2027, the Lewinson Center has proposed the theme, “Civil Rights, Human Rights, and Economic Security in a Time of War.”
In 2027, the Lewinson Center will celebrate its 10th Anniversary since its inaugural event in February 2017. Edwin Lewinson’s biography brings together civil rights work, racial and larger social justice organizing, and an extensive commitment to peace and anti-war activism. This theme aims to celebrate his work at the intersection of rights, justice, and war.
The Lewinson Center will organize academic events, facilitate scholarship, and support teaching concerning this theme and how it intersects with various fields and disciplines. In general, “Civil Rights, Human Rights, and Economic Security in a Time of War” will advance the following unexhaustive list of research and teaching questions:
- How are civil and/or human rights maintained (or not) in a time of war?
- Why and how are certain civil and/or human rights abandoned first in a time of war?
- How does war change the landscape of the labor market—local or global?
- What role does real or imagined economic security play in the decision to go to war and continue a war? How does this relate to the economic security of victims of war?
- How are the civil and/or human rights of certain groups of people (at the intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, nationality, religion, and immigration status) violated during wartime?
- 2026 placed Just War Theory front and center in public discussion—how or what is the role of Just War Theory in the 21st century?
- What are the limits of right-based discourse and legal frameworks in protecting people from injustices and safeguarding labor and economic security?
- Edwin Lewinson was a peace and justice activist—how or what is the role of Just Peace, anti-war activism, and non-violent resistance in a time of war? How are labor rights interconnected with Just Peace?
- What is the relationship among Just War, Just Peace, labor security, and human flourishing?
More pointedly: Is maintaining civil rights, human rights, and labor rights in a time of war even possible? Or, in the 21st-century, is protecting rights during wartime a contradiction?
Previous Themes
2025-2026: Immigration