The Many Voices of Peace Studies: Celebrating 50 Years

Clarence Lo

Clarence Lo, director of Peace Studies from 2011-2019, and current professor emeritus of the Department of Sociology, still teaches in Peace Studies despite his retirement. He’s been involved in Peace Studies since he moved to Columbia in 1987.

He says he got involved for two reasons: 1) the possibility and actuality of wars from 1987 to the present, and 2) social justice and race-relation issues.

“We’ve seen some international involvements that have taken, very sadly, many American lives,” Lo says. “My personal interest is in war and peace. My dissertation was on the American society during the Korean War.”

Influence as a Child

Born in 1948, he said the Korean War of 1950-1953, had a formative experience in his life.

“I was born in the United States and was growing up in a society that had fought wars against the Japanese in World War II, and then against China and North Korea. The North Korean war was a crucial episode for me growing up. So, I started out studying wars and the domestic impact, and the social and cultural impact of wars on American society and Americans both fighting and nonfighting.”

He also studied the economy, government regulations, state power, military power, and a whole range of other related developments from the years 1945 to the present.

“That’s how I started my activity,” Lo says. “Friends of Peace Studies used to be this big, vital organization. Earlier in its history, there were meetings when 150 people were there … wanting to do things. We had so many projects going on that they had newsletters telling the story of all the things they did (and still do). They also have a journal that exists to this day.”

Big Names! Big Draw!

Lo recalls one big event he was involved with – bringing Noam Chomsky to campus for the second time. He was the contact person and helped get him off his plane.

“And you know, that was a really great experience,” Lo recalls. “Both for me, and for the entire campus. It was a large event and benefited everyone. We packed the old Missouri Theatre. It was exciting to bring someone like that to campus and see his talks (he gave two).”

Another brought to campus included Andrew Bacevich, who writes books about peace and is a West Point Veteran and retired colonel as well as professor of International Studies at Boston University.

“He just keeps up with every crisis and has such a sane voice, about the reasonable and effective uses of American power, and how we can’t just overreach,” says Lo. “I mean it turns out badly every time we do.”

“He’s been a military person who has the facts lined up and is a level-headed person, so it’s a wonderful, wonderful approach and we will continue to assign his books.” One of Bacevich’s books, The Age of Illusions, is assigned in Introduction to Peace Studies, Lo adds.

Friends of Peace Studies Assist

Lo says Friends of Piece Studies’ main priority is to ensure campus administration, students, and faculty remain in favor of peace and social justice.

“And, of course, one of the things they do is donate,” he adds. “We’ve been very lucky to have extremely generous donors who have built up our endowment, which we can use for speakers, research grants for faculty, and some instructional activities, experimental … you know courses and so forth.”

He says donors come from all over the U.S. as they experienced Mizzou, as well as Peace Studies and other political issues and want to support the program. They are also on campus – many faculty members who have devoted time and money to the university and Peace Studies.

“We are very grateful for that,” he says. “We really like to build the endowment up because that’s what’s going to put us on the map.”

Long-Time Relationship with Sociology

Lo adds the relationship between Sociology and Peace Studies goes all the way back to the founding of Peace Studies in 1971, even before.

“During Kent, Kent State events on campus, there was a large demonstration in the quad, and a lot of student protest and activity about the Vietnam War. But what happened, was … a redirection of sociology classes. Normal classes were cancelled. Many sociology faculty were involved … in the strike and in the protests.”

“Many sociology students were also involved. So, yeah, sociology was involved since the beginning and many of the faculty continue their commitment to Peace Studies. There are people involved in most all the departments.”

“In the earlier years, Peace Studies was really drawing a lot of social movement activity and spontaneous activity, so the anti-war movement was affecting the university and changing the nature of courses and what was taught.”

Teaching What You’re Preaching

Lo says teaching about peace, social justice, and war needs to be a permanent part of campus offerings. He still teaches, many years after his arrival on campus.

One of his Fall 2021 courses – Critical Dialogues: Nonviolence in Peace/Democracy Movements – is an Internet course. In the Spring 2022 he will be teaching Technological Futures, National Security and Civil Liberties, also via the Internet with up to 120 people expected to register for it.

“It’s a large online course, and it’s really exciting because there’s so much interest in the topic of technological futures,” Lo says. “And I discuss the latest development and focus on the issues of regulation equity and social justice in those particular technologic innovations. So, it’s a popular course.”

Lo says he also coordinates and teaches courses – such as Authoritarian Societies, States, and the Prospects for Democracy – taught by a team of five faculty members, which deals with current issues.

“But it’s in an in-depth fashion, where students don’t just read the news and express their opinions. They really go into substantive issues about government authority, about cultural multiculturalism and how that effects debates over authority and authoritarianism, and authoritarian and anti-authoritarian social movements and social change. That’s also a big thing.”

“It’s all related to the current hot-button topics, but we want to go beyond those topics, teach them something enduring about peace and justice, and how we can talk to each other while disagreeing respectfully and expressing opinions in a noncombative fashion. It takes a lot of work.”

Moving Forward

Lo says classes like this, which are cross-listed, are what keeps Peace Studies afloat today, but is also a tall order – linking professors across campus to common projects outside the department.

“We’re cross-listed with just about everybody,” he says. “German, English, Philosophy, Political Science …. We’re really an interdisciplinary program and this way we are introducing so many important disciplines in the College of Arts and Science. And that’s so important in building the college and the campus.”

Lo says current director Daive Dunkley has ideas on how to move the program forward into a department. Dunkley, who works in Black Studies and in Peace Studies, was the first faculty member to get tenure in the Black Studies Department, Lo adds, and whose appointment was instrumental and key in changing it from a program to a department.

“I think it’s a great opportunity to move Peace Studies closer toward departmental status; that would be great!”

“We really are affected by the peace movement, particularly as minds are changed, people are changed, and how they think and what they do for the rest of their lives are changed.”

“It’s a very serious enterprise. It has many different parts, many different roles: public health, food aid, international economics, international business, issues of regulation.”

And if money were no objective?

“Departmental status, enhance full-time faculty positions, teach and research – that’s always been the objective. And we are getting close.”