Jennifer Leaning is senior advisor on international and policy
studies at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, professor of the practice of
international health at the Harvard School of Public Health, and assistant professor of
medicine at the Harvard Medical School.
According to Leaning, an explication of the war zone is essential to
the understanding of the nature and trajectory of any society. She describes the conference
as a venue for hearing reflections by experts with deep knowledge of the subject area and a
diversity of views on and experiences with war - views and experiences inflected by a
perspective on gender roles. Leaning points out that the remarks by panelists can be
organized by standard categories of war analysis: preparations for war, conduct of war,
post-war recovery, and impact of war on society in the short and long term, but also notes
that they touch on the following recurrent themes: the psychodynamics of war and aggression;
modes of socialization and training; the experience of killing and being wounded; and trying
to make sense of devastation and loss.
Leaning then introduces the panel chair, Jacqueline Bhabha, executive
director of the Harvard University Committee on Human Rights
Studies.
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