director message | thinking
30th anniversary | margolis | fellowships | looking ahead

message from the director

Julia Elyachar

GPACS was founded in 1983 by a group of scientists, writers, historians, and social scientists at UCI who were worried about the possibility of nuclear war, unhappy with the role of the UCs with the Weapons Labs at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore, and determined to do something about it as scholars and as citizens. For more than 30 years, GPACS – or CGPACS as it later became—has played a quiet but vital role on campus, across the UCs, in California, and on national scene to advocate for international peace as intellectuals and as citizens.

GPACS was established as part of a UC-wide network of sister-organizations, under the umbrella of IGCC at UC San Diego. This network of UC organizations against Nuclear War and for Peace was funded, in part, through a portion of management fees paid to the UCs by the Weapons Labs. UC no longer manages the labs, and the Cold War was declared over long ago. Today, in a time of heightened nuclear tensions, widespread talk of limited nuclear war, and increasing evidence of possible return of the Cold War, the founding mission of CGPACS remains as vital as ever.

From the start, GPACS leaders argued that global peace was impossible without global environmental sustainability. Peter Bowler, one of GPACS' founders (see timeline for full list), taught students about the environment, and installed solar panels on campus back in 1983. They knew, as writer William deBuys reminded us this year, that we have to touch hearts as well, when we convey facts about the security risks of climate change, and brought great writers to campus. They used their scientific expertise to argue for a military free space.

Today, these challenges to us as scientists, writers, and artists remain. As William deBuys made clear to us in 2014, “Global warming, and the problem of peak water, are realities we face now: today. To grasp these realities, the cool language of analytic prose is not enough. To think the unthinkable, social science, science, and policy analysis are not enough. We need the power of poetry married to science and analytic prose to imagine, and to feel, the new world in which we live, in which conflicts over water in a drying Southwest give us a picture we can perhaps better understand of realities fueling conflict the world over.

thinking past the unthinkable:
opportunities and challenges for global peace

In the past two years, CGPACS has organized its activities around the theme of "Thinking Past the Unthinkable: Opportunities and Challenges for Global Peace." In addition to our core concern with nuclear power and nuclear weapons, we focused on three, mutually impactful areas: “Rethinking Peace and Conflict after the Arab Spring," "Biosecurity and the New Realities of Global Warming," and "Financial Crisis: Peace and Conflict in the New Normal."

We brought a number of important speakers to campus to speak with us about these issues. CGPACS also used those visits to create synergies among students working in different departments and schools who usually known little about each others’ research. CGPACS has a long history of giving students chances for direct interaction with scholars and public figures, such as with the GPACS Public Forum (now ISPF), and meetings at the GPACS Peace House (now the International Peace and Conflict Studies House), concerned with peace and conflict. Now, as CGPACS, we focus more on Graduate Student research and activity, we hold “CGPACS Reading Groups" with speakers for students and faculty linked to each campus visit.

peace and conflict after the arab spring

Elliot Colla, Georgetown University

"Writing the Egyptian Revolution, or: The Revolution is Not a Story"

Bassam Haddad, George Mason University

"The Syrian Tragedy: Causes, Dynamics, and Consequences"

Hazem Kandil, Cambridge University

"Unlocking the World of Muslim Brothers"

Asef Bayat, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

"Whatever Happened to the Arab Spring?"

James Gelvin, UCLA

"Reassessing the Recent History of Political Islam in Light of the Arab Uprisings"

former Swedish Ambassador Mathais Mossberg and UCI Professor of History Mark LeVine

"One Land, Two States: Israel and Palestine as Parallel States"

biosecurity and the new realities of global warming

Jessica Barnes, University of Southern Carolina

"The Everyday Politics of Water in Egypt"

Cary Wolfe, Rice University and Gregg Lambert

"Biosecurities"

Conference convened by Valerie Olson, UCI

"Like Oil and Water"

William deBuys, award winning Author and conservationist

"Whiskey's fer Drinkin' and Water's fer Fightin': California, Climate Change, and Global Aridity"

financial crisis: peace and conflict in the new normal

Stergios Skaperdas, UCI

“Greece and the Eurozone: Background, Context, and Prospects”

Timothy Mitchell, Columbia University

“A Brief History of Capitalization: From Colonialism to Life Itself”

margolis lectures

The Margolis Lecture series annually brings to campus distinguished political and policymaking leaders who speak on important international issues. Established in 1991, the series honors Julius Margolis, economics professor emeritus and founding CGPACS board member who passed away in March 2012.

Julius Margolis

CGPACS founding board member

Joseph Masco, University of Chicago

“The Age of Fallout: Terraforming Planet Earth” 22nd Annual Margolis Lecture

Mahmood Mamdani, Columbia University and the Makerere Institute for Social Research in Uganda

“After Nuremberg: The Historical Significance of the South African Transition” 21st Annual Margolis Lecture

30th anniversary celebrations of cgpacs on the campus of uci

On May 14th, CGPACS celebrated its 30th Anniversary on the campus of UCI, with three events:

CGPACS: A (Participatory) Timeline: A Story of Nuclear War, The University of California Weapons Labs, and Organizational Innovation at UCI

Throughout the day, we displayed a timeline (see above) linking together our own story with relevant California, US, and international events

Nuclear Legacies in California and Beyond: A Panel Discussion

Joseph Masco, University of Chicago | Gabriele Schwab, UCI, Comparative Literature | Julia Elyachar, UCI, Director of CGPACS

This event brought together founders of GPACS, current board members, community members, and members of the UCI community from the sciences, humanities, and social sciences to discuss nuclear legacies of the weapons labs and diverse approaches and concerns about nuclear weapons and nuclear power on and around the campus of UCI

Margolis Lecture: The Age of Fallout: Terraforming Planet Earth

Joseph Masco, University of Chicago

fellowships and awards

Graduate students who were awarded research grants from CGPACS held a mini-conference in which they presented their research and were discussants on the research of their peers in other departments and schools. This is an annual event of CGPACS.

2013-14

CGPACS awarded 15 Graduate Student Affiliates from Departments of Anthropology, Sociology, and Political Science grants to conduct research in 11 countries on topics related to the CGPACS mission

2014-15

CGPACS awarded Fellowships to 12 Graduate Student Affiliates from Departments of Anthropology, History, Sociology, and Political Science funding to conduct research in 11 countries; Seed Grants to 3 Faculty Affiliates in Departments of African American Studies, Art, and History to conduct research in 3 countries; and Conference Support for 1 Faculty Affiliate in Political Science to make an upcoming Conference open to the UCI public

2014-15

CGPACS Winter Grant for Distinguished Graduate Affiliate - this inaugural award is granted to the graduate students who distinguish themselves by their contributions to CGPACS and by the high caliber of their research; Tyson Patros – Political Science and Simone Popperl - Anthropology

looking ahead: fall 2015

We look forward to a full set of activities and programs for fall quarter 2015. This year, CGPACS is focusing on its core, founding mission of critical analysis of US and international nuclear policy in addition to winding up the third year of its Vision Plan.

Prof. Hugh Gusterson, October 2015
In October, we are honored to be hosting Prof. Hugh Gusterson, George Washington University, who is an internationally acclaimed expert on nuclear culture, international security, and the anthropology of science. Prof. Gusterson is the author of Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War, and People of the Bomb: Portraits of America’s Nuclear Complex. We will host a number of activities in conjunction with Prof. Gusterson’s visit. This visit is co-organized with the Newkirk Center for Science and Science.

Emergent Themes in Peace and Security: A mini-conference
This mini-conference brings together CGPACS Grant Recipients from Academic Years 2014-2016. These conferences bring together recipients from across the campus to discuss their research in conversation with students and faculty from other disciplines. Students serve as discussants on short papers by students from other departments than their own, which leads to productive input to ongoing research projects.

Archive Project
CGPACS has been conduction a long-term institutional history project in its own archives with the help of UCI History PhD Candidate Kathleen Berrin. Cataloguing and analyzing CGPACS’ own archives has begun to give us a fascinating glimpse into the political and institutional context surrounding the founding of the Center, entanglements between the UCs and California’s Atomic Energy Program, and CGPACS’ evolution in the 30 years since its founding. We presented preliminary findings from this project as part of CGPACS’ 30th anniversary celebrations in May of 2015.

Working Papers Series
CGPACS is pleased to announce that it will also be reviving its Working Papers Series for graduate student works in progress in October 2015.

As always, we invite you to be in touch with any ideas you may have about themes you’d like to see CGPACS take up in the future, speakers you are interested in seeing on campus, or any other questions or concerns you may have. We are sustained by, and extremely grateful for, the active participation of our affiliates.