Keynote Speaker:
The 2008 Plowshares Keynote Lecturer at the Fourth Annual Midwest Peace & Justice Summit at IUPUI on April 4 & 5, 2008 will be Professor George Wolfe of the Ball State University Center on Peace and Conlfict Studies. The speech will be held in IT 152. Professor Wolfe will be introduced by Kim Overdyck, from the Indianapolis Peace Institute, and will then continue with his lecture topic, which is:
Nonviolence as a Spiritual Path: How to Become More Dangerous Dead than Alive.
Recognized by conservative commentator David Horowitz as “one of the 101 most dangerous academics in
America,” George Wolfe is currently Coordinator of Outreach Programs for the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at
Ball State University where he served as Director of Peace Studies from 2002 to 2006. He chairs the Muncie Interfaith
Fellowship and was trained to conduct interfaith dialog and peace building through All Faiths Seminary International in New
York City. He has also received mediation training and is a member of the advisory board of the Toda Institute for Peace,
Policy and Global Research at the University of Hawaii.
As an educator Wolfe has spoken at several universities on topics related to nonviolence, peace education, academic freedom and the role of the arts in social activism. In the summer of 2004, he taught a class at Chautauqua Institution in New York entitled “Christianity and the History of Nonviolence in America,” and most recently spoke at Chautauqua
Institution on the topic “Countering Political Extremism: My Personal Battle against The New McCarthyism.
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In 2004, he became the target of political extremist David Horowitz who falsely accused him and the Ball State Peace Studies program of being anti-American and supporting terrorism. Wolfe has also become known for his performances of Martin Wesley-Smith’s video-acoustic protest composition “Weapons of Mass Distortion.”
Wolfe received his Masters in Music Performance and his Doctorate in Higher Education from Indiana University. He was awarded an Open Fellowship from the Eli Lilly Endowment which made possible his first trip to India in 1991. In 1997, he was the recipient of Ball State’s Outstanding Creative Endeavor Award and in 2005, received the Robert O. Foster Faculty Award for his support of multicultural programs.
As a performing artist, Wolfe teaches saxophone in the School of Music at Ball State, has performed extensively throughout the United States and has concertized in Europe, Cyprus, Costa Rica, Canada, India, Korea, and Japan. He has appeared as a soloist with such ensembles as the United States Navy Band, the Navy Brass Quintet, the Saskatoon Symphony, the World Band at Disney World, the Royal Band of the Belgian Air Force, the Indianapolis Children ’s Choir, and the Chautauqua Motet Choir. He has presented master classes at the Paris Conservatory, the University of San Jose in Costa Rica, Klagenfurt Conservatory in Austria, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Indiana University, Arizona State University and the University of Iowa. Critic John Lambert writing in the Winston Salem Spectator, described Wolfe’s performance as “a deeply satisfying and moving artistic experience.” His recordings have won praise from Steven Ellis of Fanfare Magazine and jazz great David Baker.
Previous Plowshares Keynoter Lecturers have been:
Michael Parenti (2005)
Ann Wright (2006)
Cindy Sheehan (2007)
These public lectures are made possible by the generous support of the Plowshares Consortium of Peace Studies Programs.