Belfast Research Fellow is Simpson Series Speaker at UW Nov. 4

Northern Ireland’s past and present policies will be discussed during the annual Simpson Speaker Series at the University of Wyoming Friday, Nov. 4.

Cheryl Lawther, of Queen’s University Belfast, will discuss “Dealing with the Past: Truth, Transition and the Northern Ireland Case” at noon in Room 121 of the UW College of Business. A pizza luncheon will follow in the Business Building atrium. The event is free and open to the public.

The UW Department of Political Science sponsors the Simpson Speaker Series.

Lawther’s lecture will explore how Northern Ireland has attempted to come to terms with the legacies of its past. She will assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of the current “piecemeal” array of government-led initiatives designed to provide truth and justice for past abuses, and the implications these have had on the country’s evolving peace process.

She is a senior research fellow in the Sen. George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice; and a lecturer in criminology at Queen’s University Belfast. Lawther is the author of “Truth, Denial and Transition: Northern Ireland and the Contested Past.” She currently is leading a funded research project, titled “Voice, Agency and Blame: Victimhood and the Imagined Community in Northern Ireland.”

Each academic year, the Milward L. Simpson Fund in the Department of Political Science sponsors a series of public research talks led by distinguished visiting scholars and professionals, as well as university faculty and graduate students working in political science and related disciplines.

A particular focus of the Simpson Speaker Series is bringing to UW distinguished lecture-scholars whose presence serves to foster and advance undergraduate and graduate education, learning and enrichment for political science students.

For more information about the Simpson Speaker Series, call Summer Hansen at (307) 766-2964 or email ssisner1@uwyo.edu.