Senior Loeb Scholar Lecture: Malkit Shoshan, Andrew Herscher, and Daniel Serwer, “Reconstruction and Redestruction: Post-War Antinomies”

Event Description

In times of war, the destruction of the built environment stands out as a profoundly traumatic act of violence against a collective, a nation, a people. “We expect people to die,” writes Croatian journalist Slavenka Drakulic. “A dead woman is one of us – but the bridge is all of us, forever.” However, the destruction of the built environment is not confined to times of war. Dominant powers and neoliberal forces exploit disasters, crises, and shocks to impose new values, narratives, and forms that similarly disrupt the cities and spaces we live in. Especially in post-war environments, reconstruction and “redestruction” are often difficult to disentangle when discussing rebuilding environments that were ruined in war.

In this conversation, Senior Loeb Scholar Malkit Shoshan will discuss the complexities of postwar reconstruction with Andrew Herscher, a professor of architecture at University of Michigan whose work explores the architecture of political violence, migration, and displacement, and Daniel Serwer, a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations and professorial lecturer in the Conflict Management Program.

Speakers

Malkit Shoshan is the 2024 Senior Loeb Fellow at Harvard GSD and a 2024 Resident at The Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center. She is a designer, researcher, and writer, and founding director of the architecture think tank FAST (Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory). FAST employs research, advocacy, design, and public art to explore the complex relationships between architecture, urban planning, and human rights.

In 2021, Shoshan was awarded the Silver Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale for her collaborative project Border Ecologies and the Gaza Strip: Watermelon, Sardines, Crabs, Sand, and Sediment, which is also the subject of her forthcoming book with Amir Qudaih (Mack Books, 2024). Her award-winning books on spatial equity, peace, and conflict include BLUE: The Architecture of UN Peacekeeping Missions (Actar, 2023), Atlas of Conflict: Israel-Palestine (Uitgeverij 010, 2010), Village: One Land, Two Systems and Platform Paradise (Damiani Editore, 2014),  Zoo, or the Letter Z, Just After Zionism (NAiM, 2012). Shoshan’s research and design work has been exhibited internationally and featured in prominent newspapers, magazines, and academic journals, including The New York Times, The Guardian, Haaretz, and Harvard Design Magazine.

Andrew Herscher’s work endeavors to bring the study of architecture and cities to bear on struggles for justice, democracy, and self-determination across a range of global sites. He is the co-founder of a series of militant research collectives, including Detroit Resists, Settler Colonial City Project, and the We the People of Detroit Community Research Collective. His scholarly work includes Violence Taking Place: The Architecture of the Kosovo Conflict (Stanford University Press, 2010); The Unreal Estate Guide to Detroit (University of Michigan Press, 2012); Displacements: Architecture and Refugee (Sternberg Press, 2017); The Global Shelter Imaginary: IKEA Humanitarianism and Rightless Relief (co-authored with Daniel Bertrand Monk, University of Minnesota Press, 2022); and Under the Campus, the Land: Anishinaabe Futuring, Colonial Non-Memory, and the Origin of the University of Michigan (University of Michigan Press, 2025). He works at the University of Michigan.

Daniel Serwer is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, where he previously directed the Conflict Management and American Foreign Policy programs. He is also a scholar affiliated with the Middle East Institute. He was Vice President for Centers of Peacebuilding Innovation as well as for Peace and Stability Operations at the United States Institute of Peace and served as Executive Director of the Hamilton/Baker Iraq Study Group. As a Minister-Counselor at the U.S. Department of State, Serwer was a wartime Special Envoy for the Bosnian Federation. He also served as Charge’ d’affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission at U.S. Embassy Rome.

Serwer is the author of From War to Peace in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Ukraine (Palgrave MacMillan 2019), which he is revising for a new edition in 2027. He also wrote Righting the Balance: How You Can Help Protect America (Potomac Books, 2013). His most recent book is Strengthening International Norms: The Case of Radiation Protection (Palgrave MacMillan, 2024).

Serwer holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from Princeton University; M.S. from the University of Chicago; and a B.A. from Haverford College.

Harvard University welcomes individuals with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you would like to request accommodations or have questions about the physical access provided, please contact the Public Programs Office at (617) 496-2414 or [email protected] in advance of your participation or visit. Requests for American Sign Language interpreters and/or CART providers should be made at least two weeks in advance. Please note that the University will make every effort to secure services, but that services are subject to availability.

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