Speaker Biography
“Is the U.S. Political Discourse Adequate to the Task of Peace?” Watch Video
An esteemed sociologist, mathematician, author, and lecturer, Johan Galtung (b. 1930) has made enormous contributions to the worldwide peace movement throughout his lifetime. He was a prominent peace advocate during the Cold War, and has mediated a number of international conflicts.
Born in Oslo, Norway, Galtung received the cand.real. degree in mathematics and the mag.art. degree in sociology at the University of Oslo. He taught for several years at Columbia University before returning to Norway to found the International Peace Research Institute. Galtung has also served as a professor of peace and conflict studies at the University of Oslo, Director General of the International University Centre in Dubrovnik, Croatia, and President of the World Future Studies Federation.
Galtung is also the chief founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies. He is credited with developing the concepts of peace journalism, structural violence, and negative vs. positive peace. He established TRANSCEND, an organization promoting peaceful conflict resolution, wrote the first ever United Nations manual on "Conflict Transformation by Peaceful Means," and has published over one-thousand articles and one-hundred books.
A recipient of the Right Livelihood award and numerous honorary degrees, Galtung continues to work and lecture around the world in an effort to promote peace.