Cynthia E Cohen

Cynthia E. Cohen is director of the Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts at the International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life at Brandeis University. In that role, she leads research and action partnerships, teaches at the undergraduae and graduate levels, and leads professional development workshops and institutes for practitioners. She is principal investigator in an on-going inquiry into creative approaches to coexistence and reconciliation and writes on the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of reconciliation. She is author of Focus on Coexistence and the Arts (2007) and contributing author to Building Peace: Practical Reflections from the Field (2009) and Music and Conflict Transformation: Harmonies and Dissonances in Geopolitics (2007).

Since 2005, Cohen has worked in collaboration with Theatre Without Borders on Acting Together on the World Stage, a project that is culminating in this original anthology, a documentary film, a website, and a toolkit for practitioners. Cohen was the founding director of the Oral History Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and she has facilitated coexistence efforts involving participants from the Middle East, the US, Central America, and Sri Lanka. She holds a doctorate in education from the University of New Hampshire, a masters degree in city planning from MIT, and a bachelors degree in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University.