This panel focuses on the profound impact of trauma and moral injury on members of the military and veterans, and on the value of art as an agent of treatment and healing. Presented by the Humanities and Sciences Department in partnership with the SVA Veteran Coalition of Arts.

Panelists include:

Jan Barry, poet, author of Life After War & Other Poems (Combat Paper Press, 2012) and co-editor of Winning Hearts & Minds: War Poems by Vietnam Veterans (McGraw-Hill, 1972). A Vietnam veteran, Barry is active with the Combat Paper Project and Warrior Writers. He has curated exhibitions and readings of works by veterans at the Puffin Cultural Forum in Teaneck, NJ. He teaches journalism at Ramapo College of New Jersey and St. Thomas Aquinas College.

Camillo (Mac) Bica (moderator), PhD, SVA Humanities and Sciences faculty member. Bica is a former U.S. Marine Corps officer and a veteran of the Vietnam War.

Essam (BFA 2011 Photography), New York-based artist. Essam's drone-themed street art campaign received national media attention, raising awareness of the foreign and domestic use of unmanned aircraft. He served in the U.S. Army as a geo-spatial analyst.

Kylene A. Kasch, BFA Illustration student. Kylene served in the U.S. Marine Corps and deployed with her unit to Al Anbar Province, Iraq in February, 2006.

Camilo Mejia, Iraq combat veteran and soldier of conscience. Mejia’s story is documented in The Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia (The New Press, 2007).

Margaret Stevens, PhD, associate history professor and director of the Urban Issues Institute at Essex County College, New Jersey. Stevens served in the U.S. Army National Guard from 1997 to 2003 as a medic.

Event

War, Trauma, Art and Healing: A Veteran's Perspective

Room 502